What Replaced the PDT Rule? Intraday Margin

What replaced the PDT rule is an intraday margin standard. The SEC approved FINRA's amendments to Rule 4210 on April 14, 2026, and FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-10, published April 20, 2026, set the effective date at June 4, 2026. From that day the rulebook no longer contains the pattern day trader designation, the four-day-trades-in-five-business-days count, the $25,000 minimum equity, or the day-trading buying power formula. In their place, firms must watch margin accounts for intraday margin deficits, in real time or through one end-of-day calculation, and they have until October 20, 2027 to finish the switch.

What replaced the PDT rule?

Four pieces of the old framework left Rule 4210 at once: the pattern day trader label, the count that produced it, the $25,000 equity floor a flagged account had to hold, and day-trading buying power (prior-day maintenance excess times four). How that regime worked is covered in our pattern day trader rule guide and is not repeated here.

What went in is a duty on the firm rather than a label on the customer. Notice 26-10 defines the intraday margin level, or IML: the amount a customer could withdraw at a given moment while still meeting the maintenance margin requirement. A trade that lowers it, opening a position or adding to one, is an IML-reducing transaction, and an intraday margin deficit is the highest shortfall between the margin to be maintained and the account's equity after such a trade. The maintenance requirement itself did not move: 25% of a long, marginable stock under Rule 4210(c), or the higher house rate a firm chooses. For the layer beneath it, the 50% initial requirement and the two account types it applies to, see Reg T margin versus portfolio margin.

How does the intraday margin standard work?

A firm picks one of two ways to comply.

1. Real-time monitoring. The firm's system values the account continuously and refuses any order that would create or increase an intraday margin deficit. The check happens at the order ticket.
2. End-of-day calculation. The firm lets the day's orders through and, after the close, makes one calculation that identifies the largest intraday deficit of the day; the notice permits the same end-of-day prices the firm already uses for its nightly maintenance check. A deficit produces an intraday margin call.

A call is to be met as promptly as possible, by deposit or liquidation, and stays open until satisfied or until the close of the fifteenth business day after it arose. A customer who makes a practice of leaving calls unmet past the fifth business day is frozen for 90 calendar days: closing trades only, nothing that creates or increases a debit balance or a short position. Deficits within the lesser of 5% of equity or $1,000 do not count toward that pattern. How a firm's own call differs from a regulatory one is covered in Fed call versus house call.

Worked example: a $5,000 account and a $20,000 position

Take an account with $5,000 in cash and no positions, at a firm applying the 25% maintenance rate. At 9:45 a.m. the customer buys $20,000 of one stock; at 11:00 a.m. the whole position is sold. At entry the account holds $20,000 of stock against a $15,000 debit, so equity is $5,000. The requirement on $20,000 is $5,000. IML is zero: fully extended, no deficit.

At a real-time firm the $20,000 order is accepted; a $24,000 order would have been refused, its $6,000 requirement exceeding $5,000 of equity. Once the position is on, price does the rest. A 2% dip takes the stock to $19,600, equity to $4,600 and the requirement to $4,900: a $300 deficit. Each dollar the position loses widens the deficit by 75 cents, as equity falls by a dollar while the requirement falls by a quarter. While the deficit stands the system blocks further IML-reducing orders; the sell at 11:00 a.m. is always permitted and clears it.

At an end-of-day firm both orders go through with no intraday check. After the close, the firm measures the day's largest exposure, the $20,000 footprint, against the account's equity. At 25% that is $5,000 against $5,000: no deficit, no call. Had the customer bought $24,000 instead, the calculation shows a $1,000 shortfall and a $1,000 intraday margin call follows, even though the position was gone by 11:00 a.m. and the day may have closed at a profit. Under the old rule this same round trip in a sub-$25,000 account was one tick toward the four-in-five count. The count is gone; the position is measured against equity instead.

How far does a position move inside one session?

Under either approach, the figure that matters for a fully extended account is how far a position travels between the open and its worst point of the day. The panel below measures that for six household names over August 2026: the average and the widest gap between each session's high and low, as a percentage of the open.

SELECT
    ticker,
    round(avg(100 * (toFloat64(high) - toFloat64(low)) / toFloat64(open)), 2) AS avg_range_pct,
    round(max(100 * (toFloat64(high) - toFloat64(low)) / toFloat64(open)), 2) AS max_range_pct
FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
WHERE ticker IN ('AAPL', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'TSLA', 'AMD', 'SPY')
  AND date >= '2026-08-01'
  AND date <  '2026-09-01'
  AND open > 0
GROUP BY ticker
ORDER BY avg_range_pct DESC

AMD carried the widest average range of the six, 3.9% of the open, with one session spanning 7.72%; SPY was narrowest at 0.66%. Scaled to the example, a 2% high-to-low range on a $20,000 position is $400 of travel, and a $400 drop from entry widens the deficit by $300.

Now put real prices under the hypothetical. The trace below takes each August 2026 session for AAPL and asks: had the $5,000 account bought $20,000 of AAPL at the open, how far below the open did the session low sit in dollars, and what deficit would a real-time monitor have shown at that moment? The deficit line runs at 75% of the loss line.

SELECT
    toString(date)                                                                                        AS session_date,
    toInt64(round(greatest(0, 20000 * (1 - toFloat64(min(low)) / toFloat64(any(open)))), 0))           AS open_to_low_loss_usd,
    toInt64(round(greatest(0, 0.75 * 20000 * (1 - toFloat64(min(low)) / toFloat64(any(open)))), 0))    AS deficit_at_low_usd
FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
WHERE ticker = 'AAPL'
  AND date >= '2026-08-01'
  AND date <  '2026-09-01'
  AND open > 0
GROUP BY date
ORDER BY date

Across the 21 sessions the deficit line is almost never at zero. An account that starts the day at exactly its requirement has no cushion, and any dip registers as a shortfall for as long as it lasts. The next panel ranks the same sessions by that shortfall.

SELECT
    formatDateTime(date, '%a %b %e')                                                                     AS label,
    round(100 * (toFloat64(max(high)) - toFloat64(min(low))) / toFloat64(any(open)), 2)                  AS range_pct,
    toInt64(round(greatest(0, 0.75 * 20000 * (1 - toFloat64(min(low)) / toFloat64(any(open)))), 0))    AS deficit_at_low_usd
FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
WHERE ticker = 'AAPL'
  AND date >= '2026-08-01'
  AND date <  '2026-09-01'
  AND open > 0
GROUP BY date
ORDER BY deficit_at_low_usd DESC
LIMIT 5

The largest came on Mon Aug 3, when AAPL's high-to-low range reached 2.98% and the account would have stood $340 short at the low; the fifth-widest session still produced a $242 shortfall. A real-time firm would have blocked new buys while those deficits stood. An end-of-day firm prices the same peak position at the close rather than at the low, so its figure for a given day can differ from the one shown.

Is $2,000 the new day-trading minimum?

No. The $2,000 that broker FAQs quote is Rule 4210(b), the long-standing minimum equity for any margin account: at least $2,000, or the full cost of the purchase if that is less, before the firm extends margin credit at all. It predates June 2026 and the amendments did not touch it. No dollar figure is tied specifically to day trading any more. A $3,000 margin account can day trade as long as its equity covers the intraday requirement on what it holds. Firms remain free to set a higher house minimum, and some do.

When does my broker have to switch?

The amendments took effect on June 4, 2026, and firms that need more time may phase in over 18 months, through October 20, 2027. During that window a broker may still run house day-trading limits that look like the old regime, a trade count or an equity floor among them. Those are house rules now, not FINRA rules, and they differ from firm to firm. E*TRADE, Firstrade and TradeZero have each published their own transition policies; many other brokers have said little. Check your own broker's margin disclosure before assuming the $25,000 floor is gone for you.

Cash accounts sit outside all of this. Margin rules never applied to them, before or after June 4, and the constraint there is still settled funds, as explained in good-faith violations in cash accounts.

What changes for options traders?

Equity options on stocks and ETFs are physically settled: exercise or assignment delivers 100 shares per contract at the strike. Under the old rule, a small account assigned on a short put, or exercising a long call, that sold the shares the same day had made a day trade, and four of those in five days flagged it. Notice 26-10 addresses that step directly. A firm may treat the creation of a position through the assignment or exercise of an option and the liquidation of that position on the same day as occurring simultaneously, and may do the same for the legs of a spread entered as one order. Treated as simultaneous, the assignment and the sale never leave an open position for the intraday calculation to measure. That is the change that lets an account under $25,000 day-trade physically settled options without the PDT count.

Assignment itself is unchanged. A short option can still be assigned early, as when short options get assigned early explains, and an in-the-money long option is still exercised at expiration. Shares still in the account at the close face the ordinary maintenance and Reg T requirements overnight. The panel below prices what one contract's deliverable actually is.

SELECT
    ticker,
    formatDateTime(max(date), '%b %e')                          AS priced_on,
    toInt64(round(toFloat64(argMax(close, date)) * 100, 0))     AS one_contract_deliverable_usd,
    toInt64(round(toFloat64(argMax(close, date)) * 25, 0))      AS maintenance_at_25pct_usd
FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
WHERE ticker IN ('AAPL', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'TSLA', 'AMD', 'SPY')
  AND date >= '2026-08-24'
  AND date <  '2026-09-01'
GROUP BY ticker
ORDER BY one_contract_deliverable_usd DESC

As of Aug 31, 100 shares of SPY came to $76705, and the 25% maintenance on that block alone, $19176, is more than a $5,000 account holds. The smallest deliverable of the six, NVDA at $22078, is still larger than the whole account. The intraday standard lets a firm treat the same-day exit as simultaneous with the assignment. It does nothing to shrink the position an unplanned overnight hold leaves behind.

FAQ

Is the pattern day trader rule gone?

Yes. Amendments to FINRA Rule 4210, approved by the SEC on April 14, 2026 and effective June 4, 2026, removed the pattern day trader designation, the four-trades-in-five-days count, the $25,000 minimum equity and day-trading buying power, replacing them with intraday margin requirements. Firms may phase the change in until October 20, 2027.

Do I still need $25,000 to day trade?

Not under FINRA rules. The requirement now is that a margin account's equity covers the maintenance margin on its positions throughout the day, checked in real time or once after the close. A broker may still impose its own higher minimum as a house rule.

What is the $2,000 minimum equity requirement?

Rule 4210(b)'s existing floor for any margin account: at least $2,000 in equity, or the full purchase cost if lower, before a firm extends margin credit. It is not a day-trading rule and was not changed in June 2026.

What is an intraday margin call?

A call for the largest intraday margin deficit a firm calculates for a day. It is to be met as promptly as possible and stays open for up to 15 business days; a customer who makes a practice of leaving such calls unmet past the fifth business day is restricted for 90 calendar days from creating or increasing a debit balance or short position.

Can a small account day trade options now?

Yes, within its margin. A firm may treat an option assignment or exercise and the same-day sale of the resulting shares as simultaneous, so the round trip is no longer a counted day trade and leaves no intraday deficit to measure. Assignment risk is unchanged, and shares held overnight face the normal maintenance requirement.

Every panel above carries the exact SQL beneath it. To run the same intraday-range and deficit math for a different ticker or account size, ask for it in plain English on the Strasmore terminal.