Forex Position Size Calculator
Work out a position size from your account balance, risk percentage, and stop-loss distance.
Result
Lot size reference
How to Use This Calculator
Enter your account balance, the percentage of it you're willing to risk, your stop-loss distance in pips, and the pip value per standard lot for your pair (use the Pip Calculator to find it). The recommended position size updates instantly.
How the Calculation Works
Position sizing keeps a single trade's potential loss to a fixed percentage of your account. The tool divides your maximum dollar risk by the dollar risk per standard lot (stop-loss pips × pip value) to find how many lots to trade.
Formula
Amount at Risk = Balance × (Risk % / 100)
Standard Lots = Amount at Risk / (Stop-Loss Pips × Pip Value per Lot)
Example Calculation
With a $10,000 balance, 1% risk, a 25-pip stop, and a $10 pip value per lot: amount at risk = $100, so position size = 100 / (25 × 10) = 0.4 standard lots.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a safe risk percentage?
Many traders use 1–2% per trade, but the right number depends on your own risk tolerance and strategy — this tool doesn't recommend a specific figure.
What are standard, mini, micro, and nano lots?
100,000 / 10,000 / 1,000 / 100 units respectively. Use the Lot Size Converter for quick conversions.
Related Tools
Disclaimer
Position Size Calculator: Trade the Right Lot Size Every Time
If you've ever searched "forex position size calculator" or "how to calculate lot size in forex," you already know the problem: risking the same lot size on every trade regardless of your stop-loss distance is one of the fastest ways to blow up an account. A proper position sizing calculator flips that logic around — you decide how much of your account you're willing to risk first, and the tool works backward to tell you what lot size actually matches that risk.
This forex risk calculator takes four inputs that show up in almost every money management calculator forex traders search for: account balance, risk percentage, stop-loss distance in pips, and the pip value per standard lot for your pair (which you can pull straight from our Pip Calculator). From there it calculates your maximum dollar risk, your recommended position size in standard lots, the equivalent in raw currency units, and — because brokers vary in what lot sizes they offer — the same position expressed in mini, micro, and nano lots as well.
Search interest around "1% risk rule forex" and "2% risk management trading" has stayed consistently high because disciplined position sizing is one of the few genuinely controllable variables in trading — you can't control where the market goes, but you can control how much of your account is on the line for any single trade. This calculator doesn't tell you what risk percentage to use (that's a personal and strategy-dependent decision), but it does make sure that once you've picked a number, the resulting lot size calculator math is accurate and instant, rather than something you're eyeballing or calculating by hand between trades.
Because position sizing sits in the middle of a trader's workflow, this tool is built to hand off cleanly to the ones on either side of it. Use the Pip Calculator first to confirm your pip value, run your numbers here to get a lot size, and then check the Risk-to-Reward Calculator before you place the trade. Whether you're a newer trader searching for a straightforward "forex calculator online" to learn the mechanics, or an experienced trader who just wants to skip the manual arithmetic, this position size calculator is built to be fast enough to use before every single trade.
It's also a useful habit-forming tool: running the same account balance and risk percentage through this calculator before every trade, regardless of how confident you feel about the setup, is one of the simplest ways to keep position sizing consistent over time rather than letting it drift upward after a winning streak or shrink after a losing one.