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See how much capital a position ties up at your leverage.
Margin is the slice of your balance a broker freezes while a position is open. It is not a cost and it is not a loss — you get it back when you close — but while the trade runs it is unavailable, and running out of free margin is what triggers the forced liquidations that end most leveraged accounts.
Set a pair, a position size, your leverage and your balance. The calculator returns the margin the broker will lock up, what is left free, your margin level, and the effective leverage you are actually running across the whole account.
Demo mid 1.08500 · contract 100,000 EUR
100,000 units of EUR
Margin rate 3.33%
Required margin
$3,616.67
3.33% of notional at 1:30
Notional value
$108,500.00
100,000 EUR at the demo mid
Free margin
$6,383.33
Balance still available for new trades
Margin level
276.5%
Equity ÷ used margin. Brokers typically warn near 100%.
Effective leverage
1:10.8
Notional exposure against your whole balance
Margin as % of balance
36.17%
How much of the account this single trade locks up
| Leverage | Margin rate | Required margin | Free margin | Margin level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:1 | 100.00% | $108,500.00 | -$98,500.00 | 9% |
| 1:5 | 20.00% | $21,700.00 | -$11,700.00 | 46% |
| 1:10 | 10.00% | $10,850.00 | -$850.00 | 92% |
| 1:30 | 3.33% | $3,616.67 | $6,383.33 | 276% |
| 1:50 | 2.00% | $2,170.00 | $7,830.00 | 461% |
| 1:100 | 1.00% | $1,085.00 | $8,915.00 | 922% |
| 1:200 | 0.50% | $542.50 | $9,457.50 | 1,843% |
| 1:500 | 0.20% | $217.00 | $9,783.00 | 4,608% |
Calculations use PipDig's static demo rate table (snapshot 2026-08-01). These are illustrative mid prices for education only — they are not live quotes, and your broker's spread, commission and swap will change the real result.
Start with notional value: the full contract value of the position. One standard lot of EUR/USD is 100,000 euros of exposure regardless of your leverage or your account currency; converting that into your account currency gives the notional figure the margin is calculated from.
Divide the notional by your leverage. At 1:30, a one-lot EUR/USD position with a notional of about $108,500 requires roughly $3,617 of margin. At 1:500 the same position requires about $217. The position, the pip value and the profit are identical in both cases — only the capital committed changes.
Free margin is your equity minus the margin in use, and it is the budget for any further trades. Margin level, quoted as a percentage, is equity divided by used margin: at 1,000% you have ten times the required margin and plenty of room; at 100% your entire equity is committed and the next adverse tick starts the margin-call sequence. Watching this number is far more useful than watching floating P/L, because it captures the relationship between your losses and your capacity to absorb them.
The leverage your broker offers is a ceiling. The leverage you are using is total notional exposure divided by your equity, and it is entirely under your control. A trader with a $10,000 account holding one standard lot of EUR/USD is running about 1:11 effective leverage no matter whether the account is set to 1:30 or 1:500. Keeping effective leverage in single digits is a far better discipline than picking a conservative account setting and then trading five lots on it.
Size the trade first with the position size calculator, then bring the result here to confirm it fits inside your free margin, then price the outcome with the profit calculator. If a correctly sized position does not fit your margin, the account is too small for that instrument — trade a smaller contract, not a tighter stop.
Notional value of the position
notional = lots x contract size x (base → account rate)This is the full contract value you control, not the money you put up.
Required margin
required margin = notional ÷ leverageEquivalently, notional x margin rate. 1:30 leverage is a 3.33% margin rate; 1:500 is 0.2%.
Free margin and margin level
free margin = equity − used margin · margin level = (equity ÷ used margin) x 100Brokers typically send a margin call around 100% and start closing positions near 50%, though the exact thresholds vary.
They are two views of the same number. Leverage is the ratio of exposure to capital — 1:30 means every dollar of margin supports thirty dollars of position. Margin rate is the reciprocal expressed as a percentage: 1:30 is a 3.33% margin rate, 1:100 is 1%, 1:500 is 0.2%. Regulators cap leverage for retail clients (typically 1:30 on major pairs in the EU, UK and Australia), which is the same as setting a floor under the margin rate.
Margin level is your equity divided by the margin currently in use. As losing positions eat into equity, that ratio falls. Most brokers warn you at 100% — the point where your equity has fallen to exactly the margin required — and begin force-closing positions somewhere between 20% and 50%, starting with the biggest loser. The calculator shows your margin level for the position you are modelling so you can see how much room you have.
Leverage is neutral; position size is what hurts you. Trading 0.1 lots on a 1:500 account is less risky than trading 2 lots on a 1:30 account, because the exposure is smaller regardless of the ratio. The real danger is behavioural: high leverage makes an oversized position affordable, so traders open one. The effective-leverage figure in the results is the number to watch — it tells you how much exposure you are actually carrying against your whole balance.
Margin is calculated on the notional value of the position, which is denominated in the base currency and then converted into your account currency. A one-lot GBP/USD position is always £100,000 of exposure, but expressed in dollars, euros or yen that is a different number, so the margin figure moves with the exchange rate. The underlying risk is identical.