Trading Margin Calculator
Margin is the deposit your broker holds against a leveraged position. Enter position value, leverage and account equity to see the margin required, the free margin remaining, and the margin level percentage brokers use to trigger a margin call.
What margin actually is
Margin is not a cost and it is not a fee. It is a portion of your own equity that the broker freezes as collateral while a leveraged position is open. Close the position and it comes back. The default — $100,000 of notional exposure at 30:1 — requires $3,333 of a $10,000 account, leaving $6,667 free.
Margin level is the number that gets you closed out
Margin level = equity ÷ used margin × 100. At 300% in the default, there is plenty of room. As losses reduce equity, that percentage falls. Most brokers issue a margin call around 100% and start force-closing positions around 50%, though the thresholds vary and you should know yours exactly.
The critical detail: it is equity in the numerator, not balance. Unrealised losses count immediately. A position that is down $5,000 has already halved your margin level even though nothing has been realised.
Leverage sets margin, not risk
This is the most misunderstood relationship in trading. Moving from 30:1 to 500:1 changes the required margin from $3,333 to $200. It does not change your risk by a cent — the same position loses the same money on the same move. What high leverage does is remove the constraint that used to stop you opening a position that large. The broker offering 500:1 is not making you safer; they are making it possible for you to be catastrophically wrong.
Set risk with a stop and a position size calculation. Let margin be whatever falls out of that.
Free margin is not spare money
Free margin is the buffer absorbing your open losses. Deploying all of it into more positions means the first adverse move triggers a margin call across everything at once. Traders who run at 80–90% margin utilisation discover that positions are closed for them, at the worst prices, in the exact conditions they were sized for.
Margin rules move
In 2026 FINRA amended Rule 4210 to replace the day-trading margin provisions outright, removing the pattern-day-trader designation and its $25,000 minimum equity in favour of intraday margin measured against actual exposure.[1] Check your broker's current thresholds rather than a remembered rule.
The number is the easy part
Everything above is arithmetic, and anyone opening this page gets the same answer. What no calculator can settle is whether you took the trade on these terms, or are describing — afterwards — the version of it that worked out.
That is what a trade recorder is for: the trade committed before it resolves, timestamped and sealed on the spot, on a Merkle-anchored log a stranger can check without kappi's cooperation. The plan you typed here stops being a plan you remember having. $15/month, no free tier.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate required margin?
Divide the position's notional value by the leverage ratio. A $100,000 position at 30:1 requires $3,333.
What is margin level?
Account equity divided by used margin, as a percentage. Brokers commonly warn at 100% and force-close positions below 50%.
Does higher leverage mean higher risk?
Not directly. Leverage sets the margin held, not the loss on a given move. It raises risk indirectly by allowing much larger positions than your equity would otherwise support.
Is margin a fee?
No. It is your own equity, held as collateral and released when the position closes. Financing charges on leveraged positions are separate.