Half the firms that “ban news trading” only do it once you are funded, and several apply it to some products and not others. Pick your phase and see each firm's real rule: the exact window, what happens if you break it, and which official page it came from.
Breaches the account
You can trade news freely throughout the FTMO Challenge and Verification - the restriction only starts on a funded FTMO Account, and only on Standard accounts (Swing is exempt everywhere). On a funded Standard account you must not open or close a trade, or have a pending order/SL/TP trigger, on a targeted instrument within 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after a listed event. Positions opened more than 2 minutes beforehand may be held through it, and non-targeted instruments are unaffected.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
TradeDay bans trading tier 1 data releases and enforces it mechanically: the platform auto-liquidates all open positions 2 minutes before each tier 1 release and reopens the market 2 minutes after. Named events are FOMC minutes and rate decision, US CPI, US employment/NFP, crude oil and natural gas inventories, and crop production reports. An accidental breach does not fail you, but profits made trading tier 1 releases are forfeited on payout.
The firm does not state the consequence
Take Profit Trader bans holding positions or resting orders across a short list of named news events, but only on funded accounts. You must be flat with no working orders from one minute before until one minute after FOMC, NFP, CPI, Crude Oil Inventories (crude only) and 10Y/30Y bond auctions (bonds only). During the paid Test phase the firm own FAQ says news trading is allowed.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
News trading is completely unrestricted during Alpha evaluation phases. Once you are a Qualified Analyst (funded) on Pro, One, Three or Direct, you may not open or close a trade - including via stop-loss/take-profit or any pending order - on a targeted instrument from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after a listed release. Positions opened more than 5 minutes before may be held through it. Breaking it is a Soft Breach: the account survives but those profits earn no performance fee, while losses stay yours.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
The restriction applies only to E8 One and E8 One Crypto, and only in the funded SimFi Performance stage - phase-1 challenge trading is unrestricted, and E8 Zero, Signature and Pro have no news restriction at all. On a restricted account you cannot open or close trades, modify SL/TP, or use buy/sell stops from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after a high-impact release. Violating it does not kill the account - the profits are automatically deducted when you request a payout.
The firm does not state the consequence
On Elite (sim-funded) accounts the Terms of Service require you to be flat from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after certain major news events. Traders still in the evaluation phase are explicitly exempt. Note that ETF own help-center article says the opposite - no restrictions at all - so treat this as a firm to confirm with support before trading a release.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
FundedNext lets you trade the news with no blackout, but on a funded account only 40% of any profit made in the 10-minute window around a listed high-impact release - 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after - is credited to you. The other 60% is never paid. Losses in that same window count against you at 100%. Challenge phases are exempt entirely.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
On the standard models the evaluation stage has no restriction on holding trades, but deliberately trading the news is prohibited and closes the account. On the funded Master account, any trade opened or closed within 5 minutes either side of a red-folder release on the affected currency loses its ENTIRE profit - not just the part earned in the window - unless the position was opened at least 5 hours before the event. FundingPips Zero is stricter: no position may be opened, closed or even held within 10 minutes either side, and that is a hard breach.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
During challenge Phase 1 and 2 you can trade news freely. Once funded - and on all Instant Funding / GO / Clarity accounts, which are funded from day one - you cannot execute in the 8-minute window from 4 minutes before to 4 minutes after a major release; market orders, pending orders and even SL/TP triggers are blocked there. Profit made in that window is deducted and you get up to two warnings before the third violation breaches the account, unless you buy the Major News Trading add-on.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
On Maven standard challenge and funded accounts you may not open OR close a trade within 2 minutes before or after a red-folder Forex Factory release for the related instrument - including a take-profit firing inside the window, even on a position opened earlier. Profit made inside the window is not credited in either phase, and an evaluation passed on the back of such trades will not be passed. Instant accounts are exempt; OMO has only a 0.50%-of-balance profit cap when funded; Buy Now Pay Later permits news throughout.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
MyFundedFutures requires no positions AND no resting orders in the book from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after any data release - every account, every scheduled release. On top of that, Tier 1 events (FOMC meetings and minutes, the Employment Report and CPI, plus EIA for energy and agricultural reports) may not be traded at all on Rapid Sim Funded and Pro Sim Funded; evaluations and the 25k/50k Flex plans may trade T1.
Profit is stripped; the loss stays yours
The5ers news rule depends on the program. On High Stakes you may hold positions through news, but you may not have ANY order executed (market, stop or limit) from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after a high-impact ForexFactory red-folder release in the related currency or index - that is a soft breach, profits from it are deducted and do not count toward your target, and losses stay yours. On Hyper Growth and Bootcamp news trading is allowed outright, the only exception being bracket strategies around the release.
Publishing no rule is not permission: the firm can still act on something it never wrote down. Confirm with support before trading a release.
Bulenox publishes no news-trading rule anywhere on its own site. The full rule sets for the Qualification, Master and Funded accounts, the Warning page, the FAQ and the Terms of Use contain no restriction on trading around economic releases.
Apex lets you trade through releases as part of your normal strategy - there is no blackout window before or after events. What is banned is news-specific gambling: chasing the market on the release, or bracketing the event with orders on both sides. During a news event you may hold a position in only one direction, never both. Violations are prohibited activity, which forfeits the account and all balances.
Earn2Trade explicitly permits trading through economic releases, with no blackout window and no excluded events. The permission is stated for the Evaluation phase and is marked as an included feature on the Evaluation, LiveSim and Live accounts alike.
Funded Trading Plus explicitly allows news trading, with no time window, no blackout and no profit deduction around releases, in both evaluation and funded. What it does police is the risk taken around news, assessed at withdrawal, scaling and evaluation-pass checkpoints.
On FXIFY main 1-Phase, 2-Phase and 3-Phase accounts news trading is fully allowed - no blackout window, only a warning that fills may slip and that reckless news risk can get you banned for improper risk management. Two other products differ: on Instant Funding Lite and on Crypto accounts you may not open or close anything from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after a high-impact release. Trades caught in the blackout are invalidated - the profit is stripped, the loss is not.
Lucid Trading allows news trading with no restrictions. You may open or close positions around scheduled and unscheduled news events, with no blackout window and no flat requirement. Lucid warns that news volatility can cause slippage and trigger its velocity-logic mechanisms, and that traders bear full responsibility.
Topstep does not restrict trading around economic releases: you are not required to flatten positions before news in either SIM/evaluation or Funded accounts, and there is no time window. The one hard limit is a conduct rule - deliberately putting your full maximum position size into a scheduled major news event is a prohibited strategy.
Tradeify has no news-trading restriction at all: its dedicated rules article states there are no rules or guidelines around trading news events, in any phase. There is no blackout window and no list of restricted events - the firm only warns that you trade news at your own risk, that slippage can fill you far from your expected price, and that the Daily Loss Limit will not reliably act as a stop loss in extreme volatility.
Every rule is verified on the firm's own official page, with a link and a date. Firms change these rules without notice — confirm at the source before trading a release. A “±2 min” window means 2 minutes before and 2 after: 4 minutes in total.