In short. A consistency rule caps the share of total profit that a single day may represent, typically 30 to 50 %. If your best day is 60 % of your profit, the firm withholds the payout (or refuses the evaluation pass) until more profit is added by other days. It is a rule against one lucky day, and the most common reason a first payout is delayed.
Worked example with a 40 % rule: total profit $5,000, best day $2,400 (48 %). To withdraw, the best day must be 40 % or less of the total, so the total must reach $6,000: another $1,000 of profit without a bigger day. The rule is recalculated at every payout request on most firms.
Some firms apply it only to the evaluation, some only to payouts, a few to both. The article on the consistency rule on this site walks through the cases with the firms' own figures, and the firm page shows the rule of the reference account.
Questions traders ask
What is Consistency rule?
A consistency rule caps the share of total profit that a single day may represent, typically 30 to 50 %. If your best day is 60 % of your profit, the firm withholds the payout (or refuses the evaluation pass) until more profit is added by other days. It is a rule against one lucky day, and the most common reason a first payout is delayed.
Which prop firms have no consistency rule?
Several firms on the board publish 'no rule' for their reference account. The board, filtered on the firm page, and the live line above show the count for today; each firm page states the rule as published.