Trading futures with leverage, the one number to know first: how far price has to fall (or rise) before your position is force-closed. Enter direction, entry price and leverage to see how far the liquidation price sits from you.
This is a simplified isolated-margin estimate. It doesn't include funding, fees, changing margin balance or tiered maintenance-margin rates. The real liquidation price is whatever your exchange's positions page shows. The higher the leverage, the closer liquidation sits to entry, and the easier a single wick can take you out.
| Leverage | Approx. drop to liq (long) | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 2x | ~-50% | Plenty of room, a slow grind down is survivable |
| 5x | ~-20% | One deeper pullback and it gets dangerous |
| 10x | ~-10% | An ordinary day's move is enough |
| 25x | ~-4% | A single wick can liquidate you |
| 50x | ~-2% | Almost a coin flip on direction from the open |
The table uses a simplified maintenance margin rate of about 0.5% and is only meant to build intuition. Actual values vary by coin and tier.
Once you see the liquidation price, you understand how brutal high leverage is. To actually trade, get comfortable with the rules using spot and small size first. Register on Binance with code BN771 for up to 20% off trading fees*.
Sign up on Binance with BN771 →Trading futures, you use only a slice of margin to control a much larger position. When price moves against you, the loss is drawn from your margin; when that loss nearly eats through the margin and only the maintenance margin line is left, the exchange force-closes your position. That price is the liquidation price.
This tool estimates it with a simplified isolated-margin formula: for a long, the liquidation price is roughly entry × (1 − 1/leverage + maintenance margin rate); for a short it flips, roughly entry × (1 + 1/leverage − maintenance margin rate). The core intuition is one line — the higher the leverage, the smaller 1/leverage, and the closer liquidation sits to entry. A 10x long is liquidated on about a 10% drop; at 50x, roughly 2% does it.
Why is that dangerous? A few percent of daily swing is ordinary in crypto, and a late-night wick sweeping several points in seconds is nothing unusual. Under high leverage you can be dead right on direction and still get taken out by one normal pullback on the way — the position is gone, and then price walks back. Leverage doesn't just amplify gains; it amplifies the odds that market noise washes you out.
A few things beginners should keep in mind: one, this is a simplified isolated-margin estimate — under cross margin the whole account balance backs the position, so the liquidation logic differs; two, funding and fees keep eating your margin, which pulls the real liquidation price a little closer than the estimate; three, don't treat "10% away from liquidation" as a safety cushion — the real move is to control size and set a stop so the stop triggers well before liquidation. To work out how big a position to open first, pair this with the Position Size Calculator.