Forex Glossary
What Is Margin?
The amount reserved in your account to open and maintain a leveraged position.
Margin is the “deposit” for a leveraged position; if your margin level drops, you may face a margin call.
Risk warning. Leveraged forex trading carries high risk and in Türkiye may only be offered by SPK-authorised intermediaries; leverage is capped at 1:10 (half of that may apply if the initial margin at account opening is below TRY 50,000). This content is not investment advice; user statements belong to their authors.
Initial margin and maintenance margin
Margin is the amount reserved in your account to open and maintain a leveraged position. SPK regulation splits the margin structure into at least two: the **initial margin** needed to open, and the **maintenance margin** that must be preserved to keep it open.
Trading cannot begin before margin is posted. If you fall below maintenance margin you face a margin call; if margin is not topped up, the position may be closed.
Margin and leverage are two sides of one thing
As leverage rises, the margin required for the same position falls. The cap in Türkiye is 1:10; if your initial margin at account opening is below TRY 50,000, half of that ratio — 1:5 — may apply. Detail is in our 1:10 leverage cap article.
Opening a large position with little margin looks attractive, but the reverse holds too: the smaller the margin, the smaller the price move needed to close the position out. You can see the margin a trade requires in advance with our margin calculator.
Where is your margin held?
At SPK-authorised intermediaries, client margins must be tracked and reported per client, and collected margins are reported to the central clearing institution (Istanbul Settlement and Custody Bank). That means margin does not sit unrecorded in the firm's own account.
On an unauthorised platform there is no such reporting chain, and no authority through which you can verify where your money is. That is exactly where the difference begins. Check authorisation on the SPK-licensed companies list.
You cannot be asked for more than your margin
One of the least-known provisions: retail customers and elective professional customers may not be made to trade in a way that causes a loss exceeding the margin deposited. If market conditions do produce a loss beyond the margin, in the SPK's words that loss may not be demanded from those customers.
This protection applies only at SPK-authorised firms. An investor facing "your account went negative, settle your debt" should first verify whether the platform is authorised.