Bybit Futures Guide 2026: Margin Modes, Liquidation, Funding

Before your first Bybit futures trade, three things are worth knowing. First, the order panel defaults to cross margin, 10x, one-way mode; if you trade without changing it, your whole Unified Trading Account is backing the position. Second, the initial and maintenance margin Bybit displays already include the estimated fee to close. Third, a liquidated position is settled at the "bankruptcy price", so the margin you put in goes to zero and any difference between the liquidation and bankruptcy prices goes to the insurance fund. Based on Bybit's help center and official API, this guide covers the Unified Trading Account's three margin modes, the BTCUSDT risk-limit table, the isolated liquidation-price formula, the insurance fund and ADL, funding rules and the most useful order settings, then works through a 0.01 BTC example. Figures are as of 2026-09-28; check the official pages before trading.

A cross-exchange comparison of beginner rules (max leverage, minimum order, demo trading) is in our futures beginner exchange comparison; this article only covers how Bybit works. If you have not registered yet: sign up for Bybit with NOVA888 and get 30% of your futures fees back from Lv.1, 1.5 times a typical 20% referral code.

Bybit BTCUSDT perpetual at a glance

Sources: Bybit official API (instruments-info, risk-limit), checked 2026-09-28; defaults from How to Get Started With Futures Trading.

Inverse contracts use BTC as margin and settle in BTC, so when BTC falls your collateral shrinks too. Beginners should start with USDT perpetuals; everything below uses BTCUSDT.

Before you start: KYC and the Unified Trading Account

Bybit's KYC FAQ states that identity verification of at least Standard level is mandatory for all Bybit products and services, and some regions or products may require a higher level. We found no help-center article describing a futures quiz; follow what the app shows when you enable futures.

Bybit's current help-center futures rules are all written for the Unified Trading Account (UTA): spot, futures and options sit in one account, and the margin mode applies to the whole account, not per trading pair. The three modes compare as follows:

Source: Differences Between the Margin Modes Under the Unified Trading Account.

The most important row for a beginner is the liquidation trigger. In cross margin Bybit watches the whole account's maintenance margin rate, and the liquidation price on screen is only an estimate; falling collateral or losses on other positions can liquidate this one sooner. If you want a position's maximum loss to be exactly the margin you gave it, switch to isolated margin before you place the order.

Switching has conditions: moving from cross or portfolio margin to isolated requires no options orders or positions, no spot margin orders or borrowings, and enough assets to allocate to each position without triggering liquidation; moving to portfolio margin requires no hedge-mode orders or positions. Isolated margin also offers Auto-Margin Replenishment, which tops up a position from your available balance as it nears liquidation (capped at what 1x leverage would need), pushing the liquidation price away from the mark price at the cost of using the rest of your funds.

BTCUSDT risk limits: bigger position, lower leverage

Bybit applies dynamic leverage through risk limits: the larger the position value, the lower the maximum leverage and the higher the initial and maintenance margin rates. The first BTCUSDT tiers:

Source: Bybit official API (risk-limit), checked 2026-09-28; BTCUSDT has 35 tiers.

According to Risk Limit (Perpetual and Expiry Contracts), several rules differ from other exchanges:

• Open orders count: the risk limit uses "effective position value" = max(long position + long orders, short position + short orders), so same-side orders can push you into the next tier; Reduce-Only and Close-On-Trigger orders are excluded.
• Tiers move automatically, leverage does not: your chosen leverage sets the maximum position value, and the system adjusts tiers within that range; to open a larger position you must lower leverage yourself.
• At the cap, only reducing orders: once either side's effective position value reaches the limit, only Reduce-Only and Close-On-Trigger orders are accepted.
• A 10-day buffer on official changes: when Bybit adjusts risk parameters, they apply immediately if the account's post-adjustment MMR is below 75%; higher-risk accounts get a 10-day buffer during which only reduce-only orders or cancellations are allowed on that pair, after which the new parameters apply automatically.

Liquidation: settled at the bankruptcy price, margin goes to zero

Isolated liquidation price (fee to close included)

Bybit's Trading Rules: Liquidation Process (Unified Trading Account) gives this formula for an isolated USDT-perpetual long:

Liquidation Price (Long) = [Entry Price × Size − Entry Price × Size ÷ Leverage − Extra Margin Added ÷ (1 − Taker Fee Rate) − MM Deduction] ÷ [Size − Size × MM Rate]

Unlike a generic formula, Bybit's initial and maintenance margin both include the estimated fee to close: for a long, fee to close = entry price × size × (1 − 1 ÷ leverage) × taker fee rate. Bybit's example: a 1 BTC long at 40,000 USDT with 50x, 3,000 USDT extra margin, 0.5% MMR and 0.055% taker fee has a fee to close of 21.56 USDT and a liquidation price of 36,380.25 USDT. Bybit notes the closing fee can make the actual liquidation price differ slightly.

Laddered liquidation

When an isolated position's mark price hits its liquidation price (liquidation uses the mark price, not the last traded price shown on the default chart), Bybit acts by risk-limit tier:

1. At the lowest tier: cancel orders that would increase the position to free margin; if still short, the liquidation engine takes over and closes the whole position at the bankruptcy price.
2. Above the lowest tier: cancel orders, then partially close with an IOC order down to a lower tier; only if still short is the whole position closed at the bankruptcy price.

Bankruptcy price and the insurance fund

The bankruptcy price is where your margin hits zero. For an isolated USDT long, Bankruptcy Price = Entry Price × (1 − 1 ÷ Leverage); a 50x long from 60,000 USDT goes bankrupt at 58,800 USDT. Liquidations are handled by the liquidation engine, not the matching engine, so the bankruptcy price may not appear on the chart.

This is the key point: a liquidated position is always settled at the bankruptcy price. If the engine can close it in the market at a better price, the remaining margin goes to the insurance fund; if only at a worse price, the fund covers the excess loss. So on Bybit, liquidation costs you the entire initial margin, and the gap between the liquidation and bankruptcy prices is not returned to you.

Bybit explains that when a trader's position is liquidated and the closing price is better than the bankruptcy price, the trader's remaining margin is added to the insurance fund; if it is worse and the loss exceeds the initial margin, the insurance fund covers it. Insurance funds for USDT, USDC and inverse contracts are separate, and balances update daily at 00:00 UTC. (Bybit Insurance Fund)

A common trap: funding is taken from available balance first, and if that is insufficient, from the isolated position's initial margin, raising your effective leverage and moving both the liquidation and bankruptcy prices toward the mark price.

ADL: when the insurance fund cannot cope

According to Auto-Deleveraging (ADL) Mechanism, Bybit's ADL has two triggers: a single pair's drawdown over the past 8 hours reaching the "8H PnL drawdown trigger line" relative to the insurance fund's highest balance in that period, or the combined balance of several independent insurance pools falling to zero or below. Once triggered, opposing positions are ranked by leveraged return and the highest-ranked are closed at the bankruptcy price; affected traders get an email, have all active orders cancelled and can re-enter at any time. Losing positions can also be selected, but profitable ones come first; the ADL indicator on each position shows your rank.

Funding: every 8 hours, hourly when capped

Funding is paid directly between longs and shorts: longs pay when the rate is positive, shorts pay when it is negative, and only positions held at the funding time pay or receive. BTCUSDT currently settles every 8 hours at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC.

• Formula: Funding Rate = clamp[Average Premium Index + clamp(Interest Rate − Average Premium Index, ±0.05%), upper limit, lower limit]; the interest rate is fixed at 0.03% a day, or 0.01% per 8-hour interval. The premium index is calculated every minute, with more weight near settlement.
• Limits: the official formula is ±min[(IMR − MMR) × 0.75, MMR], and the 0.75 coefficient can be adjusted between 0.5 and 1 depending on the market; on 2026-09-28 the official API showed ±0.333% for BTCUSDT.
• Hourly when capped: if the funding rate hits its upper or lower limit at settlement, settlement switches to hourly; changes to limits and frequency are not announced separately.
• No guarantee within 5 seconds: Bybit states that opening or closing within 5 seconds of the funding time does not guarantee whether the position is included in that cycle, and no reimbursement is given.

At the time of our check (2026-09-28) the live BTCUSDT funding rate was 0.0041%. Sources: Introduction to Funding Rate and the official API (tickers).

Orders: four settings that protect you

Bybit groups orders into basic (market, limit, conditional) and advanced (TP/SL, iceberg, Post-Only, time-in-force, trailing stop, TWAP, scaled, chase limit and more); derivatives-only options are Reduce-Only and Close On Trigger. The four a beginner should know:

TP/SL comes in two modes: Entire Position (one set per position, closed at market when triggered) and Partial Position (multiple sets, closed at market or limit); the trigger can be the last traded price, mark price or index price. Bybit liquidates on the mark price, so a stop triggered on the last traded price and set close to the liquidation price may never fire before liquidation. TP/SL Price Protection applies only to last-price triggers: when on, a TP/SL will not fire while the last-price/mark-price spread is outside the threshold.

Minimum order quantity = max(preset minimum quantity, minimum notional ÷ order price). BTCUSDT's preset minimum is 0.001 BTC and minimum notional 5 USDT; at current prices 0.001 BTC is already above 5 USDT, so the minimum is 0.001 BTC. Closing orders are not restricted by the minimum notional but still need the minimum quantity. Sources: Types of Orders Available on Bybit, Reduce-Only Order and Futures Trading Rules.

Bybit in numbers: liquidation and bankruptcy price for a 0.01 BTC 10x isolated long

Suppose you open a 0.01 BTC long on BTCUSDT at 85,000 USDT, switched to isolated 10x (risk-limit tier 1, 0.33% MMR), with a 0.055% taker fee. Using the official formulas, excluding funding:

At 5x the liquidation price would be about 68,225 USDT (a drop of about 19.7%); at 20x, about 81,017 USDT (about 4.7%).

On fees, Bybit's VIP0 futures rates are 0.02% maker and 0.055% taker. A market open and close on this position costs 850 × 0.055% × 2 = 0.935 USDT; a limit (maker) round trip costs 0.34 USDT. After binding through Quant Nova:

Bybit's taker fee (0.055%) is 2.75 times its maker fee (0.02%), so resting orders with Post-Only are the most direct saving on their own. The effective-rate method is in perpetual fees after rebate, and the maker/taker difference in maker vs taker fees explained.

For users in Taiwan: terms and registration status

Bybit's Service Restricted Countries page (updated 2026-09-01) lists excluded jurisdictions including the United States, the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine, Sudan and Syria; Taiwan is not on the list. The terms also say that if you misrepresent your location or residence, Bybit may terminate the account immediately and liquidate open positions. The list can change, so check the latest official version. As of 2026-09-28, Bybit is not on Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission list of virtual asset service providers that have completed anti-money-laundering registration (list updated 2026-09-03); see offshore exchanges and Taiwan's VASP registration list.

Risk warning: make sure you can afford the loss

As the example shows, a 10x isolated long is liquidated after a move of about 9.7% against you, and liquidation takes the whole margin; in cross mode the rest of your account shares the loss. Futures can wipe out your entire margin in a very short time. Only use money you can afford to lose, and practise stops and reading the liquidation price with low leverage and minimum size. Do not trust anyone who says their signals or managed accounts never lose.

When publishing its VASP registration list on 2025-09-22, Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission warned that scammers lure people into buying virtual assets with claims such as "guaranteed profits" and "high return, low risk", then demand unfreezing fees, deposits or taxes before investors can withdraw their supposed returns. (FSC press release)

Bybit futures and your rebate

Rebates apply only to trading fees: funding is exchanged between traders, and margin left over after a liquidation goes to the insurance fund, so neither is rebated; rebates do not affect margin or liquidation prices either. Register Bybit with NOVA888 and submit your UID to Quant Nova: new users get 30% at Lv.1 with no threshold, 35% at SVIP by trading volume, and up to 40% at the invite-only Supernova level. Rebates are settled daily and every trade is traceable; rates are set by the exchange and may change. On Bybit a code can only be added within 14 days of registration and while no referrer is set; see adding an affiliate code on Bybit. Fees and volume estimates are in the Bybit fee rebate guide, VIP levels in Bybit VIP fee tiers, and already-bound accounts in the Bybit rebind guide.

FAQ

Does Bybit futures default to cross or isolated margin?

Bybit's guide says the order panel defaults to cross margin, 10x leverage and one-way mode. The margin mode applies to the whole Unified Trading Account; to cap a single position's loss at its margin, switch to isolated first.

Does Bybit charge a liquidation fee?

Bybit settles the whole position at the bankruptcy price: if the liquidation engine closes it at a better price, the remaining margin goes to the insurance fund. Whatever the fee label, liquidation costs you the entire initial margin.

Why does my cross-margin liquidation price keep changing?

In cross margin, liquidation is triggered when the whole account's maintenance margin rate reaches 100%, so the displayed liquidation price is only an estimate that moves with your other assets and positions.

What is the minimum BTCUSDT order on Bybit?

0.001 BTC with a notional of at least 5 USDT; at current prices 0.001 BTC is already above 5 USDT. Closing orders are exempt from the minimum notional.

When is Bybit funding charged, and what is the cap?

BTCUSDT settles every 8 hours at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC; on 2026-09-28 the official API showed a ±0.333% cap, and hitting it at settlement switches funding to hourly.

Does the rebate change my liquidation price?

No. Fees are charged at the listed rate when you trade, and rebates are settled back daily afterwards, so margin and liquidation price are unaffected.

Further reading

• Futures beginner exchange comparison
• Bybit copy trading guide
• Bybit API trading setup
• Binance vs Bybit fee rebate

Data verified: 2026-09-28