OKX Portfolio Margin Explained: How Risk Is Calculated

Portfolio margin is a different unit of account

OKX supports four trading account modes: spot, futures, multi-currency margin and portfolio margin. The API exposes them as acctLv 1 through 4. Portfolio margin is the fourth, and it is not simply the most permissive version of the third. It changes what the venue calculates margin on.

In the first three modes, margin is largely a property of a position, even when collateral is shared. In portfolio margin, the unit is the risk unit: perpetual futures, expiry futures and options on the same underlying are merged, and spot can be brought into the same unit to offset derivatives exposure. BTC perpetuals, BTC options and BTC spot can therefore be assessed together, while an ETH position is assessed in a separate unit.

The eligibility rule is narrow. OKX’s help page says a user must be at or above VIP3 and must declare an understanding of portfolio margin. The older “$10,000 net assets” threshold that still appears in search snippets is not in the current page and should not be relied on. Lead traders cannot switch to portfolio margin.

What a risk unit contains

The merge rule is the core of the mode. OKX’s documentation says perpetual futures, expiry futures and options with the same underlying are merged into a single risk unit. Spot is automatically included in the chosen offset unit, and can offset the derivatives margin requirement.

That sounds generous until the offset formula is read. Spot in use is the minimum of three quantities: the unit’s equity, the absolute net of spot plus derivatives delta, and a user-defined threshold. When the net delta is zero — a spot long against an equal perpetual short — the spot contribution to the margin requirement can fall to zero because there is nothing left to offset. When the position is directional, the spot is counted and the requirement rises.

The unit also determines what happens to a hedge. A BTC spot long against a BTC perpetual short inside one risk unit is a hedged position, and the stress scenarios see the net. The same two legs in separate accounts are two directional exposures. That difference is the reason portfolio margin exists, and it is also the reason a trader can be surprised by the margin requirement after moving a position between accounts.

How the maintenance margin is built

OKX does not publish a single maintenance-margin percentage for a portfolio-margin account. It publishes a stress-testing procedure. For each risk unit, the system runs a set of scenarios — MR1 through MR7, plus MR9 — and the unit’s maintenance margin is derived from the losses those scenarios produce.

The published parameters for MR1 give a sense of the scale. There are 21 simulations: seven price moves crossed with three implied-volatility moves. For BTC and ETH the price moves are 0%, ±4%, ±8% and ±12%. For tier-two assets such as SOL, DOGE, XRP, BNB and ADA they widen to 0%, ±6%, ±12% and ±18%; for other assets, 0%, ±8%, ±16% and ±25%. The basis charge has a minimum of 0.20% for BTC and ETH, 0.80% for tier-two assets and 2% for the rest. Days to expiry is 0 for spot and 0.33 for perpetuals.

Two variants of the derivatives maintenance margin are computed — one taking the maximum over positive-delta outcomes, one over negative-delta outcomes — and the risk unit uses the lower of the two. That is the netting mechanism in one line: the unit is charged for the worse of its long and short stress paths, not for both added together.

The portfolio maintenance margin is then the sum of the risk-unit derivatives MMRs plus the borrowing MMR. Collateral haircuts do not enter this sum. They reduce equity instead.

Initial margin and the margin ratio

Initial margin follows a formula that is easy to misquote:

IMR = 1.3 × Derivatives MMR + Borrowed IMR

The 1.3 multiplier applies to the derivatives maintenance margin, not to the total. Borrowed initial margin is added at its own value. A guide that says “initial margin is 130% of maintenance margin” is describing a different quantity.

The margin ratio is then equity over requirement. OKX’s documentation defines adjusted equity as total equity minus haircuts on non-stablecoin collateral, and states that the margin ratio is adjEq / mmr. An alert is raised below roughly 300%, and liquidation is triggered when the maintenance margin ratio drops to 100%.

The haircut table matters because it is applied per asset and per tier. On 2026-10-19 the first BTC tier carried a discount rate of 0.98 for up to 20 BTC, ETH 0.98 up to 500 ETH, and SOL 0.97 up to 4,000 SOL; USDT carried 1.00 and no haircut. Higher tiers stepped down — BTC’s seventh tier was 0.95. A portfolio holding BTC as collateral therefore has less adjusted equity than its USD mark value, and the gap widens as the holding crosses tiers.

A worked margin-ratio example

Assume one BTC-USDT-SWAP short of 100 contracts, with ctVal 0.01 BTC per contract, so the position is 1 BTC. At the 2026-10-19 mark of 82,477.50 the notional is 82,477.50 USDT. The position falls inside the first tier — up to 1,000 contracts — where the published mmr is 0.004 and imr is 0.01.

If the stress-derived derivatives MMR equals the tier rate of 0.4%, the maintenance margin is 0.004 × 82,477.50 = 329.91 USDT. With no borrowing, initial margin is 1.3 × 329.91 = 428.88 USDT. With 5,000 USDT of adjusted equity and no borrowing, the margin ratio is 5,000 ÷ 329.91 = 1,515%, far above both the 300% alert and the 100% liquidation line.

The example is deliberately simple, and it is not a substitute for the venue’s risk-state output. The actual derivatives MMR comes from the stress scenarios, which can produce a number above or below the tier rate depending on the position’s delta, its basis exposure and the implied-volatility inputs. The tier table gives the per-contract starting point; the portfolio calculation gives the answer.

Two sensitivities are worth running by hand. A 12% fall in BTC, with the short position gaining, improves the ratio on the short but changes the collateral value if the account holds BTC. A rise in implied volatility widens the option-related scenarios and can raise MMR even when the price does not move. Neither is captured by “leverage × notional” arithmetic.

Liquidation is a sequence, not a price

Most margin explanations end with a single liquidation price. OKX’s portfolio-margin documentation describes an ordered process with four stages:

1. A stablecoin hedge (DDH1).
2. A delta hedge (DDH2).
3. A basis hedge addressing the MR4 basis charge.
4. Tiered reduction of the general position.

The first three stages are attempts to reduce the risk that caused the margin shortfall without immediately closing the whole portfolio. The fourth is the reduction of positions. This is why a portfolio-margin account can show hedging activity around a liquidation event rather than a single sweep, and why the venue’s liquidation price estimate is less meaningful in this mode than in isolated futures.

The process does not make liquidation safe. Each hedge is a trade with a cost, and the final stage can still realise losses. What it changes is the order in which the account is unwound.

What to check before switching

• Eligibility. VIP3 or above, plus the declaration. A user below VIP3 cannot use the mode regardless of portfolio size.
• Risk units. List every position by underlying before switching. Two positions that look like a hedge are only a hedge if they land in the same unit.
• Collateral mix. Apply the discount rates to non-stablecoin collateral. A portfolio that is comfortably margined in USDT may not be after a BTC haircut.
• Borrowing. Borrowed initial margin enters IMR at its own value; it is not multiplied by 1.3. A leverage calculation that ignores borrowing will understate the requirement.
• The exit path. The four-stage liquidation process is not a promise that positions survive a stress event. It is a description of how the venue tries to reduce risk first.

The account-level settings that sit underneath portfolio margin — spot, futures, multi-currency and portfolio — are compared in OKX account modes. Funding and mark price, which drive the unrealised P&L inside each risk unit, are covered in OKX funding rate, mark price and open interest. The position-size calculator handles the trade-level sizing question; portfolio margin is the account-level one.

Risk note. The contract parameters, tier rates and collateral discount rates in this article were read from OKX’s public API on 2026-10-19 between 01:29 and 01:33 UTC, and the mode rules from OKX’s documentation and help pages. The worked example assumes the stress-derived MMR equals the published tier rate, which is an assumption for arithmetic, not a statement about how the model will price any particular portfolio. Portfolio margin can produce a margin requirement that rises while the market is calm, and liquidation can realise losses across a hedged book. Nothing here is investment advice.

The number to trust

Portfolio margin replaces a per-position percentage with a portfolio stress test, and replaces a single liquidation price with a staged unwind. The arithmetic is not secret — the formulas, scenario ranges and haircut tables are published — but the result depends on the whole book, not on one line.

That makes the venue’s own risk-state output the only number worth relying on before a trade. The useful preparation is not calculating a leverage ratio. It is knowing which positions share a unit, which collateral is haircut, and how much adjusted equity stands between the current ratio and 100%.