MT5 pending orders in the history: filled, cancelled and expired

Not every order becomes a trade. Here is how to read the ones that did not, and what a journal does with them.

A pending order that never filled leaves no trade, yet it still leaves a trace. Anyone who has scrolled the MetaTrader 5 history and wondered why there are rows with no profit, or where a deleted limit order went, is asking about pending orders in the history. This page explains the states an order can end in, where cancelled and expired orders appear, how they differ from filled ones, and how they relate to your trading journal, which only records closed positions.

What a pending order is

A pending order is an instruction to trade later, when the price reaches a level you set. MetaTrader 5 has buy and sell limit orders, buy and sell stop orders and stop-limit orders. Our guide to MT5 order types lists them. While waiting, a pending order is visible in the Trade tab. Once it fills, is cancelled or expires, it moves into the history.

The ways a pending order can end

End state	What happened	Creates a trade?
Filled	Price reached the level and the order executed	Yes, a deal and then a position
Cancelled	You or an EA deleted it, or the server cancelled it	No
Expired	It reached its set expiration time or end of day	No
Rejected	The server refused it, for example for margin or price reasons	No
Partially filled	Only part of the volume executed, depending on the fill policy	Yes, for the filled part

State names are shown in the Orders view of the History tab. Wording can differ by build and language, so check your own terminal. The point is that only filled orders (fully or partly) produce a deal.

Where to find them

In the desktop terminal, open the Toolbox with Ctrl+T, go to the History tab, and switch to the orders view. Widen the period, since the default may hide older orders. In the orders view a filled pending order shows the order price you requested and the time it was set and executed; a cancelled one shows the time it was cancelled. The deals view lists only executions. That is why a trade can appear in deals while the cancelled orders around it do not. For the identifiers that tie these together, read deal, order and position IDs, and if rows seem to be missing, trade history not showing.

Why this matters for your analysis

Missed trades are data. If you set a limit at your level and price never reached it, that is a setup you did not trade. Counting those is the only way to know how many of your plans actually triggered.
Cancelled orders show hesitation. A pattern of cancelling orders minutes before they would have filled is a behaviour you can examine.
Expired orders show sloppy planning. If orders expire at the end of every day, check whether the plan really wanted them to.
Requested price versus fill price. For a filled pending order the Orders view holds the price you asked for, so you can see slippage on stop entries. See spread and slippage in trade history.

What a trading journal records

AI Trading Journal creates one entry per closed position. A pending order that never filled is not a position, so it is not an entry. A pending order that filled and later closed becomes a normal entry, with the result, times and prices of the filled position. The app is read-only and never places, modifies or deletes orders. It also does not record intended prices.

If you want to learn from cancelled and unfilled orders, you can keep a short manual line. A practical approach: on the Journal page, note in the entry of the related trade (or on the day’s review) that you also had an unfilled order and why, or keep a short list in your weekly review. Use a consistent tag such as “limit-missed” so you can search it. The method is in how to tag trades.

A worked example (hypothetical)

You place a buy limit on gold 8 points below the current price and a sell stop 12 points below it, as an either-way plan. The buy limit never fills before the end of the session, so it expires. The sell stop fills and closes later for +25.00. The Orders view shows two rows: the sell stop as filled and the buy limit as expired. The Deals view shows only the sell stop’s opening and closing deals. The journal shows one entry. If you want to remember the expired order, you add a line in the notes. Over a month of this you can count how often your plan A triggered and how often plan B did. The numbers are invented for illustration.

Limits of this page

Order states, view names and the Ctrl+T shortcut can vary by build and broker. Check your own terminal.
Whether an order can be partially filled depends on the symbol’s fill policy set by the broker.
We make AI Trading Journal and benefit if you buy it.
This is not trading advice.

Frequently asked questions

Where do cancelled pending orders go in MT5?

Into the History tab, in the Orders view, with a state such as cancelled. They do not appear in the Deals view because nothing executed.

Why does my history show orders that have no profit?

Orders are instructions, not trades. Only filled orders produce deals that carry profit, commission and swap.

Does a pending order that expired count as a trade?

No. An expired order never executed, so it produces no deal or position.

Does AI Trading Journal list cancelled or expired orders?

No. It creates one entry per closed position, so unfilled orders are not entries. You can note them manually.

Can I see the price I requested for a stop order that filled?

Usually yes in the Orders view, next to the fill details. Compare it with the deal price to see slippage.

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