Liquidation Price Calculator
Where an isolated leveraged position gets closed for you, and — the number worth looking at twice — how small a move against it that takes.
Estimated liquidation price
Position value
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Initial margin
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Maintenance margin
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This is a calculator, not advice. It works only on the numbers you type in — it has no market data and no opinion on what you are trading. Nothing here is a recommendation to open, close or size a position, and technical analysis describes probabilities rather than outcomes. The result is an estimate for an isolated position and excludes fees, funding and any margin added after opening — your exchange's own figure is the one that counts.
How far away is the nearest level?
A liquidation price only means something next to the way the instrument actually moves. Chart AI reads a photo of any chart and describes the volatility on it, the levels either side of price, and the trend they sit in, keeping each analysis in a history you can compare later.
How the level is worked out
Open a position at 10× and you have posted a tenth of its value as margin. The position is liquidated when the loss has eaten that margin down to the maintenance requirement — so the distance the price can travel against you is 1 ÷ leverage, minus the maintenance margin rate. Applied to the entry price:
- Long: liquidation = entry × (1 − 1/leverage + maintenance rate)
- Short: liquidation = entry × (1 + 1/leverage − maintenance rate)
Notice what is absent: the position size. It scales the margin and the loss by the same factor, so it drops out of the equation entirely. Two things do change with size on a real exchange — how much money is behind the trade, and which maintenance margin tier applies — and it is the second of those, not the size itself, that moves the level.
What leverage actually buys
The distance to liquidation is roughly the inverse of the leverage, which is easier to feel as a table than as a formula. At a 0.5% maintenance margin rate:
| Leverage | Move to liquidation | Margin posted |
|---|---|---|
| 2× | 49.5% | 50% of position |
| 5× | 19.5% | 20% |
| 10× | 9.5% | 10% |
| 20× | 4.5% | 5% |
| 50× | 1.5% | 2% |
| 100× | 0.5% | 1% |
The bottom rows are where the arithmetic stops being abstract. A 0.5% move is smaller than the range most liquid instruments cover in a quiet hour, and far smaller than what a scheduled data release does in a second. At that setting the position is not closed because the idea was wrong — it is closed because the price wobbled, and the level was inside the wobble.
The things this leaves out
Several of them push the real level closer than the estimate. Fees and funding are deducted from the same margin, so a position held through a few funding payments is liquidated slightly earlier than it would have been at the start. Tiered maintenance margin means the rate you should be typing in rises with position size, and using the small-position rate for a large position flatters the answer. Mark price is the other one worth knowing: most exchanges liquidate against an index or mark price rather than the last traded price, which is what stops a single thin wick from taking out everybody, and is also why the last price on your screen can print through your liquidation level without triggering it.
None of this makes the figure useless — the distance to liquidation is the honest measure of what a leverage setting means, and it is worth looking at before the position is open rather than after.
Questions
Will this match the liquidation price my exchange shows?
It will be close, and it will rarely be identical. Exchanges fold in things this page has no way to see: the fees charged on closing, funding already paid or received, unrealised profit and loss, any margin you have added since opening, and a maintenance margin rate that steps up in tiers as the position grows. Treat the number here as the shape of the answer — how far away the level sits — and your exchange's own figure as the one that decides anything.
What is the maintenance margin rate?
The minimum share of the position's value that has to remain as collateral. Fall below it and the position is closed for you. It is set per instrument and rises in tiers with position size — often around 0.4% to 0.5% for a small position on a major pair, and several percent on a large one or on a thin market. Your exchange publishes the table; the 0.5% default here is a placeholder, not a figure to rely on.
Why does position size not change the liquidation price?
Because both the margin you post and the loss you take scale with the size, so they cancel. Doubling the position doubles the collateral and doubles the loss per point moved, and the price where the two meet stays put. What size does change is how much money is standing behind the position — the margin and maintenance figures on the panel — and, on a real exchange, which maintenance margin tier you land in, which is what actually shifts the level.
Does adding margin move the level?
On an isolated position, yes — extra collateral pushes the liquidation price further away, which is what a margin top-up buys you. This page calculates the level for a position sitting at its opening margin, so if you have added to it, your exchange's number will be further out than the one shown here.
Is this isolated or cross margin?
Isolated. Under cross margin the whole free balance of the account backs the position, so the liquidation price depends on every other position you have open and on the balance at that moment — it cannot be worked out from an entry, a leverage setting and a rate. Cross margin moves the level further away while making the entire account, rather than one position's margin, the thing at stake.
