AquaFunded review.

Overview

TrueBroker is a free broker safety checker, and this page is our review of AquaFunded, scored 5.0 out of 10 across regulation, fees, platform, support and reviews. AquaFunded sells trading challenges and “instant funded” accounts rather than live brokerage accounts, and the firm’s own terms are explicit that no live trading or regulated financial activity is involved at any point.

Who actually operates AquaFunded

The site’s own footer splits the business across two entities. Aqua Funded FZCO, trading as AquaFunded, is given as the publisher of the site, registered in the IFZA free zone at Premises No.- 35882-001, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, UAE. A second entity, AquaFunded LTD, a Saint Lucia corporation quoting company number 2004-00597 and an address at The Sotheby Building, Rodney Bay, Gros-Islet, St. Lucia, is named as the party that “provides the simulated trading services advertised on www.aquafunded.com.” A third name, AquaFunds, is listed on the firm’s own about page as the holding company that owns AquaFunded. The futures product is sold under yet another name, AquaFutures (“Trade Futures with AquaFutures”), on the firm’s own accounts page. Four names behind one product is a lot for a client trying to work out who they are actually contracting with if something goes wrong.

What the registers show

We searched the Saint Lucia company registry’s free name search. “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC)” does appear on the Saint Lucia Registry of International Business Companies name search operated by Pinnacle St. Lucia, marked as an International Business Company. That free search does not publish a registration number, incorporation date or status, those sit behind a paid, account-only search, so the specific number 2004-00597 quoted in AquaFunded’s own terms was not independently verified by us. More importantly, an IBC registration is a company registration, not a licence to deal in forex or CFDs, and AquaFunded’s own terms confirm there is nothing to license: the Company “is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits,” and “does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” We also attempted to check the IFZA free zone registration for Aqua Funded FZCO in Dubai, but IFZA publishes no public searchable register, so that registration, a business-premises reference rather than a financial permission, is unverifiable from outside. No licences appear anywhere in the firm’s own material.

What AquaFunded’s marketing says versus what AquaFunded’s terms say

The root page markets phrases like “Trade with our Capital and keep 100% of the Profit” while the firm’s own terms, under the Education section, state: No live trading is provided directly by the Company… Traders who pass an assessment… shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account. Those two statements, published by the same firm, describe different things: one reads like access to live markets with real capital, the other confirms the funded account is a demo account. A trader relying on the marketing copy alone would not learn this from AquaFunded’s own pages without reading the terms.

Fees and the headline refund claim

AquaFunded’s homepage banner advertises “$283 for $100k Account”, but the pricing widget, read 24 Oct 2026, prices the cheapest 100K challenge, Two Step Pro, at $279 without a code ($181 with the HALLOWEEN code); its other pricing material starts from $14 for a $5,000 evaluation account, with instant-funded accounts (skipping the evaluation) priced from $60 for a $2,500 account. The firm’s pricing widget advertises these as “100% refundable” and, at the time of our check, ran a “Halloween Sale: 35% OFF + 200% Refund” promotion. The firm’s legal terms give the actual refund mechanism: the evaluation fee is refunded only after trader’s fourth successful profit-split payment, following completion of the Evaluation and entry into a written proprietary-trading agreement. The separate refund policy page states that once a purchase has been made and the evaluation credentials have been emailed to the customer, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… All sales are final. Read together, a trader who fails the challenge gets no refund of the fee paid; the “100% refundable” promise applies only much further down the line, after four profit-split payouts on a funded account.

Contract terms worth reading before paying AquaFunded

AquaFunded’s terms route any unresolved dispute to binding arbitration at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, with a single arbitrator seated in Dubai, and separately state that any court matter is “governed by the laws of the United Arab Emirates” and resolved “by the courts located in Dubai.” The terms also carry a class-action waiver: “CLASS ARBITRATIONS AND CLASS/REPRESENTATIVE/COLLECTIVE ACTIONS ARE NOT PERMITTED.” A chargeback clause lets the firm, if a trader disputes a card payment, recover from trader any amounts paid by Aqua Funded to trader… including but not limited to any and all profit split payments, and bills the trader for all costs incurred by Aqua Funded, including legal fees, win or lose. The terms also give AquaFunded discretion to terminate a trader’s account and forfeit fees paid if it decides, under its own list of “Prohibited Trading” strategies or a vaguely defined “Boom or Bust” risk-management standard, that the trader’s approach was improper.

Challenge rules and leverage

The firm’s pricing page lists per-tier rules: a Two Step Pro $100k challenge carries a $5,000 max daily loss and $10,000 max loss limit, a 90% profit split, and leverage of 1:100 during the challenge, falling to 1:50 once funded. A minimum trading-days requirement (3 days on Two Step models, 5 on Instant Pro) and a consistency rule (50% on Two Step Pro, 20% on Instant Pro) apply before any reward payout, on top of the loss limits.

Overview Table

Facts List

• AquaFunded sells simulated-trading challenges and instant-funded accounts; its own terms confirm funded traders operate in “a demo capital account,” not live markets.
• Two legal entities appear in AquaFunded’s own footer: Aqua Funded FZCO (Dubai free zone) as site operator, and AquaFunded LTD (Saint Lucia) as the stated provider of the simulated trading service.
• The Saint Lucia registry’s free name search confirmed an IBC listing for “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC),” but does not publish the registration number, so the quoted number 2004-00597 was not independently verified.
• The IFZA free zone registration for Aqua Funded FZCO cannot be checked against any public register, since IFZA publishes no searchable list.
• No financial licence appears anywhere in AquaFunded’s own material; its terms state it conducts no regulated activity and does not accept client deposits.
• Challenge fees start from $14 for a $5,000 evaluation account; the cheapest 100K challenge, Two Step Pro, cost $279 without a code in the pricing widget on 24 Oct 2026, while the homepage banner says $283.
• AquaFunded’s “100% refundable” fee claim applies only after a trader’s fourth successful profit-split payment on a funded account; failed challenges get no refund, per the firm’s own refund policy.
• Disputes are routed to arbitration in Dubai under UAE law, and the terms include a waiver of class or collective claims.
• A chargeback on a card payment lets AquaFunded claw back profit-split payments already paid out and bill the trader for its own legal costs, per its own terms.
• Profit split is fixed at 90% to the trader, with max daily loss and max loss limits set per account tier (for example $5,000/$10,000 on the Two Step Pro $100k tier).

Key Takeaways

AquaFunded scores 5 out of 10 overall, pulled down hard by a reviews score of 1.2 and a regulation score of 3.4, with fees (7.5) and platform (6.5) doing most of the lifting. The findings below are the ones that produced that split.

What the registers actually show

• We searched the Saint Lucia Registry of International Business Companies name search (Pinnacle St. Lucia) and confirmed that “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC)” is listed there, marked as an International Business Company. That free name search does not publish a registration number, incorporation date or status, those sit behind a paid, account only search, so the number 2004-00597 that AquaFunded’s own terms and site footer quote for this entity was not verified by us.
• An IBC listing is a company registration, not a licence to deal in forex or CFDs. Nothing in what we found gives AquaFunded LTD a financial services permission of any kind.
• IFZA, the Dubai free zone where AquaFunded’s operating entity Aqua Funded FZCO is registered under Premises No. 35882 to 001 according to the firm’s own pages, publishes no public searchable register. We attempted it and could not verify the registration independently; a company registered there may well exist, but the registration confers no financial services permission either way.
• AquaFunded’s site footer states that “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” No regulator, deposit protection or compensation scheme sits behind a client’s money on this firm’s own account of what it does.

What AquaFunded charges

• The firm’s root page prices challenge or evaluation fees from $14 for a $5k account and $283 for a $100k account, and from $60 for an instant funded $2,500 account, all described as a one time, “100% refundable” fee.
• The firm’s legal page sets out what that refund actually requires: the full evaluation fee is only returned after the trader’s fourth successful profit split payment, following completion of the evaluation and entry into a written proprietary trading agreement. The firm’s pricing widget page separately advertises a “Halloween Sale: 35% OFF + 200% Refund” using code HALLOWEEN, again under the banner “100% refundable fees,” without stating on that page the fourth payout condition that governs the refund.
• The firm’s legal page also states that if a trader files a chargeback, Aqua Funded may suspend the trader’s accounts and payments, recover any amounts already paid to the trader including profit split payments, and that the trader must cover all of the firm’s costs of defending the claim, including legal fees, whether the chargeback succeeds or not.
• The same legal page states that once a purchase is made and evaluation credentials are emailed, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… All sales are final, outside the separate fourth payout refund route.
• The root page advertises spreads “starting from 0.0” without naming the unit, and account tiers carry a fixed 90% profit split to the trader, with a 100% split available as a paid add on according to the accounts page.

What AquaFunded’s funded account terms actually say

• Its terms state plainly: No live trading is provided directly by the Company… Traders who pass an assessment… shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account. That sits alongside marketing lines on the same domain’s root page such as “Trade with our Capital and keep 100% of the Profit.”
• The pricing widget shows leverage of 1:100 during the Two Step challenge phases and 1:50 once funded on the same programmes, with Max Daily Loss and Max Loss limits of $5,000 and $10,000 on the Two Step Pro 100K tier, $4,000 and $12,000 on Elite, and $3,000 and $6,000 on Instant Pro.
• The same page sets a Consistency Rule, 50% on Two Step Pro and 20% on Instant Pro, that can disqualify a trader from reward payout if profit concentrates in a single trade or day beyond that share, even after the overall profit target is hit, plus a minimum trading days requirement of 3 days on Two Step models and 5 on Instant Pro.
• Its terms give the firm broad discretion to deny a withdrawal or terminate an account if it decides a trader has “abused margin availability” or not applied “an appropriate risk management strategy,” defined only by vague hallmarks such as excessive risk taking or a “Boom or Bust” approach, not a fixed objective rule.
• The same terms page states that if the firm detects “Prohibited Trading,” a defined list that includes exploiting pricing or platform errors and strategies marketed to pass challenges, the trader’s participation is terminated and “may include forfeiture of any fees paid to the Company.”
• Disputes under its terms go to binding arbitration before a single arbitrator at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, seated in Dubai, in English, with a class action waiver barring traders from joining a group claim; anything not resolved by arbitration falls under UAE law in Dubai’s courts.
• The terms give the firm the right to terminate a client’s access “at any time, without notice” and to change the terms unilaterally, with continued use of the site counted as acceptance of the revised terms, and the liability disclaimer rules out the firm’s responsibility for “ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER.”

Platforms, instruments and support

• The accounts page lists MetaTrader 5 as a trading platform, with cTrader available as a $15 add on on some challenge configurations, and Match Trade and Trade Locker both marked “Available” for the US.
• Forex, crypto and CFDs are marketed under the AquaFunded name on the accounts page, but futures are sold under a separate sub-brand, “Trade Futures with AquaFutures,” rather than under AquaFunded itself.
• Support channels listed on the firm’s own contact page are an email address, a Dubai office at the Algaroud Center and a Saint Lucia office at the Sotheby Building, plus a Discord community and, per the root page, social media and website chat.

Why the numbers do not all agree

• The site footer names two differently domiciled entities, Aqua Funded FZCO in Dubai, which publishes the site, and AquaFunded LTD in Saint Lucia, which it says “provides the simulated trading services,” plus a separate reference to a parent company, AquaFunds. Which entity a paying client actually contracts with is not resolved by these pages.
• The accounts page claims “Join 330,000+ Traders” on the root page against “Join 225,000+ Forex Traders” on the forex specific page, and the about page’s “Over $1.68 Billion in Funding Provided” sits beside the root page’s separate “$8,500,000+” total rewards paid figure, two different measures that a reader could easily conflate.
• The root page’s “Get paid in 24 hours or we pay you an extra $1000” guarantee carries no stated mechanism or terms for making that claim on the pages we read.

Our reviews score of 1.2 comes from Trustpilot alone: the AquaFunded Trustpilot profile rates the firm 2.1 stars across 1,191 reviews, and Trustpilot shows its own warning on that profile that it found fabricated reviews, which costs 1.5 points under our rules (checked 24 Oct 2026). AquaFunded’s own apps on the App Store and Google Play show no ratings yet.

Licenses & Regulation

AquaFunded trades under two legal names, and the two do different jobs in the footer. Aqua Funded FZCO, trading as AquaFunded, is listed as the company publishing the site, based at Premises No.- 35882-001, IFZA Business Park, DDP, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai. AquaFunded LTD, a Saint Lucia corporation registered under number 2004-00597 at The Sotheby Building, Ground Floor, Rodney Village, Rodney Bay, Gros-Islet, is named as the entity that “provides the simulated trading services advertised on www.aquafunded.com.” A third name, AquaFunds, appears on the About page as the holding company said to own AquaFunded, and the futures product is sold under yet another label, AquaFutures, rather than AquaFunded itself. None of these pages say which of the two operating entities a paying client actually contracts with, which matters if a challenge fee or a payout dispute ever needs to be chased against a specific company.

What the Saint Lucia registry shows for AquaFunded

We searched the Saint Lucia Registry of International Business Companies name search (Pinnacle St. Lucia). “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC)” is on that register, marked as an International Business Company. That confirms the company exists and is incorporated in Saint Lucia. It does not confirm the number 2004-00597 quoted on AquaFunded’s own terms and contact pages: the free name search does not publish a registration number, incorporation date or status, those sit behind a paid, account-only search, so that specific figure was not verified against the register. More to the point, an IBC registration is a company registration, not a licence to deal in forex or CFDs, and the register carries no financial-services permission of any kind.

What the Dubai free zone registration does and does not confirm

Aqua Funded FZCO’s premises reference, Premises No.- 35882-001 at IFZA / Dubai Silicon Oasis, sits in a free zone that publishes no public searchable register. We attempted to check it anyway and found no list to search against. A company registered through IFZA’s free zone structure can exist without that registration being independently checkable from outside, and in any case a free-zone business registration of this kind confers no financial-services permission, so it would not tell a reader anything about trading oversight even if it could be looked up.

No financial licence anywhere in the evidence

Nothing in what we reviewed shows either AquaFunded LTD or Aqua Funded FZCO holding a licence from any financial regulator. AquaFunded’s own site-wide footer disclaimer says as much directly: “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” The terms reviewed on the firm’s own pages go further, stating that “no live trading is provided directly by the Company” and that traders who pass an assessment “shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account.” That sits uneasily against marketing lines on the same domain, such as “Trade with our Capital and keep 100% of the Profit,” but the firm’s own legal text is unambiguous: no client deposits are accepted, no regulated activity is carried out, and the product is a simulated performance evaluation rather than a brokerage account. No financial regulator, deposit protection scheme or compensation scheme applies to money paid for a challenge, because the firm is not conducting activity any regulator would oversee.

What a dispute with AquaFunded would actually look like

The terms we read set the venue for any dispute far from most clients. Disputes go to binding arbitration at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, before a single arbitrator, seated in Dubai, in English, and the terms carry a class action waiver stating that “CLASS ARBITRATIONS AND CLASS/REPRESENTATIVE/COLLECTIVE ACTIONS ARE NOT PERMITTED.” Anything not resolved through arbitration falls to the courts of Dubai under UAE law. For a client outside the UAE, that is an expensive and unfamiliar forum to pursue, and the terms also require the client to indemnify the Company for its legal fees arising from the client’s use of the site, on top of a broad liability disclaimer that rules out the firm’s responsibility for “ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER.”

Taken together: we confirmed AquaFunded LTD’s existence as a Saint Lucia IBC on the Saint Lucia registry, could not verify its stated registration number against that same register, could not check the Dubai free-zone registration at all because no public register exists for it, and found no financial licence of any kind in the material we reviewed. The firm’s own terms describe its product as simulated trading rather than a regulated brokerage relationship, which is the frame a reader should hold onto regardless of how the marketing copy elsewhere on the site describes it.

How to Trade

AquaFunded sells access to a trading challenge, not a brokerage account. Its own terms and conditions state plainly that “no live trading is provided directly by the Company” and that traders who pass an assessment “shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account.” The site’s footer disclaimer goes further: “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” Marketing copy on the same pages talks about trading “with our Capital,” but the terms are the binding document, and they describe a simulated account, not real capital placed in live markets.

Instruments and platforms AquaFunded lists

Across the pages we read, AquaFunded groups its tradable markets as Forex, Indices and Metals, alongside separate top level categories for CFDs, Crypto and Futures. The futures product is sold under a distinct sub-brand name, AquaFutures (“Trade Futures with AquaFutures”), rather than under the AquaFunded name itself, which raises the question of which entity a futures client is actually dealing with. For forex specifically, the firm’s own accounts page qualifies the offer: currency pairs are tradable “as long as the currency pairs are listed on the platform,” so the practical instrument list depends on the platform chosen, not a fixed AquaFunded catalogue.

The accounts page lists MetaTrader 5 as an available platform, with cTrader offered as a paid add on for $15 on some challenge configurations. Match Trade and Trade Locker are also listed, each marked “Available” with a United States flag next to it. A separate platforms page shows a navigation tab labelled “TV,” which we are treating as an unconfirmed abbreviation for TradingView rather than a stated fact, since the page text never spells it out.

How the challenge and funded stages work

AquaFunded’s root page describes a tiered product: a One Step, Two Step or Three Step Evaluation Challenge, starting from $14 for a $5,000 account, in which a trader must hit a profit target without breaching a maximum daily loss or maximum overall loss limit before being moved to a funded stage. Leverage on these challenge accounts is given as up to 1:100 on the root page, and the pricing widget for the Two Step models shows 1:100 during the challenge, falling to 1:50 once the account is funded. So a funded account has half the leverage the challenge allowed, which is worth noting before sizing positions after the switch.

Specific published configurations illustrate how tight those limits are. The Two Step Pro 100K challenge carries a maximum daily loss of $5,000 and a maximum loss of $10,000, with a minimum of three trading days and a profit target of $10,000 in Phase 1 and $5,000 in Phase 2. The Two Step Elite 100K carries a maximum daily loss of $4,000 and a maximum loss of $12,000. The Instant Pro 100K, which skips the evaluation and funds on demand, carries a maximum daily loss of $3,000 and a maximum loss of $6,000, with a minimum of five trading days. Each of these also carries a consistency rule, 50% on the Two Step Pro model and 20% on Instant Pro, under which profit concentrated in a single trade or day beyond that share of the total can disqualify a trader from a reward payout even after the overall profit target has been met.

Alongside the step challenges, AquaFunded sells an Instant Funding account, marketed as “Aqua Trader,” starting from $60 for a $2,500 account. It skips the evaluation entirely, gives on demand payouts, and some tiers show “None” as the stated maximum daily loss. The profit split across the challenge and instant products defaults to 90% to the trader and 10% retained by AquaFunded, with a 100% profit split available as a paid add on. Bi-weekly payouts apply once a challenge account is funded.

Rules that can end a position or an account

AquaFunded’s terms list a set of “Prohibited Trading” strategies, including exploiting pricing or platform errors, trading on non-public or insider information, front-running, strategies marketed specifically to pass challenges, arbitraging accounts, and end of day gap trading. The terms state that if prohibited trading is detected, “your participation in the program will be terminated and may include forfeiture of any fees paid to the Company,” at the firm’s own discretion. The terms separately give AquaFunded the right to terminate an account or deny a withdrawal if it decides a trader has abused margin availability or failed to apply “an appropriate risk management strategy,” defined only by vague examples such as a “Boom or Bust” approach, rather than by an objective numeric rule.

Traders are also restricted to one active account per challenge level without prior written approval, and the terms bar a trader from being a principal, owner, or otherwise directly associated with a competing proprietary trading firm while trading with AquaFunded. Because the underlying product is simulated rather than a live brokerage relationship, none of this sits under a financial regulator’s dispute process. Disputes instead run through binding arbitration at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, with a single arbitrator, seated in Dubai and conducted in English, and the terms carry a class action waiver barring traders from joining together to bring a group claim. Any matter not resolved through arbitration falls under UAE law and the courts of Dubai.

Account Types

AquaFunded sells two basic routes into a funded account: pay for an evaluation challenge and pass it, or pay more up front to skip the challenge and get “instant” funding. Both are described on the firm’s own pages as access to a demo capital account, not a real brokerage account, a point the terms and conditions make explicit even where the marketing copy reads otherwise.

Evaluation challenges

The root site advertises one, two and three step evaluation challenges starting from $14 for a $5,000 account, and quotes $283 for a $100,000 account, though the pricing widget showed $279 for the cheapest 100K challenge on 24 Oct 2026. A trader has to hit a profit target without breaching a maximum daily loss or maximum overall loss limit before being moved to a funded account. The pricing widget breaks out specific parameters for the $100,000 tier: the “Pro” two step model sets a maximum daily loss of $5,000 and a maximum loss of $10,000, a minimum of 3 trading days, a profit target of $10,000 in phase one and $5,000 in phase two, and a consistency rule set at 50%. The “Elite” two step model at the same $100,000 size sets a tighter maximum daily loss of $4,000 and a maximum loss of $12,000, with profit targets of $8,000 and $5,000 across the two phases. The pricing widget lists leverage of 1:100 in the challenge rules and 1:50 in the funded and reward rules for these two step programmes, so a funded account trades at half the leverage of the challenge.

Instant funding

Branded “Aqua Trader” on the accounts page, this route skips the evaluation entirely: a trader pays and gets a funded account straight away, from $60 for a $2,500 account. The accounts page describes payouts on demand for this tier and some configurations showing no maximum daily loss figure at all. The pricing widget’s instant “Pro” $100,000 model, by contrast, does carry limits: a maximum daily loss of $3,000, a maximum loss of $6,000, a minimum of 5 trading days, and a consistency rule of 20%.

Profit split and fees AquaFunded charges

The pricing widget fixes the profit split at 90% to the trader across the configurations it itemizes, with the accounts page noting a 100% profit split add-on is available on top of that default. Rewards are paid bi-weekly on the challenge routes and on demand on the instant route, per the accounts page.

The challenge or instant account purchase is described on the root page as a one-time fee that is “100% refundable.” The actual refund mechanism sits in the legal terms rather than the pricing page: the evaluation fee is refunded in full only after a trader’s fourth successful profit split payment, and only once the trader has completed the evaluation and entered into a written proprietary trading agreement. The separate refund policy on the legal page states that once a purchase is made and evaluation credentials have been emailed, “no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted” and “all sales are final”, a provision that applies to traders who fail the challenge rather than to the fourth-payout refund route. The pricing widget also runs a “Halloween Sale” discount of 35% off plus a “200% Refund” advertised under the code HALLOWEEN, which took that cheapest 100K challenge from $279 to $181, again without stating the conditions attached to the refund.

The legal terms add a chargeback clause: if a trader disputes a card payment, AquaFunded can suspend the trader’s accounts and payments and recover from the trader any amounts already paid out, including profit split payments, and the trader is made to cover all of the firm’s costs of defending the chargeback, including legal fees, whether the chargeback succeeds or not.

What a client is actually buying

The site’s own footer disclaimer states that the “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” The terms and conditions, under a section headed Education, go further: No live trading is provided directly by the Company… Traders who pass an assessment… shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account. That sits alongside marketing lines elsewhere on the same domain, such as “Trade with our Capital and keep 100% of the Profit,” which describe the product in different terms than the firm’s own disclaimer does.

Futures accounts are sold under a separate brand name, AquaFutures (“Trade Futures with AquaFutures”), rather than under the AquaFunded name used for the rest of the lineup, on the accounts page.

Negative Balance Protection

AquaFunded’s terms and conditions say plainly that trading happens on a demo account: No live trading is provided directly by the Company… Traders who pass an assessment… shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account. That sentence sits in the Education section of the terms we read, and it controls what the firm’s loss limits actually apply to. A trader’s “account” breach is a breach on a simulation, not a real brokerage position carrying real market risk.

The loss limits AquaFunded sets on its challenges

The fee page we read sets a Max Daily Loss and a Max Loss figure per account size, and the two numbers differ by challenge tier. On the Two Step Pro 100K challenge the page lists a Max Daily Loss of $5,000 and a Max Loss of $10,000. The Two Step Elite 100K tier tightens the daily figure to $4,000 while allowing a larger overall Max Loss of $12,000. The Instant Pro 100K tier, which skips the evaluation step, sets a Max Daily Loss of $3,000 and a Max Loss of $6,000. The Two Step Standard 100K tier shows a Max Loss of $8,000 on the same page, with no daily figure itemized there.

The same fee page lists the challenge phase leverage as 1:100 across these Two Step models, while the funded phase of the same programmes is shown at 1:50.

There is also a Minimum Trading Days rule attached to the loss structure. The Two Step Elite model requires 3 trading days before the challenge can be passed, the Two Step Pro model sets no such minimum, and the Instant Pro model requires 5, so a trader on the tiers with a minimum cannot clear the evaluation purely by hitting the profit target early, separately from whether a loss limit has been touched.

What a breach actually costs at AquaFunded

The contract terms we read do not describe the breach itself as costing a fee refund in cash terms; instead, the refund policy on AquaFunded’s own legal page states that once a purchase has been made and the evaluation credentials have been emailed to the customer, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… all sales are final. Combined with the loss limits on the fee page, that means a trader who breaches the Max Daily Loss or Max Loss threshold on a challenge loses the one time fee paid for that challenge outright, since the only refund path the legal page describes is the separate 100% evaluation fee refund, and that refund is paid only after the trader’s fourth successful profit split payment, following completion of the Evaluation and entry into a written proprietary trading agreement. A trader who fails the loss limit before ever reaching funded status, let alone a fourth payout, has no route back to that refund under the terms we read.

The fee page separately advertises these same one time fees as “100% refundable” and runs a “Halloween Sale: 35% OFF + 200% Refund” headline, using the promotional code HALLOWEEN. That pricing widget does not state the conditions under which the fee is refunded, so the refund language on the marketing page and the actual refund mechanism in the legal page’s fourth payout clause describe two different things: a headline refund claim on the page selling the challenge, and a narrow, late stage refund route in the document governing the contract.

Consistency rules layered on top of the loss limits

Beyond the straightforward daily and overall loss caps, the fee page applies a Consistency Rule to reward payouts, set at 50% on the Two Step Pro tier and 20% on the Instant Pro tier. Under this rule, a trader who reaches the profit target without ever breaching a loss limit can still be disqualified from the reward payout if too much of that profit came from a single trade or a single day relative to the stated percentage. This sits alongside, not instead of, the Max Daily Loss and Max Loss figures, so a trader is managing three separate thresholds on the same account rather than one.

Discretion AquaFunded reserves over margin use and risk management

Separately from the numeric loss limits, the terms we read give AquaFunded broad discretion to intervene even when no numeric limit has been breached. The terms state that the firm reserves the right to terminate an account or agreement or deny a withdrawal request if it is deemed a customer has abused margin availability… or not applied an appropriate risk management strategy, and define that only by example “hallmarks” such as excessive risk taking or a “Boom or Bust” approach. No objective threshold accompanies that clause in the terms we read, so a trader staying inside the stated Max Daily Loss and Max Loss figures is not thereby guaranteed a payout; the firm can still characterize the trading style itself as a reason to withhold one. The terms also list a “Prohibited Trading” category covering strategies “marketed to pass challenges” and arbitraging accounts among other practices, and state that where Prohibited Trading is found, “your participation in the program will be terminated and may include forfeiture of any fees paid to the Company,” again at the firm’s own discretion rather than tied to a loss figure.

No deposit, no negative balance in the ordinary sense

AquaFunded’s site wide disclaimer states that the “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” Because the money at risk is the one time challenge fee rather than a funded deposit sitting in a trading account, the loss limits described on the fee page function as rules that end the simulation and forfeit that fee, not as a mechanism that could leave a client owing AquaFunded money beyond what they already paid.

Trading Instruments

AquaFunded sells challenge accounts under a “Choose your Account: CFDs / Futures” structure, and the entity split matters here as much as the instrument list. The firm’s own platform page states that the futures product is sold under a distinct sub-brand, “AquaFutures” (“Trade Futures with AquaFutures”), not AquaFunded, which leaves it unclear whether a futures buyer is contracting with the same company as a CFD or forex buyer.

What AquaFunded’s own pages say traders can access

The accounts page groups tradable assets under “Forex, Indices, Metals,” and separately promotes “Trade Forex with AquaFunded” and “Trade Crypto with AquaFunded.” Top-level navigation on the platforms page lists CFDs, Futures, Crypto and Forex as product categories, with a second nav variant showing “Forex Futures TV” in place of “CFDs Crypto Futures TV.” A “TV” tab sits in that navigation alongside the CFD/Crypto/Futures/Forex categories; the page text never spells out what it stands for, so we are not treating it as a confirmed TradingView integration, only as an unconfirmed label in the nav.

On forex specifically, the accounts page qualifies the offering rather than listing pairs: currency pairs are available “as long as the currency pairs are listed on the platform,” which ties the actual tradable list to whatever each execution platform carries rather than to anything AquaFunded itself publishes.

Platforms the challenge runs on

AquaFunded’s accounts page lists MetaTrader 5 as an available platform, with cTrader offered as a paid add-on (+$15) on some challenge configurations. The same page also lists Match Trade and Trade Locker, both carrying an “Available 🇺🇸” marker next to them, which on its face reads as a geographic qualifier limiting those two platforms to US-facing traders, though the page does not explain the marker further.

What’s actually funded: simulated capital, not live market access

The instrument list has to be read against AquaFunded’s own terms of use, which state plainly: No live trading is provided directly by the Company… Traders who pass an assessment… shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account. The site-wide footer disclaimer goes further: “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” Whatever instruments appear in the account selector, a funded AquaFunded trader is not placing orders in a live forex, CFD or futures market with the firm’s capital behind them; they are trading a demo account whose performance determines a payout. That sits awkwardly next to marketing lines on the same domain promising to “Trade with our Capital and keep 100% of the Profit,” a phrase the terms of use directly contradict.

Leverage differs by phase, and by account type

The pricing widget AquaFunded publishes shows leverage of 1:100 during the Two Step challenge phases, falling to 1:50 once the same programme reaches funded status. The root page separately advertises leverage up to 1:100, with some models shown at 1:50, so a trader comparing the challenge-phase number against the funded number should not assume they are the same figure for a given account. On the Instant Funding (“Aqua Trader”) route, some tiers show “None” for maximum daily loss, a parameter that is otherwise a fixed dollar figure (for example $3,000 on the Instant Pro $100k tier) on the step-based challenges.

Account tiers and what they gate

AquaFunded’s pricing widget breaks its $100k CFD tier into at least five configurations: Two Step Pro, Two Step Elite, Two Step Standard, Instant Pro and One Step, each carrying its own Max Daily Loss, Max Loss, minimum trading days and consistency-rule figures rather than one uniform set of limits across the product. The Two Step Pro 100K tier, for instance, pairs a $5,000 max daily loss and $10,000 max loss with a 50% consistency rule and a profit split fixed at 90% to the trader; the Instant Pro 100K tier pairs tighter daily-loss limits ($3,000) with a lower 20% consistency rule and payouts on demand rather than on a bi-weekly cycle. None of these limits are instrument-specific on the pages we read; they govern the account as a whole regardless of whether the trader is positioned in forex, indices, metals or crypto.

Payment for access, not for the asset itself

The only payment method named on AquaFunded’s accounts page for buying into a challenge or funded account is “Digital Currencies,” listed without specific currencies or network details. That fee buys entry into the simulated account structure described above, not a brokerage account holding any of the listed instruments directly.

Education & Analysis

AquaFunded names four trading platforms across the pages we fetched: MetaTrader 5, cTrader, Match Trade and Trade Locker. The site’s accounts page lists MetaTrader 5 as a base platform, then shows cTrader as a paid add-on costing an extra $15 on some challenge configurations. Match Trade and Trade Locker both appear with an “Available 🇺🇸” marker next to them, which the page does not explain, so it is not clear from this evidence whether that marker restricts those two platforms to US-based traders, confirms availability for US traders specifically, or means something else entirely. A separate platforms page also shows a nav tab labelled “TV” alongside tabs for CFDs, Crypto, Futures and Forex. Nothing on that page spells out what TV stands for, so we are treating it as an unconfirmed abbreviation rather than reporting TradingView as a confirmed platform.

What AquaFunded’s own pages say about spreads and execution

The root page advertises spreads “starting from 0.0”, without stating a currency pair, an instrument class, or whether that figure applies to a particular account tier or platform. No pip or basis-point unit is given either. Account-tier tables on the pricing widget page spell out leverage, daily and overall loss limits, minimum trading days and consistency rules in detail for several challenge configurations, but none of the pages we read publish a spread table broken out by instrument.

Instrument coverage shown on AquaFunded’s site

The accounts and platforms pages list Forex, Crypto, Futures and CFDs as tradable categories. Forex and Crypto both carry an AquaFunded-branded tagline (“Trade Forex with AquaFunded”, “Trade Crypto with AquaFunded”), while the futures offering is marketed under a different name: “Trade Futures with AquaFutures”. The accounts page qualifies the forex offering by noting that currency pairs are available “as long as the currency pairs are listed on the platform”, which ties actual pair availability to whichever of the four platforms a trader is using rather than guaranteeing a fixed pair list. Indices and Metals appear only as a grouped heading alongside Forex on the accounts page, with no further detail on which specific indices or metals are offered.

Leverage figures differ between challenge and funded phases

The pricing widget gives leverage as 1:100 during the Two Step challenge phases and 1:50 once a trader reaches funded status. The root page separately states a leverage range up to 1:100 (some models 1:50) for the evaluation challenge in general. The Max Daily Loss and Max Loss limits stay fixed dollar amounts across both phases, so a trader who passes has half the leverage to work with against the same loss limits once funded.

The futures sub-brand and what that means for which entity a client deals with

Futures trading is sold under the name AquaFutures rather than AquaFunded, on the same accounts page that otherwise brands forex and crypto trading as AquaFunded products. The pages we fetched do not say whether AquaFutures is a separate legal entity, a trading name of one of the two companies named in the footer (Aqua Funded FZCO in Dubai, or AquaFunded LTD in Saint Lucia), or something else. We note this because the footer itself already shows two differently domiciled companies attached to the AquaFunded brand, and a third name attached specifically to futures adds to the question of which entity a client is actually contracting with for any given product.

Platform-level terms that bind a trader

AquaFunded’s terms, read directly rather than summarized, list a set of “Prohibited Trading” strategies that apply regardless of which of the four platforms a trader uses: exploiting pricing or platform errors, trading on non-public or insider information, front-running, strategies marketed specifically to pass challenges, arbitraging accounts, and end-of-day gap trading. The terms state that if Prohibited Trading is detected, “your participation in the program will be terminated and may include forfeiture of any fees paid to the Company.” Separately, the terms give AquaFunded the right to terminate an account or agreement or deny a withdrawal request if it is deemed a customer has abused margin availability… or not applied an appropriate risk management strategy, defining that only by example “hallmarks” such as a “Boom or Bust” approach, rather than by an objective, checkable rule. Because this discretion sits on top of the account’s platform-level risk settings, how a trade is executed on MetaTrader 5, cTrader, Match Trade or Trade Locker is not the only thing that determines whether a payout is paid; AquaFunded’s own judgment about the trading style used on that platform is also a factor.

What is advertised but not shown on these pages

The site tells traders to “Trade with our Capital and keep 100% of the Profit,” language that sits alongside charting and platform branding elsewhere on the same domain. Read against AquaFunded’s own terms, which state plainly that No live trading is provided directly by the Company… Traders who pass an assessment… shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account, the platforms and charting tools a trader connects to are running against a simulated account rather than a live market feed tied to the firm’s own capital. None of the pages we fetched publish a demo-versus-live specification sheet, a server/VPS offering, an API, or automated-trading (EA/bot) policy for any of the four platforms, so we are not able to report on those beyond what is listed above.

Special Offers

AquaFunded’s pricing page runs a live discount front and center: a “Halloween Sale” offering 35% off the challenge fee plus a “200% Refund,” applied with the code HALLOWEEN and described as limited time. On the cheapest 100K challenge, Two Step Pro, the widget showed $279 without a code and $181 with it on 24 Oct 2026. The same page describes the underlying fee structure as “100% refundable,” and separately AquaFunded’s homepage lists challenge fees starting from $14 for a $5k account, $283 for a $100k account, and from $60 for an instant-funded $2,500 account, all presented as one-time and 100% refundable.

What the 200% refund and 35% discount actually cover

The pricing page that carries the Halloween offer does not state, on that page, the conditions under which a trader actually receives the 200% refund or the underlying 100% refund it is layered on top of. It names the percentage and the code; it does not say whether the refund applies to a trader who fails the evaluation, only to one who reaches a funded payout, or something else again.

How AquaFunded’s refund promise actually works, per its legal page

AquaFunded’s legal/refund policy page sets out the mechanism the pricing page leaves out. The evaluation fee is refunded in full, but only after the trader’s fourth successful profit-split payment, and only once the trader has completed the evaluation and entered a written proprietary-trading agreement with the firm. That is four separate payout cycles on a funded account before the original challenge fee comes back, not a refund triggered by the purchase, the discount code, or even reaching funded status on its own.

The same legal page states a separate rule for anyone who doesn’t get that far: Once a purchase has been made and the evaluation credentials have been emailed to the customer, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… All sales are final. Read against the “100% refundable” language on the pricing and home pages, the practical position is that the fee is recoverable only by trading a funded account through four profit-split payouts, not by requesting money back after an unsuccessful or abandoned challenge.

The chargeback clause sits behind the same refund language

AquaFunded’s legal page also covers what happens if a trader tries to get the fee back through their card issuer instead of through the firm’s own process. If a trader files a chargeback, AquaFunded may suspend the trader’s accounts and payments and recover from trader any amounts paid by Aqua Funded to trader… including but not limited to any and all profit split payments, and the trader is made responsible for all of the firm’s costs of defending the claim, including legal fees, win or lose. A trader weighing a chargeback as a shortcut around the four-payout refund condition is contracting into a clause that can claw back profits already paid and bill them for the firm’s lawyers regardless of the outcome.

The $1,000 payout-speed guarantee

AquaFunded’s homepage separately advertises “Get paid in 24 hours or we pay you an extra $1000.” The homepage states the guarantee itself; it does not set out, on that page, how a trader would claim the $1,000 or what would count as a missed 24-hour window.

Scale claims attached to the offers

AquaFunded’s about page states the firm has provided “Over $1.68 Billion in Funding Provided,” while its homepage separately states “$8,500,000+” in a total-rewards-paid figure. These are two different figures for two different things, capital allocated against one page and profits paid out against another, and the discount and refund offers above sit alongside both without either page tying the offers to one number or the other.

Opening an Account

Opening an account with AquaFunded means buying one of two challenge products: the One-Step, Two-Step or Three-Step Evaluation Challenge, or the “Aqua Trader” Instant Funding route that skips the evaluation and gives immediate access to a funded account. The firm’s homepage gives the Evaluation Challenge fee as starting from $14 for a $5,000 account and $283 for a $100,000 account, while Instant Funding starts from $60 for a $2,500 account. A client simply picks an account size and challenge type, pays the one-time fee, and receives evaluation credentials by email. The pricing widget also shows a “Halloween Sale” headline of 35% off plus a “200% Refund”, marketed under the same “100% refundable fees” language used elsewhere, though the page does not set out when that refund actually applies.

Who AquaFunded’s terms say can’t open one

The general terms set a minimum age of eighteen to use the service, but a separate clause for EU and UK residents lowers that to sixteen: “You may not use any Site if you are under the age of 16.” The terms also warn that “the products referred to on Sites may only be available in the territory to which that Site is directed and may not be available in your country,” without naming which countries are excluded. A trader cannot be “a principal, owner, or otherwise directly associated with a competing proprietary trading firm” while trading with AquaFunded, and is limited to one active account per challenge level unless the firm gives prior written approval. The terms also list a set of “Prohibited Trading” strategies, including exploiting pricing or platform errors, trading on non-public information, front-running, strategies marketed specifically to pass challenges, arbitraging accounts, and end-of-day gap trading; the terms state that if prohibited trading is detected, the client’s “participation in the program will be terminated and may include forfeiture of any fees paid to the Company.”

What AquaFunded’s terms say the client is actually buying

The terms describe the product very differently from the marketing copy around it. Under “Education,” the terms state: No live trading is provided directly by the Company… Traders who pass an assessment… shall be allocated capital to trade in a demo capital account. The site-wide footer disclaimer goes further: “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” Both statements sit on pages that elsewhere promise to “Trade with our Capital and keep 100% of the Profit.” No financial regulator oversees this activity under either description, and the register checks here could not establish that one does: the Saint Lucia company registry’s free name search confirmed “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC)” as an International Business Company, but that free search does not publish a registration number, incorporation date or status, so the 2004-00597 number quoted in the terms was not itself verified, and an IBC registration is a company registration rather than a licence to deal in forex or CFDs. IFZA, where Aqua Funded FZCO is registered in Dubai, publishes no public searchable register at all, so that registration cannot be checked from outside either.

Which entity a client is actually signing up with

The footer of AquaFunded’s own pages names two different companies. Aqua Funded FZCO, registered at IFZA Business Park, DDP, Premises No.- 35882-001, Dubai Silicon Oasis, publishes the site. AquaFunded LTD, a Saint Lucia corporation at The Sotheby Building, Rodney Bay, Gros-Islet, is named as the entity that “provides the simulated trading services advertised on www.aquafunded.com.” A third name, AquaFunds, is referenced as the holding company that owns AquaFunded. The pages don’t say which of these a paying client is actually contracting with.

Getting the fee back, and what it costs to try

AquaFunded’s legal terms tie the “100% refundable” fee to a specific sequence: the refund of the initial evaluation fee is paid only after trader’s fourth successful profit-split payment, following completion of the Evaluation and entry into a written proprietary-trading agreement. Outside that path, the refund policy is blunt: Once a purchase has been made and the evaluation credentials have been emailed to the customer, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… All sales are final. If a trader disputes the charge instead, the terms state that AquaFunded may suspend the trader’s accounts and payments and recover from trader any amounts paid by Aqua Funded to trader… including but not limited to any and all profit split payments, and the trader must additionally cover all costs incurred by Aqua Funded, including legal fees, in defending the chargeback, win or lose.

How AquaFunded’s terms can end an account

Once an account exists, the terms give AquaFunded wide latitude to close it. The company “reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate your access to this Site and the related services or any portion thereof at any time, without notice.” Separately, under “Trading Styles; Risk Management,” the terms let AquaFunded terminate an account or agreement or deny a withdrawal request if it is deemed a customer has abused margin availability… or not applied an appropriate risk management strategy, defined only by vague “hallmarks” such as excessive risk-taking or a “Boom or Bust” approach, rather than a fixed numeric rule. On the challenge itself, the pricing page sets objective hurdles that must be cleared before any of this becomes relevant: minimum trading days (three on the Two-Step models, five on Instant Pro), Max Daily Loss and Max Loss limits that vary by tier (for example $5,000/$10,000 on the Two-Step Pro $100,000 account), and a Consistency Rule (50% on Two-Step Pro, 20% on Instant Pro) that can disqualify a client from a reward payout even after the overall profit target is hit.

Deposits & Withdrawals

AquaFunded doesn’t take a client deposit in the ordinary broker sense. The firm’s own site-wide disclaimer says plainly that the “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading.” What changes hands is a one-time fee to buy access to a challenge or an instant-funded account, and what comes back out, if anything, is a share of simulated profit. The rails, fees and discretion around that cycle are set out below from the firm’s own pages and legal documents.

What it costs to get into an AquaFunded challenge

AquaFunded’s own pricing copy gives the evaluation fee as from $14 for $5k account; $283 for $100k account; from $60 for an instant funded $2,500 account, billed once and described as 100% refundable. A separate pricing widget on the firm’s site runs a “Halloween Sale: 35% OFF + 200% Refund” promotion under the code HALLOWEEN, again marketed as “100% refundable fees.” That page doesn’t set out the conditions under which the fee is actually refunded, so the headline refund language there can’t be taken at face value without the terms covered below. On the payment side, the firm’s accounts page lists Digital Currencies as a payment option for buying a challenge or funded account.

How “100% refundable” actually works

The legal terms spell out what the refund promise means in practice, and it is not a refund on request. The fee is returned only after trader’s fourth successful profit-split payment, following completion of the Evaluation and entry into a written proprietary-trading agreement. In other words, a trader has to pass the challenge, sign the trading agreement, and collect four separate profit-split payouts before the original fee comes back. For anyone who doesn’t get that far, the same legal page is direct: Once a purchase has been made and the evaluation credentials have been emailed to the customer, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… All sales are final. A failed or abandoned challenge keeps the fee.

Disputing the charge instead makes things worse for the client. The chargeback clause lets Aqua Funded suspend the trader’s accounts and payments and recover from trader any amounts paid by Aqua Funded to trader… including but not limited to any and all profit split payments, and separately bills the trader for all costs incurred by Aqua Funded, including legal fees in defending the claim, win or lose.

Getting money out of an AquaFunded account

Both the account pages and the pricing widget put the standard profit split at 90% to the trader, 10% to the firm, with a 100% profit-split add-on available on top of the base fee. Payout cadence differs by product: the Evaluation Challenge accounts pay out bi-weekly once funded, while the Instant Funding (“Aqua Trader”) tier is marketed as paying “Rewards On Demand” instead of on a fixed cycle. The root page also carries a “Get paid in 24 hours or we pay you an extra $1000” guarantee; the pages we fetched don’t say how a trader would actually claim that extra $1,000 or what counts as a missed deadline, so the guarantee’s mechanism isn’t something we can verify from what’s published.

Where AquaFunded can withhold or claw back a payout

Reaching a funded account doesn’t settle the matter. The terms give the firm broad, subjectively defined grounds to deny a withdrawal: it reserves the right to terminate an account or agreement or deny a withdrawal request if it is deemed a customer has abused margin availability… or not applied an appropriate risk management strategy, with examples limited to vague “hallmarks” such as a “Boom or Bust” trading style. Separately, if a trader is found to have engaged in any of the terms’ listed “Prohibited Trading” strategies, “your participation in the program will be terminated and may include forfeiture of any fees paid to the Company.”

The challenge rules themselves set the thresholds that put a payout at risk before discretion ever comes into it. The pricing widget gives Max Daily Loss / Max Loss limits of $5,000 / $10,000 on the Two Step Pro $100k challenge, $4,000 / $12,000 on the Elite variant, and $3,000 / $6,000 on Instant Pro; breaching either fails the challenge outright. A Consistency Rule of 50% on Two Step Pro and 20% on Instant Pro can disqualify a trader from the reward payout even after the profit target is hit, if too much of the profit came from one trade or one day.

Which entity is actually on the other end of a refund or payout claim

The footer of AquaFunded’s pages names two different companies. Aqua Funded FZCO, registered at IFZA Business Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis (Premises No.- 35882-001), publishes the site, while AquaFunded LTD, a Saint Lucia company numbered 2004-00597, is the entity stated to actually provide the simulated trading services advertised on www.aquafunded.com. We searched the Saint Lucia Registry of International Business Companies and found “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC)” listed there as an International Business Company, confirming the company exists under that name. That free name search doesn’t publish a registration number, incorporation date or status, those sit behind a paid, account-only search, and an IBC listing is a company registration, not a licence to deal in forex or CFDs, so it says nothing about who is actually answerable for a withheld payout or an unpaid refund. IFZA, where Aqua Funded FZCO is registered, publishes no public searchable register at all, so that side of the structure can’t be checked independently from outside. Any dispute over a withheld withdrawal is, under the terms, pushed into binding arbitration at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre or, failing that, the courts of Dubai, under UAE law, with class or group claims against the firm expressly ruled out.

Customer Support

AquaFunded’s contact page gives one support channel with an address attached: support@aquafunded.com. The same page lists two office addresses, Algaroud Center, 2nd Floor, Office 101 to 05, Dubai, UAE, and The Sotheby Building, Ground Floor, Rodney Village, Rodney Bay, Gros Islet, SW18 1TA, St. Lucia, but neither is presented as a place a client can walk into or phone; there is no phone number in the evidence we pulled.

Beyond email, the firm’s root page points traders to a Discord server (“Join our discord community”) and tells clients to “reach out to our dedicated support team via social media, discord, website chat, or email.” That is four more channels named on the page, but the page itself does not spell out hours of operation, response time targets, or which of those channels is staffed directly by AquaFunded versus a community moderator. We have no evidence of stated support hours, so none are reported here.

What AquaFunded’s terms do to a client who disputes a decision

The weight in this section sits in the terms and conditions we read, not in the contact page, because the terms are what actually happens when a client complains about a payout, a fee, or an account termination.

First, the forum a complaint goes to. The terms route disputes to binding arbitration at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, before a single arbitrator seated in Dubai, with proceedings conducted in English. A client outside the UAE who wants to challenge a decision has to pursue that arbitration in Dubai rather than suing locally. The same terms add a class action waiver, stating that “CLASS ARBITRATIONS AND CLASS/REPRESENTATIVE/COLLECTIVE ACTIONS ARE NOT PERMITTED,” so a group of traders with the same grievance cannot combine their claims into one case. Any court matter not caught by the arbitration clause falls under a termination and access restriction clause stating the terms “are governed by the laws of the United Arab Emirates” and resolved “by the courts located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.”

Second, what the firm can do while a dispute is live or before one even starts. The terms state the company “reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate your access to this Site and the related services or any portion thereof at any time, without notice.” There is no notice period or appeal step named in the clause. A separate clause on trading styles and risk management lets AquaFunded terminate an account or agreement or deny a withdrawal request if it is deemed a customer has abused margin availability… or not applied an appropriate risk management strategy, defined only by loosely worded “hallmarks” such as excessive risk taking or a “Boom or Bust” approach. Neither clause sets an objective, checkable trigger, which means a client contesting a withheld payout is arguing against a standard the firm alone defines.

Third, what a complaint costs if it involves money already paid. Under the chargebacks section of the legal terms, if a trader disputes a card payment, AquaFunded may suspend the trader’s accounts/payments and recover from trader any amounts paid by Aqua Funded to trader… including but not limited to any and all profit split payments, and the trader is also on the hook for all costs incurred by Aqua Funded, including legal fees, win or lose. A client who thinks a chargeback is the fastest way to get money back after a dispute is, per this clause, exposed to losing payouts already received plus the firm’s legal bill.

Fourth, refunds as a support outcome. The refund policy states that once a purchase has been made and the evaluation credentials have been emailed to the customer, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… All sales are final. The only refund path described anywhere in the evidence is the challenge fee being paid back after the fourth successful profit split payment, once the trader has completed the evaluation and signed a written proprietary trading agreement. A client who fails the challenge, or who wants a refund before reaching that fourth payout, has no refund route to raise with support according to these terms.

Fifth, the indemnification clause requires a client to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Company… for any losses, costs, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable attorney’s fees) arising from the client’s use of the site or breach of the terms. Combined with the broad “AS IS” liability disclaimer, which excludes the company from “ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER,” a client raising a service failure with support is doing so against a firm that has written away nearly all liability for that failure and reserved the right to make the client pay its legal costs besides.

None of the channels on the contact page, email, Discord, social media, or website chat, are described in the evidence as carrying authority to override any of the above. The terms are what sets the actual boundaries of a support interaction here, and every one of those boundaries favors AquaFunded’s discretion over a fixed, checkable rule.

Prohibited Countries

AquaFunded’s terms and conditions set the minimum age to use the Services at eighteen for users generally. A separate clause aimed specifically at EU and UK residents lowers that floor, stating “You may not use any Site if you are under the age of 16” for users in those regions. Beyond age, the terms bar a trader from being “a principal, owner, or otherwise directly associated with a competing proprietary trading firm” while trading with the company, and limit a trader to one active account per challenge level absent the company’s prior written approval.

No country named as off-limits

The terms and conditions we read do not name any specific country whose residents are barred from buying a challenge or a funded account. The only clause that touches geography at all is a general disclaimer: “The products referred to on Sites may only be available in the territory to which that Site is directed and may not be available in your country.” That sentence tells a visitor that availability turns on which version of the site is in front of them, but it stops short of listing which territories are excluded. The pages we read describe who AquaFunded will not deal with by age and by conduct, and say nothing about which countries are shut out by name.

AquaFunded’s own site is split by region, which is the closest thing to a country rule

The pages we fetched exist in at least two geo-targeted versions, one addressed to UAE visitors and one addressed to UK visitors, and the two carry different wording in places, such as the separate 16-and-over clause that applies only to EU and UK residents. That split is consistent with the territorial-availability disclaimer above: AquaFunded appears to tailor which terms a visitor sees by region, rather than publishing one global rule that names countries it will not serve. We did not find a page listing excluded jurisdictions on either version.

A United States marker on two platforms, and nowhere else

On the platforms page we read, two of the four trading platforms on offer, Match Trade and Trade Locker, carry an “Available 🇺🇸” marker next to their names. MetaTrader 5 and cTrader carry no equivalent marker on the same page. We did not find any text on that page, or elsewhere in what we read, explaining what the marker means or whether its absence next to MetaTrader 5 and cTrader signals that those two are restricted for traders in the United States. The page simply shows the marker on two platforms and omits it from the other two, with no accompanying explanation.

Conduct that gets a trader shut out, regardless of where they live

Separately from geography, AquaFunded’s terms list a set of “Prohibited Trading” strategies that apply to every trader: exploiting pricing or platform errors, using non-public or insider information, front-running, strategies marketed specifically to pass challenges, arbitraging accounts against each other, and end-of-day gap trading, among others named in the same clause. The terms state that if the company detects Prohibited Trading, “your participation in the program will be terminated and may include forfeiture of any fees paid to the Company.” Ownership or principal involvement in a competing proprietary trading firm is treated the same way, as grounds that make someone ineligible to keep trading with AquaFunded regardless of nationality or location.

What AquaFunded’s registration tells us, and what it does not

AquaFunded LTD is recorded on the Saint Lucia Registry of International Business Companies name search as “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC)”, marked as an International Business Company; that registry confirms the company registration but does not publish a registration number, incorporation date, or status through its free search, and a Saint Lucia IBC registration is a company registration rather than a licence to deal in forex or CFDs. Aqua Funded FZCO’s premises reference in the IFZA free zone in Dubai cannot be checked against any public searchable register at all, since IFZA publishes none. Neither of those facts states who AquaFunded will or will not accept as a client by country; they describe where the company and its site operator are incorporated, not where its product is or is not sold.

Conclusion

AquaFunded scores 5 out of 10 overall, built from four component scores that pull in different directions: fees at 7.5, platform at 6.5, support at 6.3, regulation at 3.4, and reviews at 1.2. The fee and platform numbers describe a firm that is cheap to try and runs recognisable software. The regulation and reviews numbers describe why that cheapness and that software sit on top of very little that a trader could actually enforce.

What the Saint Lucia and Dubai filings show about AquaFunded

AquaFunded’s own pages name two entities behind the brand: Aqua Funded FZCO, registered at Premises No.- 35882-001, IFZA Business Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, and AquaFunded LTD, a Saint Lucia company quoting number 2004-00597, which the firm’s terms say is the entity that “provides the simulated trading services.” We searched the Saint Lucia Registry of International Business Companies name search directly and found “AquaFunded LTD. (IBC)” listed as an International Business Company, confirming the company exists. That same free search publishes no registration number, incorporation date or status behind it, so the quoted number 2004-00597 was not itself verified, and an IBC listing is a company registration rather than a licence to deal in forex or CFDs. IFZA, the Dubai free zone where Aqua Funded FZCO is registered, publishes no public searchable register at all, so that registration is unverifiable from outside rather than confirmed. Neither filing is a financial-services permission, and AquaFunded’s own terms say so directly: “Company is not a financial broker, financial advisor, or financial representative, and does not accept client deposits. The Company does not carryout any regulated activities; the Company’s exclusive activity is simulated trading…” That sentence is the reason the regulation score sits at 3.4: a trader paying for a challenge is not buying into a supervised brokerage relationship, and no compensation scheme or regulator stands behind the money paid in.

What AquaFunded charges

The firm’s root page prices evaluation challenges from $14 for a $5,000 account and $283 for a $100,000 account, and instant-funded accounts from $60 for a $2,500 account, calling the one-time fee “100% refundable.” The legal page attached to that promise narrows it considerably: the evaluation fee is refunded only after trader’s fourth successful profit-split payment, following completion of the evaluation and entry into a separate written proprietary-trading agreement. The same legal page states that once a purchase is made and credentials are emailed, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted… All sales are final, and that a trader who files a chargeback can have Aqua Funded recover from trader any amounts paid by Aqua Funded to trader… including but not limited to any and all profit split payments, while also billing the trader for the firm’s own defense costs, including legal fees. The pricing widget page separately runs a “Halloween Sale: 35% OFF + 200% Refund” promotion. Fees still scores 7.5 because the entry cost is genuinely low against the category, but the refund mechanics sit well behind the headline “100% refundable” language.

Platform and account structure

AquaFunded’s accounts page lists MetaTrader 5 as a trading platform, with cTrader available as a paid add-on on some challenge configurations, and Match Trade and Trade Locker both marked “Available” on the same page. Instruments advertised across the firm’s pages include forex, crypto, CFDs, indices and metals, with futures sold under a separate sub-brand name, AquaFutures, rather than under AquaFunded itself. The pricing widget details challenge parameters such as a Two Step Pro $100k account carrying a $5,000 max daily loss and $10,000 max loss, 1:100 leverage during the challenge falling to 1:50 once funded, and a fixed 90% profit split paid to the trader on the funded account. Those figures are specific and checkable against the firm’s own widget, which supports the 6.5 platform score, but they sit inside a contract that lets AquaFunded terminate an account “at any time, without notice” and withhold a payout if it decides, by its own undefined “hallmarks,” that a trader’s risk management was inappropriate.

Support and what’s missing

Contact channels listed on AquaFunded’s own contact page are an email address, a Dubai office address and a Saint Lucia office address, plus a discord community and, per the root page, “social media, discord, website chat, or email” generally. That’s a normal spread of contact routes for the category, reflected in the 6.3 support score. The reviews score of 1.2 is the lowest of the five components, and nothing in the pages we read supplies a count of independent reviews or a review-platform rating to weigh against it; the score stands as given.

AquaFunded offers low-cost challenge entry, recognisable platforms and ordinary contact channels, but its Saint Lucia filing confirms only a company registration, its Dubai registration is unverifiable, and its own terms state it runs no regulated activity and can withhold a payout or terminate an account at its own discretion. TrueBroker scores AquaFunded 5 out of 10.

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