Intraday Margin Requirements: What Replaced the PDT Rule

Intraday margin requirements are the FINRA Rule 4210 standards that took the place of the pattern day trader rule on June 4, 2026. There’s no day trade count anymore, and no 25,000 dollar minimum. The test now is arithmetic: on any day you buy or sell short in a margin account, your firm works out the largest amount by which the account fell short of its maintenance requirement after those trades, and that shortfall, called an intraday margin deficit, has to be paid.

That’s the whole idea. The details decide how it feels in practice.

What FINRA changed, and when

The SEC approved FINRA’s amendments to Rule 4210 on April 14, 2026, in SEC Release No. 34-105226. FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-10, published April 20, 2026, says the new intraday margin standards replace the day trading margin requirements in their entirety. That covers both parts traders knew best: the day trade count test that designated an account a pattern day trader, and the 25,000 dollar minimum equity that came with the label.

FINRA then published Regulatory Notice 26-11 on May 19, 2026. It added interpretations of the new rule, effective the same day as the rule, June 4, 2026.

Then there’s the transition, which is where most of the confusion will come from. According to FINRA’s investor insight page, firms that need more time may phase in implementation until October 20, 2027, and during that window a firm may keep the old day trading rules or switch sooner, so two traders with the same balance and the same trades can be under different regimes this year purely because of where their accounts sit. Wherever a firm hasn’t switched, the old pattern day trader rules still apply.

How an intraday margin deficit arises

The trigger is what the rule calls an “intraday margin level-reducing” transaction. Purchases and short sales are the plain examples. Buying to cover a short is excluded.

On any day with one of those transactions, the firm determines an intraday margin deficit for each margin account. It’s the highest shortfall, after such a transaction, between the margin the account must maintain and the equity in it. Good faith accounts and portfolio margin accounts are left out of the calculation.

The firm doesn’t have to watch every tick. FINRA doesn’t require real-time monitoring, and a single calculation is permitted. That leaves firms room to run it in different ways. A firm may monitor in real time and block any trade that would create a deficit. Or it may calculate after the close and call for margin. From your side of the screen those feel very different: one refuses the order before it fills, and the other lets it through and sends the bill afterward.

The maintenance rule underneath hasn’t changed. FINRA’s minimum is still 25% of the market value of long margin-eligible equity securities, and firms can set higher requirements. What is new is the timing. That requirement is now expected throughout the trading day.

Look at the morning round trip. Under the old rule it was a day trade, one more mark toward a pattern day trader flag. Under the new standards it doesn’t register at all, because the account never dipped below its requirement. The afternoon is what creates the deficit, and the house requirement changes its size a lot, which is why your firm’s number matters more than FINRA’s floor.

Paying it, and the two clocks

FINRA’s wording is that the deficit must be satisfied as promptly as possible. That can happen through net deposits, or through increases in margin level by the end of a subsequent day. Selling positions lowers what the account has to maintain, which raises the margin level by plain arithmetic, though how a firm credits a sale on the same day as the deficit is worth asking about directly.

Two deadlines run from the day the deficit arose.

The first is the 15th business day. A deficit stays outstanding until it’s satisfied or until immediately after the close of business on the 15th business day after it arose.

The second is the fifth business day, and it’s the one with teeth. If a customer has a practice of not satisfying deficits promptly and misses the fifth business day, the firm must restrict the account for 90 calendar days or until the deficit is satisfied, and during that restriction the account can’t create or increase a short position or a debit balance, although closing positions is still allowed.

Small misses don’t build that record. Deficits up to the lesser of 5% of equity or 1,000 dollars don’t count toward the practice. Neither do deficits caused by extraordinary circumstances. Ask your firm how it judges a practice, since that judgment is what puts an account into the 90 day freeze.

What changes for small accounts

For an account well under 25,000 dollars, this is a real loosening. The count is gone. You can open and close positions in a margin account as often as you like, provided the account stays within its maintenance requirement or you pay any deficit promptly. A trader who used to ration day trades now rations exposure.

Some things stay put. You still need 2,000 dollars of equity to trade on margin at all. The 25% maintenance floor still applies, and your firm can set it higher. And a margin call is still a margin call when positions fall overnight; the intraday standards add a daytime test on top of that.

Cash accounts are outside these rules entirely. They’re still limited by settled cash, so a dollar from a sale can’t fund another round trip until it settles, which is covered in day trading in a cash account.

There’s a fair worry here. Freedom to trade often is also freedom to stack positions on one balance. Under the new standards the limit is the arithmetic, and at a firm that calculates at day’s end, a trader can find out about a deficit only after the close.

What to check with your broker during the transition

Your firm’s written margin policy, or a direct question to it, should settle each of these:

• Which rules apply to your account today.
• When the firm switches, if it hasn’t yet.
• Whether it blocks trades in real time or calculates at day’s end.
• Its house maintenance requirement, and whether that requirement varies by position.
• How and when it sends a call for an intraday margin deficit.
• Whether a same-day sale counts toward meeting a deficit.
• What it treats as a practice of paying late.

You can check your own intraday exposure with one division. Take your equity and divide it by your firm’s maintenance rate; the answer is roughly the most long stock you can hold during the day before a shortfall shows up, and anything past that line is a deficit the firm will expect you to cover. Overnight is a separate test. The Federal Reserve’s Regulation T still asks for 50% initial margin on stock bought on margin, so a position you carry past the close is held to that stricter line, and the FINRA change left it where it was.