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Intraday Margin Requirements (post-PDT)
Intraday margin (FINRA Rule 4210(d)(2), RN 26-10) is the post-PDT standard: members measure an intraday margin deficit on margin accounts after IML-reducing trades. No PDT flag, no $25,000 day-trade floor.
Intraday margin requirements are the FINRA standard in Rule 4210(d)(2) that replaces PDT. Regulatory Notice 26-10 (published April 20, 2026; effective June 4, 2026) replaced pattern-day-trader counts and the $25,000 PDT equity floor in their entirety. Members measure an intraday margin deficit on customer margin accounts after IML-reducing transactions. Under the new rule there's no PDT flag and no $25,000 day-trade floor.
The old day-trade count and $25,000 floor don't carry over to this rule. Intraday margin follows Rule 4210(d)(2), and firms can phase that in through October 20, 2027. The $2,000 figure further down is FINRA's minimum equity to buy on margin, not a new PDT floor. The Pattern Day Trader Rule page covers what RN 26-10 replaced.
What 4210(d)(2) actually requires
Each member must determine the intraday margin deficit, if any, for each customer margin account it maintains (other than a good-faith account or a portfolio margin account) for each day in which there is any IML-reducing transaction in that account.
- IML (intraday margin level): the cash the customer could withdraw while still meeting maintenance margin required by Rule 4210 other than (d)(2), or the extra cash needed (as a negative number).
- IML-reducing transaction: a purchase or sale that reduces IML (the notice’s examples include a short sale, or a purchase other than to cover a short), plus certain option expirations and withdrawals of cash or securities as defined in the amendments.
- Intraday margin deficit (IMD): an amount not less than the absolute value of the largest negative IML after any IML-reducing transaction that day (broadly, the highest deficiency between required maintenance and equity after those trades).
RN 26-10 is explicit: members may implement real-time monitoring and block trades that would create or increase an IMD. Real-time monitoring is not required. Members may make a single end-of-day calculation of IMD, as they do for ordinary maintenance margin. The notice does not change regular maintenance margin; it supplements it.
Effective date vs phase-in
| Clock | RN 26-10 |
|---|---|
| Published | April 20, 2026 |
| Effective | June 4, 2026 (45 days after publication) |
| Phase-in for firms that need more time | Through October 20, 2027 (18 months) |
| Between those two dates | The rule is in force, but your broker may still be phasing it in. |
Satisfaction and the 90-day freeze
If a margin account (other than good-faith or portfolio margin) has an IMD on a day with an IML-reducing transaction, the member must require that deficit to be satisfied as promptly as possible.
- An IMD is “satisfied” if, from the end of that day to the end of a later day, net deposits or other IML increases equal the deficit. One increase may cover multiple outstanding IMDs in the same account.
- An IMD remains outstanding until satisfied or until immediately after the close of business on the 15th business day after the deficit date.
- 90-day freeze: if the customer makes a practice of failing to satisfy IMDs promptly and fails to satisfy an IMD by the close of the fifth business day after it occurs, the member must enforce written procedures reasonably designed to prevent creating or increasing a short position or debit balance (other than by closing a short) for 90 calendar days after that fifth business day, or until the IMD is satisfied.
- De minimis / extraordinary: deficits that do not exceed the lesser of 5% of equity or $1,000, or that the member reasonably treats as extraordinary, do not count as that “practice.”
Portfolio-margin accounts are carved out of (d)(2) itself. The notice updates portfolio-margin monitoring and preserves the existing $5 million equity threshold: accounts under that level must maintain margin for intraday risk substantially similar to end-of-day margin. That is the notice’s figure, not a retail PDT substitute.
What this is not
- Not a PDT flag and not a day-trade counter.
- Not a $25,000 day-trade equity floor.
- Not the old day-trading buying-power formula, and not a multiple FINRA sets for you.
- Not something this site can work out for you. Your broker figures the IMD under its own written procedures (sweep treatment, end-of-day or real-time, house margin), and any widget that claims to know your IMD is guessing.
- Not a cash-account day-trade rule. 4210(d)(2) as described in RN 26-10 is a margin-account rule. Cash accounts still have T+1 settlement / buying-power timing.
The $2,000 margin minimum (not PDT)
FINRA Rule 4210(b)(4) still says you need at least $2,000 of equity to buy on margin, unless the purchase costs less than that, in which case you put up the cost. Brokers can set a higher bar. That number is not “the new PDT,” and it doesn't count day trades. Ask your broker what its own minimum is.
An example: size is still stop distance, not a margin multiple
These numbers are made up to show the method, not a real trade, a margin call or an IMD. Account $10,000, risk 1% → $100 dollar risk. Entry $53.00, stop $51.50 → $1.50 per share. Shares = 100 ÷ 1.50 = 66.666… → 66 shares, round down. Actual dollar risk = 66 × 1.50 = $99. You can run it on the risk calculator; it's laid out for crypto, so read the unit as shares and round down. That row is Risk 101 math. It does not equal buying power and it does not equal an IMD.
Related: PDT (the old rule), How to Use a Broker, Day Trading Fundamentals, U.S. session hours 2026. Return to the stock glossary.
Educational only. Not financial, tax, or legal advice. Source: FINRA RN 26-10 (PDF: Regulatory-Notice-26-10.pdf). A broker's marketing page isn't the rule.