In short. The liquidation price is the mark price at which a position's margin no longer covers its maintenance margin and the exchange closes it by force. For isolated margin with no extra margin it can be estimated like this: long — entry × (1 − 1/leverage + maintenance margin rate), short — entry × (1 + 1/leverage − rate). At 10x leverage and a 0.5% rate a long is liquidated about 9.5% below entry, at 50x — 1.5%. The exact Bybit and Binance formulas are below, with the examples from their help pages as of 12 October 2026.
What the liquidation price depends on
- Leverage — the higher it is, the less margin backs the position and the closer liquidation is.
- Maintenance margin rate (MMR) — the minimum margin the exchange requires. It grows with position size: both exchanges have a tier table, and the larger the position, the higher the rate and its deduction.
- Margin mode. In isolated mode only the position's own margin backs it; in cross margin — the whole free balance and the P&L of other positions.
- Added margin, fees and funding move the liquidation price: add margin and it moves away, pay fees and it moves closer.
Liquidation is triggered by the mark price, not the last trade: a short spike in the last price does not close the position by itself unless the mark price reaches the liquidation level.
Distance to liquidation at different leverage
Isolated margin, no extra margin and no fees, maintenance margin rate 0.5%. Your own position — with your price, size, leverage and rate — is in the liquidation price calculator:
| Leverage | Long: drop to liquidation | Short: rise to liquidation |
|---|---|---|
| 5x | 19.60% | 19.40% |
| 10x | 9.55% | 9.45% |
| 20x | 4.52% | 4.48% |
| 50x | 1.51% | 1.49% |
| 100x | 0.50% | 0.50% |
Bybit: isolated margin on the Unified Trading Account
For USDT perpetuals, per Bybit's help center:
- Long: [entry × size − entry × size / leverage − extra margin / (1 − taker fee rate) − MM deduction] / [size × (1 − MMR)]
- Short: [entry × size + entry × size / leverage + extra margin / (1 + taker fee rate) + MM deduction] / [size × (1 + MMR)]
The help center example: a long of 1 BTC at 40,000 USDT, 50x leverage, 3,000 USDT of extra margin, MMR 0.5%, taker fee 0.055%, no deduction. The liquidation price is 36,380.25. Without the extra margin the same position is liquidated at 39,396.98 — only 1.5% below entry — and the same short at 40,597.01. The exchange adds an estimated closing fee to the maintenance margin, so the real price may differ slightly.
Cross margin and Portfolio Margin on the unified account work differently: liquidation is triggered by the account-level maintenance margin rate reaching 100%. The liquidation price of a single position floats with the balance and the P&L of the other positions.
Binance: USDⓈ-M futures
Binance's general formula (one-way mode) links the wallet balance WB, the maintenance margin and unrealized P&L of other positions (TMM and UPNL), the tier's maintenance amount cum, size Q, entry price EP and rate MMR; direction is 1 for a long and −1 for a short:
LP = (WB − TMM + UPNL + cum − direction × Q × EP) / (Q × MMR − direction × Q)
In isolated mode TMM and UPNL are zero and WB is this position's margin. Then for a long LP = (Q × EP − WB − cum) / (Q × (1 − MMR)), for a short LP = (Q × EP + WB + cum) / (Q × (1 + MMR)). Example: a long of 0.1 BTC at 60,000 USDT with 10x leverage, 600 USDT margin, an assumed MMR of 0.4% and cum 0 — liquidation at 54,216.87; the same short — at 65,737.05. Take the rate and maintenance amount for your size from Binance's «Leverage & Margin» table — they depend on the symbol and position size.
In cross margin the same formula includes the whole wallet balance and the other positions: Binance's help page walks through an ETHUSDT example with a liquidation price of 1153.26 — our formula gives the same number.
How not to get liquidated
- A stop loss well before the liquidation price. Liquidation is not a stop: it is the loss of the position's whole margin plus fees.
- Size from risk, not from leverage. First decide what percent of the account you are ready to lose on the trade, then size from the distance to the stop — the 1% rule.
- Watch the account margin, not only the price: in cross margin one losing position brings every other position closer to liquidation.
- Mind funding: on perpetuals it is charged regularly, and if you are the one paying, holding a position for long eats into the distance to liquidation — more in «Funding rate: what it is and what it costs you».
What Davinchu does
A Bybit futures account (Unified Trading Account) connects with a read-only key. When the account maintenance margin rate reaches 80% in cross margin or Portfolio Margin, a «Margin call approaching» alert arrives in Telegram, email or Discord — during quiet hours too. If a position does get closed, the close message names the reason: Stop Loss, Take Profit, trailing stop, liquidation or ADL. Trades land in the journal with statistics, and funding on closed trades is shown in account analytics.
HTX futures (USDT-M, cross margin) connect the same way — trades and positions flow into the journal and analytics. Binance, OKX and BingX spot balances are collected in the investment portfolio. The Free plan connects two accounts at no cost; what arrives from each exchange is on the «Davinchu for crypto traders» page.