Day trading rules

The pattern day trader rule is gone. The penalty that replaced it is set by each broker: three misses at E*TRADE, four at IBKR

FINRA removed the $25,000 minimum and the day-trade count on 4 June 2026. What replaced them is an intraday margin deficit, and six US brokers read on 16 September 2026 give it different deadlines, different strike counts and, in one case, two help pages that disagree.

Last verified 16 September 2026 · how we check

The rule that capped small margin accounts at three day trades a week no longer exists. FINRA replaced it on 4 June 2026, and we set out what changed for a new trader in day trading for beginners.

This page is about what came next. The new rule tells brokers what to monitor and gives them room on how to enforce it. Read across six brokers’ own pages, that room has been used six different ways.

What FINRA actually requires

From Regulatory Notice 26-10:

No day-trade count, no pattern day trader label, no $25,000 minimum. The $2,000 minimum equity for any margin account stays.
Instead, a broker must calculate an intraday margin deficit: the shortfall between the margin your positions need and the equity in the account, at its worst point in the day.
The deficit must be satisfied “as promptly as possible”.
The penalty is a 90-day restriction on creating or increasing a debit balance or short position. It applies when a customer “makes a practice” of not satisfying deficits and misses one by the close of the fifth business day.
Deficits that do not exceed the lesser of 5% of equity or $1,000 do not count towards that practice.
Firms may monitor in real time and block trades, or make a single calculation after the close.
Firms that need longer may phase the rule in until 20 October 2027.

Two phrases in that list are left to the broker: what counts as “a practice”, and whether to block you during the day or bill you after it.

Six brokers, read on 16 September 2026

Broker	Switched over	How it enforces	Time to cover a deficit	When the 90-day restriction applies
Robinhood	4 June 2026	real-time monitoring, blocks trades	not stated	“repeated failures”
Charles Schwab	8 June 2026	real-time monitoring, may block trades	not stated	not stated
*ETRADE**	9 June 2026	real-time buying power	5 days from issuance	3 violations in a rolling 12 months
Interactive Brokers	not dated; says PDT rules may still apply until October 2027	not stated	“ideally within 3 business days”	4 or more failures in 12 months, across all associated margin accounts
Fidelity	not dated	intraday margin deficiency call	5 business days	“repeated failure”, up to 90 days
Webull	marketing page: 4 June 2026	IMD calls	not stated	not stated

The regulator wrote "a practice". Two brokers turned that into a number, and they chose different numbers.

Three findings from the table

The strike count is a house rule. FINRA does not say how many missed deficits make a practice. E*TRADE says three in a rolling year; IBKR says four or more. A trader who misses three deficits in a year can be restricted at one and not at the other, under the same regulation.

IBKR’s deadline is shorter, and its restriction is wider. It asks for a deficit to be met “ideally within 3 business days”, against five at E*TRADE and Fidelity. And its 90-day restriction reaches across “all your associated margin accounts”, so a second account at the same firm does not sit outside it.

IBKR has not dropped the old rule outright. Its note says an account “may still be subject to existing PDT rules during FINRA’s transition period, which ends in October 2027”. That is what the phase-in allows. It also means a trader who read that the rule is gone and opened an IBKR margin account should confirm which regime applies to that account before relying on it.

Real-time blocking changes what a mistake looks like

Robinhood says it monitors accounts in real time “to prevent your account activity from creating or increasing intraday margin deficits”. Schwab says it chose real-time monitoring and may block trades that would create one.

At those firms the likelier experience of hitting the limit is a rejected order, not a margin call five days later. At a firm calculating once at day’s end, the trade goes through and the deficit arrives afterwards. Neither is safer in itself. The first stops you at the moment you are most likely to want the trade; the second lets you take a position you may not be able to fund.

More buying power, with a condition attached

Schwab’s page describes the other side of the change. From 13 July, eligible margin accounts with at least $2,000 get Intraday Margin Buying Power, based on a default 25% maintenance requirement. Schwab puts it as “up to four times the buying power intraday”, against Reg T’s limit of borrowing up to 50% of the value of marginable securities.

The condition: positions opened with that buying power beyond the overnight limit must be closed by 8 p.m. ET, or a margin call may follow.

E*TRADE adds a detail that matters for the same reason. The buying power it displays is based on its house requirement, which can be higher than the regulatory one, but it measures a deficit against the FINRA requirement. In its own worked example, $70,000 of displayed buying power sits against $75,000 of FINRA excess.

Webull’s two pages disagree

Webull’s intraday margin page says the old rule ended on 3 June and that under the new rules “no flag will be triggered” and accounts are not limited by day-trade count.

Its help centre article on day trading rules, read the same day, still says the new rules take effect on 4 June and that “until then, current account policies remain in place”. The same article goes on to describe a limit of three day trades in five business days below $25,000, a Day Trades Left counter, and the one-time PDT reset.

Both pages are Webull’s. One has been updated and one has not. We do not know which describes a given account today, and that is the question to put to Webull support before trading on it.

What to ask your broker

Is my account on the new rule yet? The phase-in runs to October 2027, and IBKR says in writing that the old rules may still apply.

Do you block trades in real time, or calculate after the close? It decides whether a mistake is a rejected order or a margin call.

How long do I have to cover a deficit, and how many misses trigger the restriction? Three business days, five, a rolling count of three or four: all of these are in use.

Does the restriction cover my other accounts with you? At IBKR it does.

What we checked, and what we didn’t

The rule summary is from FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-10, published 20 April 2026. Broker positions were read on 16 September 2026 from Robinhood’s day trading help article, Schwab’s article on its day trading and margin changes dated 6 July 2026, E*TRADE’s rule-change article dated 5 June 2026 including its FAQs, IBKR’s note on its PDT reset page, Fidelity’s margin FAQs, and Webull’s intraday margin page and day trading help article.

“Not stated” means we did not find the point on the page cited, not that the broker has no policy. We have not opened margin accounts at these firms or triggered a deficit, and house rules can change without notice; the broker’s current margin agreement governs. For how the brokers compare on everything else, see the best day trading platforms.

Sources

Figures were checked on 16 September 2026 and change over time — confirm current terms with the provider. Nothing here is investment advice; see therisk disclaimer.