# Paper account - trade denied due to pattern day trading protection **URL:** \ **Category:** Alpaca Trading\ **Created:** [March 24, 2023, 2:26pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048 "2023-03-24T14:26:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![abdelali\_nouina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbce88/32.png) [@abdelali\_nouina](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/abdelali_nouina)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 2:26pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/1 "2023-03-24T14:26:56Z")
Hello. I am getting ‘trade denied due to pattern day trading protection’ after making a paper account order. The account is set to $100,000 so I am not sure why this is happening. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 2:36pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/2 "2023-03-24T14:36:08Z")
@abdelali_nouina The error messages can be a bit misleading at times. Are you exceeding your buying power? What is the current buying power and what order are you trying to place. ---
**Author:** ![abdelali\_nouina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbce88/32.png) [@abdelali\_nouina](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/abdelali_nouina)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 2:47pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/3 "2023-03-24T14:47:48Z")
Thanks for replying @Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca I just set the account to $1,000,000 and the buying power is $2,000,000. My script selects the trades for me based on some metrics. They are $1000 max I start getting these messages after the script makes a total of 3 trades ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/4 "2023-03-24T14:59:51Z")
@abdelali_nouina What is the account number. I can check a few things. ---
**Author:** ![abdelali\_nouina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbce88/32.png) [@abdelali\_nouina](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/abdelali_nouina)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 3:07pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/5 "2023-03-24T15:07:07Z")
@Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca. It’s 34706BD1 Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/6 "2023-03-24T15:10:31Z")
Hmm. It should be a 12 digit number starting with PA. It’s in the upper left corner of the dashboard ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/alp/original/2X/2/26ec3de19c0781eed8369837d936667396446a9a.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![abdelali\_nouina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbce88/32.png) [@abdelali\_nouina](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/abdelali_nouina)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 3:15pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/7 "2023-03-24T15:15:27Z")
That is the account number I got from the old UI. The new UI does not seem to load the account number ![Screen Shot 2023-03-24 at 11.14.50 AM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/alp/original/2X/b/b07c3892dd413abeb832c4fe381dd7ca40447790.png) ---
**Author:** ![abdelali\_nouina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbce88/32.png) [@abdelali\_nouina](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/abdelali_nouina)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 3:17pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/8 "2023-03-24T15:17:42Z")
![Screen Shot 2023-03-24 at 11.17.24 AM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/alp/original/2X/d/d355c661a2ef8600ffc0838b85713c683516d02e.png) ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_M](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dave_m/32/4929_2.png) [@Dave\_M](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dave_M)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 4:30pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/9 "2023-03-24T16:30:40Z")
Same here. First it was ‘trade denied due to pattern day trading protection’. Then I reset the paper account and now it is a ‘403’ from liquidate position on the dashboard. Software sends close and sell orders but they never show up on the order page on the dashboard. Paper account: PA3Z27IERX9F ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/10 "2023-03-24T17:15:40Z")
Very sorry about this. It appears a code change was made recently which didn’t set the initial state of reset accounts properly. It may resolve itself after 1 trading day (when the account defaults get set with actual values) but the engineering team is looking how to fix it. Apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_M](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dave_m/32/4929_2.png) [@Dave\_M](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dave_M)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 5:25pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/11 "2023-03-24T17:25:30Z")
OK Sounds good Thank you for looking into this ---
**Author:** ![abdelali\_nouina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbce88/32.png) [@abdelali\_nouina](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/abdelali_nouina)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 5:26pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/12 "2023-03-24T17:26:47Z")
Thank you, @Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca ---
**Author:** ![abdelali\_nouina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbce88/32.png) [@abdelali\_nouina](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/abdelali_nouina)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2023, 1:33pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/13 "2023-03-27T13:33:39Z")
Good morning. Just an FYI. The issue still not resolved ---
**Author:** ![Amine\_Boulaajaj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/amine_boulaajaj/32/5241_2.png) [@Amine\_Boulaajaj](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Amine_Boulaajaj)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/14 "2023-03-28T17:09:22Z")
The issue is still not resolved… I am a little concerned about a case like this happening on a real account, that would be not good. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2023, 5:46pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/15 "2023-03-31T17:46:17Z")
@Amine_Boulaajaj The issue should be resolved now. You may need to reset your account. Post back if you are still having issues with orders being blocked due to day trading protections. This problem was entirely a paper trading issue and didn’t impact live accounts. The problem also only impacted new, or recently reset, paper accounts. Paper accounts were not being initialized properly after some recent code changes. The equity value which is used to determine day trading ability was being incorrectly initialized to $0 rather than the account’s actual equity. This caused the day trade protection rules to block day trades (thinking the equity was $0). Apologies for the confusion and delays this may have caused. ---
**Author:** ![livebysec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f1d935/32.png) [@livebysec](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/livebysec)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/paper-account-trade-denied-due-to-pattern-day-trading-protection/12048/16 "2024-09-20T16:18:28Z")
I am getting the same error , while i am using paper trading and I am afraid the same might happen when I apply code to live trading . I am trading only Buy and sell only (No short selling at all) I am buying and selling a stock , below are the specification: # Trading parameters STOP\_LOSS\_PERCENTAGE = 7.0 # 1% stop loss TAKE\_PROFIT\_PERCENTAGE = 5.0 # 1% take profit TRADE\_AMOUNT = 100 # Fixed trade amount in USD CHECK\_INTERVAL = 15 # Interval to check and execute trading logic in seconds allocated\_budget = 500 # Allocated budget for trading here is my paper trading ID : ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/alp/original/2X/0/03edfb1faf241bf4cc613a0c6d5322e3d12eea13.png)