Copy Trading
Letting someone else trade your account is fraud. Everything else depends on what your firm actually means when they say yes.
The part that isn't a copy trading question
Sharing your login, granting platform access, or having someone trade your account on your behalf, regardless of how it's arranged, is a clear breach of contract at every prop firm without exception. The same applies to passive signal following: if the trades hitting your funded account originated from someone else's analysis, system, or decision, you are collecting a payout for work you did not do. That is fraud. The firm evaluated your edge and is paying you for performance they believe is yours. Presenting someone else's trading as your own to obtain a funded account and subsequent payouts is misrepresentation, full stop, whether or not the firm has a specific clause naming it.
Copy trading: where firms actually differ
Once you're trading your own edge, copy tools used to replicate your own decisions across your own accounts are a different matter. Here firms split into four distinct camps:
1. Genuinely don't care
FTMO is the clearest example. They allow copy trading in both directions and say so plainly. Their position is essentially: we can see from the trading whether you know what you're doing, and if you are the one doing it. The tool used to execute is not our concern. No restrictions on direction, no platform requirements, no fine print converting the yes into a no.
2. Yes, with restrictions on implementation
Some firms allow copy trading but restrict how it's technically realised: specific platforms only, internal accounts only, same-name accounts only. The allowance is real but narrower than it sounds. Read the detail before assuming your setup qualifies.
3. Says yes, means no
FundingPips is the clearest example of this pattern. Help pages describe copy trading features in a way that reads as permitted. The actual position: your account can only act as a copy master, pushing trades out. Receiving trades from any external source is prohibited and results in immediate termination. The master-only framing sounds like a partial yes. It is effectively a no.
4. Flat no
Some firms prohibit copy trading outright in all forms. At least this is honest. The ToS will reference "third-party systems", "signal services", "mirroring tools", or "automated strategies not developed by the trader". Any of these covers copy tools.
How to read "copy master only"
It's like permitting the birds to fly over your house, but stopping them from landing with a bird fence. The flying was never yours to permit. Only the landing is in your control. A firm that allows copy out and bans copy in is doing exactly this: generously permitting something they cannot stop, while prohibiting the only direction they actually have control over. The practical result is no copy trading. The "master only" framing is marketing language for a no.
What to check before you buy
- Search the ToS for: "copy", "signal", "mirror", "third-party", "automated", "EA". Any of these can cover replication tools without naming them explicitly.
- If the firm says copy trading is allowed: Ask specifically whether your account can receive trades from an external source. That is the question. "Copy trading allowed" without that answer means nothing.
- If you run multiple accounts across firms: Ask each firm explicitly whether replicating your own trades to your own accounts at other firms is permitted. Get it in writing.
- "Copy master only" = no. Don't be misled by the partial yes framing.