Why Wasn’t My Limit Order Filled?

What are limit orders?

Limit orders are orders you place on the order book with a specific limit price. They’ll only be executed if the market price reaches your limit price (or better). You may use limit orders to buy an asset at a lower price or sell at a higher price than the market price.

For a more detailed explanation, please visit What are Market Order and Limit Order, and How to Place Them.

When will my limit order fill?

Limit orders will only be filled when the following 3 conditions are met:

1. The market price has reached your limit price or a better price

Let’s use a limit buy order as an example. The market price is at $2,400 (A) and you place a limit buy order at $1,500 (C). The limit buy order will only be executed when the market price falls to $1,500 (C) or below. At the end, your limit buy order is executed at $1,490, which is a better price than the limit price you set.

2. Sufficient liquidity in the market

When the market price is at $1,500 (C), but there aren’t any sell orders, the buy order won’t be executed. However, please note that an order can also be partially filled if the liquidity satisfies part of the order.

3. Sufficient time for order execution

During periods of high volatility, your order may not be able to reach the end of the order book for execution, even if the market price reaches your limit price.

How to check if the market price has reached my limit price?

1. Log in to your Binance account and go to [Spot]

2. Select the trading pair you wish to check from the right, for example, BTC/JPY. Then,  customize the time period to [1m]. Setting the time period to 1 minute allows you to better visualize the price.

3. You can now draw the parameters of your order. Let's use the following parameters:

• Trading pair: BTC/JPY
• Order type: Stop limit sell order
• Order placement time: 2025-03-03 05:30 (UTC) 
  Stop price: 14,027,745 JPY
• Limit price: 14,081,000 JPY

After the order was placed, BTC price went above the stop price and triggered the order. This means that the order was sent to the order book once the BTC price reached the stop price of 14,027,745 JPY. However, it wasn’t executed as it didn’t reach the limit price you set (14,081,000 JPY). 

Take a closer look at the 1-minute trading chart and you can see that the BTC price only reached 14,080,997 JPY. Thus, your order wasn’t filled as it is lower than your expected selling price (the limit price of 14,081,000 JPY). 

Please note that even if the market price touched the limit price, your order may not be executed if the liquidity of the trading pair is insufficient.

What are the limitations of placing limit orders?

• Regular trading pairs: You can only place orders with a limit price between 20% - 500% of the market price. For example, the market price is 1000 JPY, you may only enter a limit price between 200 and 5000 JPY.
• Limit buy orders: If the limit price you set is higher than the market price, it may be executed at a better price (lower than or equal to the limit price).
• Limit sell orders: If the limit price you set is lower than the market price, it may be executed at a better price (higher than or equal to the limit price).

Why is the trailing stop order not being executed?

To understand why your trailing stop order is not being executed, you need to understand the parameters that have been set:

• Activation Price: The price to start the tracking process.
• Trailing Delta: The percentage away from either the highest price (sell order) or the lowest price (buy order).
• Limit Price: The price at which the order can be executed. For buy orders, the order cannot be executed above the limit price because you want to buy low. For sell orders, the order cannot be executed below the limit price because you want to sell high.
• Order Type: Buy or sell order.

Let’s look at the following examples:

Example 1 Trailing Stop Buy Order on ETH/JPY

The market price of ETH/JPY  is 9,000 JPY and you place a trailing stop order with the following parameters:

• Trailing Delta: 5%
• Activation Price: 9,000 JPY
• Limit Price: 8,900 JPY
• Order type: Buy order

The trailing stop price is 9,450 JPY and the last price is 9,000 JPY. The trailing price reaches 8,925 JPY [Last Price* (1 + trailing delta)] when the price drops to 8,500 JPY.

The trailing price will stop when the price rises. When the price moves to its lowest price at 8,000 JPY, the trailing price will be 8,400 JPY. When the price rises, the trailing price stops again. Only when the price moves up by more than 5%, reaching or exceeding the trailing price of 8,400 JPY, a buy order (8,900 JPY) will be issued to the order book.

#2 Trailing Stop Sell Order on BTC/JPY

• Activation Price: N/A
• Trailing Delta: 1.5%
• Limit Price: 64,700
• Order Type: Sell

As no Activation Price was entered, trailing started after the order placement. The price then rose to a high of 63,280.75 and declined. With the 1.5% Trailing Delta, trailing would stop at the price of 62,331.53875 and the order was sent to the order book. However, the limit price of this order was 64,700 and since it was a sell order, it couldn’t be executed below 64,700, so the order wasn’t executed.