Route — Leverage in the order of steps

Exness leverage: when it is decided, and what can still be walked back

The risk comes first and never moves: gains and losses are counted on the whole position, not on the collateral holding it open, so a larger size cuts deeper in both directions. What does move is the timing. Of everything that ends up shaping the ratio an account may use, exactly one answer is given at registration and never revisited; the rest are chosen far later, in a field that does not even exist until an account has been opened. Sorting the two apart is the entire job of this page — and it saves treating a late decision as a prerequisite for a download.

Independent partner guide — the broker itself is elsewhere. Registration, the Personal Area, and the setting described here all live on the official exness.com. This page places that setting in the sequence rather than performing it.

Step one, and it stays

The answer given at registration outlives every later choice

Three things shape the maximum an account may be set to: the instrument on the ticket, the region the account belongs to, and the money standing behind it. Two of them are still open weeks later. The middle one is settled in the first few minutes anybody spends with the broker, on the short questionnaire that creates the Personal Area, and it is not a preference that gets revisited afterwards.

That is why it belongs at the top of a page about timing. Regional rules shape the ceilings, so one account type does not carry the same maximum everywhere, and the ceilings themselves are listed on the official Exness website. Nothing later in the sequence — the platform chosen, the type of account opened, the size of the first deposit — reaches back and rewrites that first answer.

The useful consequence is a negative one: a ratio read on a forum, in a comparison table, or in a screenshot from somebody else's account is not a promise about the account being opened now. What one particular account may actually use appears on the account's row once that account exists, and no amount of preparation produces the number earlier.

What step one does and does not fix

Fixed there: the region the account belongs to, and with it the outer edge of what the field will ever offer.

Not fixed there: the platform, the account type, the funding, the instruments, and the ratio itself — all of which are chosen later and none of which are one-way. Account types in detail →

Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone.

Still open later

The two inputs that still move after the first week

Both remaining factors are decided after everything has been installed and signed into, and both can be walked back. Knowing that stops either from becoming a reason to postpone the earlier steps.

Chosen at the ticket

Which instrument is being traded

Ceilings differ from one market to another, and the terminal states the one attached to whatever is on the ticket — chosen when an order is prepared, and possibly different for the order after it. Nothing here is settled in advance and nothing about it is permanent.

Changes on its own

How much money stands behind the account

The maximum on offer follows the money sitting in the account, so it travels with the balance — including when no decision has been taken at all, simply because open trades have run one way or the other. It is the only one of the three that shifts while nobody is looking.

Not an input at all

Which device or platform is used

Frequently assumed to matter, and it does not: the setting belongs to the trading account and terminals merely display it. Choosing a platform is a real decision with real consequences, but not one of the three shaping this ceiling.

The funding factor, in detail

Funds move the ceiling in steps rather than smoothly

This is the factor that surprises people, because it works in the opposite direction to the intuition. A larger balance is a good thing in every other respect; here it narrows the range of ratios the field will offer.

What that behaviour means in practice

It moves in bands, not by degrees. The available maximum does not slide down with every unit deposited. It holds still across a range and then changes as the balance passes into the next band — which is why nothing appears to happen for a long time and then something does.
A deposit can narrow the choice. The same transfer that raises a balance can move the account into a band where the field offers less than it did before. That is the mechanism working as designed rather than a fault, and the current figure is displayed beside the account either way.
Existing positions are not rearranged by the balance changing. What shifts is what the field will offer for the setting from that point on. The ratio an account is already set to is a separate matter, and it is edited deliberately in the account's own settings.
The figure to trust is the one on the account, at the moment of asking. Because this factor moves on its own, any note made a month ago is a note about a balance that no longer exists. The Personal Area holds the current answer for the current balance.
It cannot be planned around from outside. There is no preparation step that pins this down before an account exists and has money in it — which is the point of the next section.

The caps themselves are decided by Exness and can be revised. What a given size ties up as collateral at a given ratio is arithmetic rather than guesswork, and the calculator on this site does it properly.

Placement in the sequence

Where this lands in the order of steps — later than most lists put it

Preparation lists tend to gather everything that sounds important into one pile in front of the download. This particular item does not belong there: the field it lives in appears only once an account has been created, well after any file has been fetched.

	DECIDED AT	REVISITABLE?
Region of the account	The registration questionnaire, before anything else exists	No — the one answer here that is given once
Platform and account type	When a trading account is opened inside the Personal Area	Yes — a further account of another kind opens alongside the first
Downloading and installing a terminal	Any time after that, or never, if a browser session is enough	Yes — installing again changes nothing about the account
The leverage setting itself	In the account's settings, once the account exists	Yes — changed there whenever wanted, per account
Funding the account	Whenever a real position is actually intended	Yes, and the balance moves the offered ceiling with it
The instrument on the ticket	At the order, and again at the next one	Yes — each market carries its own, stated by the terminal

Swipe the table sideways →

Read the right-hand column on its own and the preparation shortens to a single line; everything else waits, and waits safely. The field is reached by signing in to the Personal Area on the official exness.com — that route is in the login guide — where each trading account shows its settings, the ratio it is on, and the ceiling open to it. Four platforms trade these accounts and not one of them holds the ceiling: it stays with the account. The matrix of platforms is on the home page.

Order of operations

What a change waits for, and why the value is cheaper to pick first

There is one more piece of timing, and it is the only one with a cost attached. A setting adjusted on an empty account is a two-second edit. The same edit attempted around live positions and orders that are still waiting is a different conversation.

Look at what the account is currently holding

Open positions and orders still waiting are what a change has to work around, and the account's own page states what an adjustment does to it while the adjustment is being made. An account holding nothing has nothing to reconcile.
Take the decision before the position, not after it

Choosing the ratio while the account is quiet removes the question of whether anything must be closed first. It also removes the temptation to treat the setting as a way out of a position that has already gone the wrong way — which it is not.
Check the margin level immediately afterwards

Collateral for a position is roughly its size scaled down by the ratio, so a smaller ratio ties up more of the account for an identical size. Margin level — the account's equity set against the collateral its open trades are holding, printed as a percentage — is where that lands, and it is worth a glance before the next order goes in.

Two thresholds are read off that percentage once trades are live. A margin call comes first — the account is told that its equity has come near what the live trades require. Beneath it is the stop out, where positions start being closed by the platform without anybody's instruction, so the remainder is not dragged down with them. Neither is a rule about ratios; both follow from position size, which is what this setting quietly governs — and both are simpler to stay clear of when the size was picked deliberately at a quiet moment.

Low stop out level

More flexibility and fewer stop outs, allowing traders to ride out short-term volatility.

Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone.

Negative Balance Protection

Clients never lose more than they've deposited.

CFDs are complex products. Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone.

Quick answers

Deciding it at the right moment — common questions

Does anything about leverage need to be settled before downloading a terminal?

No. The field lives on a trading account's settings page inside the Personal Area, and it only appears once that account has been created — which happens after registration and, for most people, after the file has already been fetched. Nothing on a preparation list is blocked by it, and no answer given at the download stage feeds into it.

Which decision about it genuinely cannot be taken back?

Only one: the region the account belongs to, declared on the registration questionnaire at the very start. Regional rules shape the ceilings, so that one answer draws the outer edge of what the field can ever offer. The platform, the account type, the funding, the instruments, and the ratio itself are all chosen later and all remain adjustable.

Why did the available maximum drop after money was added?

Because the ceiling follows the money in the account and moves in bands rather than by degrees. Crossing into a higher band changes what the field offers, so a transfer that raises a balance can narrow the range of ratios available. Whatever applies at a given moment is displayed on the account's line, next to the ratio it is currently set to.

What is the maximum on offer?

There is no single fixed number to quote. It follows what is being traded, which region the account was opened under, and the size of the balance behind it; the ceilings in force are listed on the official Exness website, and each trading account carries its own on its row in the account list. A ratio found elsewhere may be stale, or may belong to an account nothing like the one being opened.

Can it be changed while positions are open?

An adjustment is made against a trading account, and the account's own page states what it does to that account while it is being made — with anything open and anything still waiting being what it has to work around. The order of operations that costs less runs the other way: pick the ratio while the account is quiet, then open the position.

Is the same value applied to every account under one login?

No. Each trading account carries its own setting and is adjusted separately, which is also why an account opened later for a different platform or a different pricing model starts out independent of the first. There is no single switch covering a whole profile.

Can the timing be rehearsed without money involved?

Yes, and this is the part most worth rehearsing. A practice account carries a ratio setting of its own and runs on the same market prices with virtual funds, so the whole sequence — open an account, find the field, change the value, watch what it does to margin level — can be walked through before a deposit exists. How to open a demo →

Is a higher setting simply better to start with?

It multiplies harder in both directions. Because a result is worked out on the whole position and not on the collateral behind it, whatever stretches a gain deepens a loss by identical arithmetic, and how much is put at risk on one trade matters more than what the ceiling permits. Starting below the maximum is a decision that costs nothing and can be revisited at any point.

The field appears two steps after the account is opened

Every step described above hangs off one short form on the official Exness website: an email address plus a few questions produce the Personal Area, identity verification is carried out inside it, and opening a trading account finally produces the page where this ratio is chosen — with the ceiling that account may reach shown next to it. See what each registration step produces →

Open Exness Account

The button leaves this site by its partner route and lands on exness.com. Registration, the account pages, the field discussed here and every support channel belong to that side.