Does a rising or falling margin ratio lead to liquidation on Binance and OKX?

Both exchanges use 100% as the liquidation line, but their numbers move in opposite directions. On Binance USDⓈ-M futures, the margin ratio is maintenance margin divided by margin balance: it grows as you lose, and when it reaches 100% the position is liquidated. The maintenance margin ratio in OKX's position panel puts the same two amounts the other way up: it shrinks as you lose, and at 100% or below the position is reduced or liquidated. A reading of 80% on Binance means you're right up against the line; on OKX it means you're already past it.

To tell them apart, check what is being divided by what. If maintenance margin is on top, a bigger number is more dangerous; if maintenance margin is on the bottom, a smaller number is. Once you switch on Binance's unified account, the reading to watch is uniMMR, which also has maintenance margin on the bottom, and its liquidation line is 105%.

Our piece on liquidation price math plugs a 0.5% maintenance margin rate into its formula. That 0.5% is a rate the exchange sets in tiers by position size, and it isn't the same number as the percentage in your position panel that measures how safe you are. How the tier rate is used gets its own section below.

The Binance margin ratio that triggers liquidation

Binance's help centre article on lowering liquidation risk gives the formula as margin ratio = maintenance margin ÷ margin balance. The same page says that once the margin ratio reaches 100%, some, if not all, of the positions held will be liquidated.

The top of the fraction, maintenance margin, mostly moves with the position's notional value and the tier it sits in once the position is open. The bottom, margin balance, gets eaten by losses when the market goes against you, so it keeps shrinking and the ratio keeps climbing. At the moment it reaches 100%, margin balance exactly equals maintenance margin, and the page also makes clear that as soon as the balance drops below maintenance margin, the platform liquidates the position.

Some, if not all, means liquidation doesn't necessarily clear the whole position in one go. The response the page points to is topping up the margin balance in your futures account: the bigger the balance, the lower the liquidation price, and the ratio comes down with it. On the same page Binance recommends its liquidation price calculator for working out how far the liquidation price would drop after you add to your wallet balance.

On OKX, a lower maintenance margin ratio is more dangerous

OKX's help centre article on common futures liquidation concepts defines it as an indicator of how safe a position is, and says that the higher the maintenance margin ratio, the safer the position. For isolated-margin USDT-margined contracts, the formula is:

Isolated · USDT-margined Maintenance margin ratio = (margin balance + PnL) ÷ (face value × |number of contracts| × mark price × (tier maintenance margin rate + fee rate))

The top is the margin you have left; when PnL is negative, that's the same as subtracting the floating loss. The bottom is the minimum margin the position requires, plus the fee you'd pay to close it. The cross-margin formula is longer: the top also subtracts the coins tied up in open orders and the fees on those orders, and the bottom becomes maintenance margin plus the liquidation fee. The direction stays the same, with the margin you have left always on top.

When it falls to 100% or below, OKX explains, account equity is no longer enough to cover maintenance margin and any closing costs, so the system calculates the actual liquidation price and liquidates or reduces the position; positions in tier 3 and above are partly reduced under the tiered mechanism. The check runs on mark price, and you can switch the candlestick chart to mark price to see its history. Liquidation only affects the trading account, not the funding account. What OKX suggests keeping an eye on is the real-time maintenance margin ratio in the position panel.

One 20x position, read the Binance way and the OKX way

Say you open a BTCUSDT perpetual long on Binance with 500 USDT of margin at 20x, for a notional value of 10,000 USDT. 20x is also the highest leverage a newly opened Binance futures account can use in its first 30 days. In Binance's BTCUSDT perpetual tier table, the 0 to 300,000 USDT tier has a maintenance margin rate of 0.40% and a maintenance amount of 0:

Maintenance margin = 10,000 × 0.40% − 0 = 40 USDT

To isolate how the ratio moves, the table below holds notional value at 10,000 USDT, leaves out fees and funding, and only lets the margin balance shrink as losses build. The third column divides the same numbers the other way up, a comparison written in OKX's direction rather than an actual OKX reading: OKX also adds the fee rate to the bottom of its fraction, so what it shows would come out slightly lower than this column.

The last two columns are worked out as move so far = (500 − balance) ÷ 10,000 and room left = (balance − 40) ÷ 10,000. While the ratio climbs from 8% to 50%, the price uses up 4.2%; from 50% to 100%, only 0.4% is left. A 50% reading on Binance sounds like halfway, but measured in price distance more than 90% of the way is already gone. Flip it and it's the same story: 200% in the comparison column looks like twice the margin you need, and it also corresponds to just that 0.4%.

The 4.6% total distance also falls out of the approximate formula in our liquidation price article: for a long, entry price × (1 − 1/20 + 0.40%) = entry price × 0.954, so a 4.6% drop triggers liquidation. That article uses 0.5% as a rough maintenance margin rate; here it's the 0.40% from Binance's tier table, and the formula is the same.

For your own position Maintenance margin = notional value × this tier's maintenance margin rate − maintenance amount; Binance margin ratio = maintenance margin ÷ margin balance. Then (balance − maintenance margin) ÷ notional value shows how much price distance is left before liquidation.

The maintenance margin rate in the tier table has a different job

It's a rate for calculating maintenance margin, and it works at a different level from the safety percentage in your position panel. The formula in Binance's article on leverage and margin for USDⓈ-M futures is maintenance margin = position notional value × maintenance margin rate − maintenance amount. The rate is tiered by notional value: the bigger the position, the higher the rate. The first three tiers of the BTCUSDT perpetual table:

A notional value of 500,000 USDT falls in the second tier: 500,000 × 0.50% − 300 = 2,200 USDT. That matches the band-by-band result (300,000 × 0.40% + 200,000 × 0.50% = 1,200 + 1,000); the maintenance amount is there so the whole position can be multiplied straight by its tier's rate.

This same tier rate goes by slightly different names on Binance's help page, its trading parameters page and its unified account page, and OKX gives it a longer name again when it puts it into the formula. Meanwhile, the maintenance margin ratio in OKX's position panel and Binance's unified account maintenance margin ratio both describe how safe a position or account is. Names aren't a reliable guide. Look at whether you're dealing with a rate of a fraction of a percent or a ratio that moves around 100%.

Binance also states that it may adjust any tier's maintenance margin rate by less than 0.5% without a separate announcement. Whenever you need the tier figures, check them fresh on the trading parameters page.

Binance unified accounts use uniMMR, with the line at 105%

With unified account mode on, Binance measures the whole account by uniMMR: uniMMR = unified account adjusted equity ÷ unified account maintenance margin. Equity on top and maintenance margin on the bottom puts it in the same direction as OKX: the higher it is, the lower the risk. It's handled in bands:

The page treats anything above 1.2 (120%) as healthy. On one and the same Binance account, regular USDⓈ-M futures use the margin ratio, where rising toward 100% is the bad direction; switch into the unified account and you watch uniMMR, where falling toward 105% is the bad direction. Change mode and you have to change both the number you watch and the direction you worry about.

Adding margin, cutting size or cancelling orders as you near the line

When the reading heads the wrong way, these are the moves the two exchanges' help pages mention:

1. Add margin or reduce the position. In its article on leverage and margin for USDⓈ-M futures, Binance strongly recommends reducing positions or adding margin before your collateral falls below maintenance margin, to avoid auto-deleveraging. Adding margin enlarges the bottom of Binance's fraction and the top of OKX's; reducing the position shrinks maintenance margin. Either way, both readings move toward safety.
2. Cancel opening orders that aren't urgent. OKX states that open orders tie up margin: they don't change the estimated liquidation price, but they do change the maintenance margin ratio, and just before liquidation the system cancels open orders first to free up margin. Rather than wait for the system to cancel them, cancel the ones that can wait yourself.
3. Don't add to a losing position. Binance's article on lowering liquidation risk gives an example: with a wallet balance of 500 USDT, you open a 1,000 USDT long at 20x when BTC is at $50,000, and the liquidation price is $25,100.40; after it falls to $45,000 you add another 1,000 USDT at 20x, and the liquidation price is pushed up to $35,857.67.
4. Keep your stop away from the liquidation price, and don't move margin out while the position is open. OKX lists two ways a position with a stop loss can still be liquidated: the market moves violently while the stop price sits too close to the liquidation price, or part of the margin is transferred out after the stop is set, so the maintenance margin ratio breaks through the line early. For where to put the stop itself, our stop-loss placement guide covers keeping a stop from being wicked out again and again.

FAQ

Why was I liquidated when I had a stop loss set?

Stop-loss orders and liquidation are two mechanisms that run independently. OKX explains that if the maintenance margin ratio drops to 100% or below before the stop price is triggered, the system liquidates first and does not wait for the stop-loss order. OKX lists two situations where this happens: the market moves violently while the stop price sits too close to the liquidation price, or part of the margin is transferred out after the stop loss has been set.

Why did liquidation take more than the price move accounts for?

OKX lists the liquidation deduction as several items added together: the closing loss calculated at the mark price at the time of liquidation, the liquidation fee, and any funding fees not yet settled if the position was held across a funding settlement time. Once liquidation is triggered, the margin for that part of the position is treated as lost in full, which is different from closing it yourself, where you only lose the price difference.