The slippage rule is a protocol that helps limit slippage incidents for pending orders.
Slippage happens when the requested price of a pending order differs from the market price at the time of execution, due to high volatility, low liquidity, or other market factors.
The slippage rule can be applied to all instruments and all account types.
Slippage-free ranges are dynamic and can vary from the values specified based on market conditions and your trading activity. Any changes affect new and existing pending orders.
When is the slippage rule applied?
When the requested price specified in your pending order differs from the market price at the time of execution, the rule checks the difference in pips between the market price at the time of execution and the requested price of your order:
- If the difference is equal to or exceeds a certain number of pips (known as the slippage-free range) for a particular instrument, your order will be executed at the market price.
- If the difference is less than the slippage-free range, your order will be executed at your requested price.
Different trading instruments have different slippage-free ranges. (Refer to the table below)
Which accounts and instruments are affected by the slippage rule?
- All currency pairs with suffix -c (Standard Cent account)
- All currency pairs with suffix -m (Standard account), Crypto, Energies, and Indices.
- All currency pairs with suffix -z (Zero account), Crypto, Energies, and Indices.
- All currency pairs with no suffix (Pro account, and Raw Spread), Crypto, Energies, and Indices.
Slippage-free range table
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The table includes our common currency pairs.
| Trading instrument | Slippage-free range (in pips) |
| EURUSD | 0-8 |
| GBPUSD | 0-7 |
| USDCHF | 0-10 |
| USDJPY | 0-8 |
| EURJPY | 0-10 |
| GBPJPY | 0-15 |
| AUDUSD | 0-10 |
| USDCAD | 0-10 |
| EURGBP | 0-8 |
| EURCHF | 0-10 |
| GBPCHF | 0-12 |
| XAUUSD | 0 - (3x spread)* |
| BTCUSD | 0 - (3x spread)* |
| XAGUSD | 0 - (3x spread)* |
| GBPAUD | 0-10 |
| GBPNZD | 0-24 |
| EURAUD | 0-12 |
| NZDUSD | 0-16 |
| EURNZD | 0-24 |
| AUDJPY | 0-8 |
| GBPCAD | 0-15 |
| EURCAD | 0-8 |
| AUDNZD | 0-8 |
| CADJPY | 0-8 |
| AUDCAD | 0-8 |
| NZDCAD | 0-8 |
| NZDJPY | 0-8 |
| CADCHF | 0-8 |
| USOIL | 0 - (3x spread)* |
| USTEC | 0 - (3x spread)* |
| US30 | 0 - (3x spread)* |
*Spread used is at the time of order execution; as per the example below.
Commission-based accounts (like Raw and Zero accounts) include the commission per lot per side into the calculation of the slippage-free range, along with spread (if applicable).
Slippage rule example
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You place stop loss (SL) on a buy XAUUSD order at 1965.636 with a Pro account. There was a gap on the market or extremely high volatility and the price during execution of your stop loss order was 1965.626, 10 pips lower than the SL set.
As a result, the requested price (1965.636) of your pending order (stop loss) differs from the market price at the time of execution (1965.626), so should lead to execution with slippage.
However with our slippage rule, we execute at your requested price instead if the difference is within the slippage-free range; for XAUUSD this is 0 to 3x spread as per the table above.
If the spread is 20 pips for XAUUSD, the slippage-free range for XAUUSD is up to a maximum of 60 pips (20 pips x 3). However, lets assume, based on market conditions and your activity, the maximum slippage range now is up to 30 pips. The difference between requested price and market price during execution is 10 pips, which is lower than your max free range, 30 pips. Therefore your stop loss will be executed at your requested price instead of the market price.