How to track drawdown in MT5 (max and daily)

MT5 does not keep a running drawdown figure for a live account. Here is how to calculate it from your history, and why definitions differ.

Drawdown in plain terms

Drawdown is how far your account falls from a peak before it recovers. It is expressed as a percentage of the peak. If your balance rises to 10,000 and then falls to 9,000, the drawdown is 10%. It tells you how much pain a strategy has put you through, which is often more useful than the profit figure.

Type	Based on	Includes open trades?
Balance drawdown	Your balance after each closed trade	No
Equity drawdown	Balance plus floating profit or loss, moment to moment	Yes
Maximum drawdown	The largest peak-to-trough fall over a period	Depends on which of the two above you use
Daily drawdown	The fall within a single trading day, from a reference point	Depends on the rule you follow

What MetaTrader 5 gives you

The Strategy Tester report includes drawdown figures for backtests.
For a live account, MT5 shows your current balance and equity in the Trade tab, but does not keep a running maximum-drawdown figure for you in the main window. Some saved history reports include a results summary; check yours.
The MQL5 Market has free and paid drawdown monitors, which differ in how they define drawdown and when they reset.

How to calculate max drawdown from your history

Export your closed trades (see how to export your MT5 trade history).
Sort by close time and build a running balance: starting balance plus each trade's profit, commission and swap.
At each step, track the highest balance so far (the peak).
Drawdown at each step is (peak minus balance) divided by peak.
Maximum drawdown is the largest of those values.

This balance-based method uses closed trades only. Floating losses on open trades are not included, so it can understate the worst moment you actually experienced.

Daily drawdown and prop firm rules

Firms that set a daily loss limit define it in their own way: from the starting balance or equity of the day, using equity or balance, with a particular reset time. These definitions differ, so use the number from your firm's own dashboard for any rule. A journal or a calculator tells you about your trading, not about whether you breached a specific firm's rule. See the journal for prop firm traders.

How AI Trading Journal reports it

The app's daily recap and desktop dashboard show maximum drawdown calculated from the balance after each closed trade, as described above. It does not include floating losses, and it does not know your firm's rules. It is a review figure, not a risk alarm.

Why drawdown matters for recovery

Deep drawdowns are harder to recover from than they look, because the gain needed grows faster than the loss: a 20% loss needs a 25% gain, and a 50% loss needs 100%. Try the drawdown recovery calculator, and size trades so one loss cannot cause a deep drawdown with the position size calculator.

Prefer not to dig through the History tab? AI Trading Journal reads your closed trades from your own MT5 terminal and saves one entry in your own journal on your PC (and one Notion row, if you connect Notion) per closed position about every 5 minutes, with open and close time, size, prices, stop, target and profit. It is read-only, needs no broker login, and is Windows-only, with a 7-day free trial and a one-time $19.99.

This page is general education. It is not trading or investment advice.

A worked example, trade by trade (hypothetical)

Start with a balance of 10,000 and twelve closed trades. For each one, add the result to the balance, update the highest balance so far and calculate the drawdown from that peak:

Trade	Result	Balance	Peak so far	Drawdown from peak
1	+250	10,250	10,250	0.00%
2	-120	10,130	10,250	1.17%
3	+180	10,310	10,310	0.00%
4	-90	10,220	10,310	0.87%
5	-140	10,080	10,310	2.23%
6	+300	10,380	10,380	0.00%
7	-80	10,300	10,380	0.77%
8	+150	10,450	10,450	0.00%
9	-200	10,250	10,450	1.91%
10	-100	10,150	10,450	2.87%
11	+220	10,370	10,450	0.77%
12	+130	10,500	10,500	0.00%

The maximum drawdown is the largest value in the last column, 2.87%. It happens after trade 10: the balance peaked at 10,450 after trade 8, then two losers in a row took it down to 10,150. Notice that the drawdown figure resets towards zero whenever a new peak is made, which is why it is measured from the peak and not from the start.

Spreadsheet formulas

Column	Formula idea
Balance	Previous balance plus this trade's net result
Peak	The larger of the previous peak and this balance, e.g. `=MAX(D2,C3)` if the peak is in column D and the balance in C
Drawdown %	`=(D3-C3)/D3`, formatted as a percentage
Maximum drawdown	`=MAX(E2:E500)` over the drawdown column

Balance and equity can tell different stories

Suppose your balance is 10,000 and you hold a position that falls 600 against you before it recovers and closes at break-even. Balance drawdown never moves. Equity drawdown reaches 6% during the trade. Which one matters depends on what you are measuring: balance drawdown is a fair record of your closed results, while equity drawdown is closer to what you experienced, and what most prop firm rules are built around. If you want the second, you need a record of your equity over time, which MT5's history does not keep, so you would need a monitor that logs it.

A daily drawdown example

If your balance at the start of the day is 10,000 and you lose 300 on the first trade and 150 on the second, your closed-trade drawdown for the day is 450, or 4.5% of the starting balance. If your firm or your own rule limits the day to 5%, you are 50 away from it, and a third full-size loser would take you past it. Writing the daily limit and the day's starting balance in your journal makes this a number you check, not a feeling.

To see how deep drawdowns take longer to recover from, use the drawdown recovery calculator, and for prop-account limits see the prop firm drawdown calculator.

Drawdown is measured on equity, not balance. MT5 balance vs equity shows how the two drift apart, and MT5 margin level explained covers the account-level limit that sits behind it.

Reading a tester report instead? Equity drawdown maximal vs balance drawdown explains the six drawdown lines.

Frequently asked questions

How do I see max drawdown in MT5?

For backtests the Strategy Tester report shows it. For a live account you calculate it from your closed-trade history, use an MQL5 monitor, or use a journal that reports it.

What is the difference between balance and equity drawdown?

Balance drawdown uses closed trades only. Equity drawdown also includes floating profit and loss on open trades, so it shows the worst moment in real time.

How is daily drawdown calculated?

It depends on the rule you follow, for example the fall from the day's starting balance or equity. Prop firms define it differently, so use your firm's own figure.

How much do I need to gain to recover from a drawdown?

1 divided by (1 minus the drawdown), minus 1. A 20% drawdown needs a 25% gain; a 50% drawdown needs 100%.

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