When does liquidation occur?
Liquidation occurs when an account’s Unified Maintenance Margin ratio (uniMMR) falls below 105%. In such cases, the liquidation system will take over the account and the user will not be able to perform any transactions during the liquidation process.
Once liquidation is triggered, it won't stop until it's completed. Transferring assets into the Margin, USDⓈ-M Futures, or Coin-M Futures Wallets after liquidation has begun will not stop nor reverse the process. You can learn how to calculate uniMMR from this article.
How does the Margin account liquidation work?
When your margin position is liquidated, the margin liquidation engine will take over the assets on the account and sell them to cover the liabilities.
Understanding liquidation risks and the importance of margin checks
Since there is no margin check at the order level, placing a large order may cause the uniMMR to drop below 105% when the order is executed, increasing the risk of being liquidated. Therefore, you are recommended to perform margin checks before placing an order. You can also set an adequate risk control framework to mitigate liquidation risks.
Is there a liquidation fee?
The Classic Portfolio Margin Program will charge a liquidation fee when liquidation occurs. When your portfolio margin positions are liquidated (including futures positions and margin loans), a certain percentage of the Insurance Clearance fee will be collected and contributed to Insurance Fund reserves. This is marked as “Insurance Clearance” under your [Transaction History].
Please refer to the respective articles for more details on Futures and Margin positions' liquidation clearance fees.
Liquidation process of USDⓈ-M and COIN-M positions
All liquidation orders are executed as Immediate or Cancel (IOC) orders during the liquidation process. IOC orders aim to fill as much of the liquidated position as possible. If there are any remaining positions after the partial execution of the order, they will be handled in one of two ways:
- Assigned to the Insurance Fund: Some or all of the remaining positions may be assigned to the Insurance Fund. This helps to mitigate the impact of the liquidation event and contributes to maintaining the overall stability of the platform.
- Assigned to Auto-Deleveraging (ADL): For positions exceeding the maximum amount of Insurance Fund coverage, ADL will be triggered.
Binance applies liquidation clearance fees for both Margin and Futures positions. Please refer to the respective articles for more details on Futures and Margin positions' liquidation clearance fees.
Automated negative balance clearance via pmLoan
If your account is bankrupt after liquidation, the liquidation engine will automatically convert your account’s negative assets/liabilities into a USDT Loan in the equivalent USD value (pmLoan).
Once liquidation occurs, please check whether your account has any pmLoan. You can repay it through the SAPI API endpoint or the Cross Margin Wallet from the website or the App.
Please note:
- Upon bankruptcy caused by liquidation, the liquidation engine will automatically convert your account’s negative assets/liabilities into a USDT Loan of an equivalent USD value (pmLoan).
- You must repay the pmLoan first to restore the trading functions.
- The pmLoan is currently interest-free.
- When you repay the pmLoan, the system will check whether you have a sufficient USDT balance in the Spot Wallet to cover the loan amount before transferring USDT from your Spot Wallet to your Cross Margin Wallet.
- pmLoan data and repayment can be requested via the following APIs:
- GET /sapi/v1/portfolio/pmLoan
- POST /sapi/v1/portfolio/repay
- For more details, please refer to the Classic Portfolio Margin API Interface section.
Margin call notifications
Binance will notify users by email and inmail when their uniMMR falls below the following levels:
- A first margin call will be sent when the uniMMR ≤ 200%;
- A second margin call will be sent when the uniMMR ≤ 150%;
- Your account will be automatically changed to reduce-only mode (opening new positions and margin loans will be suspended) when the uniMMR ≤ 120%;
- You will receive a liquidation call when the uniMMR ≤ 105%.
API error codes during liquidation
When your account is in reduce-only or liquidation mode, the following order entry error codes will be in effect:
Account Status/UniMMR Range | Order Entry Response Error Code |
uniMMR < 105% | UNABLE_TRADE_LOW_LIQUIDATION(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST, -3048, "Unable to trade. Your margin account is currently in liquidation. Please try again once the liquidation is processed.") |
105% ≤ uniMMR < 120% | Futures Fapi/dapi error code: unchanged When uniMMR falls below 120%: reduce-only error code |