> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.whitebit.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Liquidation and margin requirements
> How liquidation is evaluated on WhiteBIT margin and futures positions — mark price as the trigger, the maintenance margin schedule, leverage brackets, and the API fields that report liquidation state.
Liquidation force-closes a leveraged position when the maintenance margin requirement is breached. Margin Trading and Futures Trading draw on the same [Collateral balance](/concepts/balances), so both products share one maintenance margin schedule, one account-wide leverage setting, and one liquidation sequence. The sections below cover the trigger price, the margin threshold, the order in which exposure closes, and the API fields that report liquidation state.
## Trigger price
On perpetual markets, liquidation is evaluated against the **mark price**, not `last_price`. A temporary wick in the order book does not by itself trigger a liquidation.
Mark price is the fair value of the perpetual contract, derived from the underlying index price and the futures basis. The value is a point-in-time reading from the latest premium index snapshot, exposed as `mark_price` on [`GET /api/v4/public/futures`](/api-reference/market-data/available-futures-markets-list). While no fresh snapshot is available for a market, `mark_price` returns an empty string.
The `index_price` field on the same endpoint carries the index the contract tracks, read from the same snapshot. While the index is unavailable, `index_price` falls back to the last traded price of the spot market, then of the futures market, and returns `"0"` when neither has traded.
Auto-Deleveraging fills are priced from **Last Price**, not mark price. See [Auto-Deleveraging](/concepts/auto-deleveraging) for the execution-price formula.
## Maintenance margin and leverage brackets
The Maintenance Margin Rate (MMR) is **3% for leverage 1x–10x**. Per-market leverage limits and collateral brackets are published on the [collateral brackets page](https://whitebit.com/trading-data/collateral-brackets).
| | Margin | Futures |
| ---------------- | ----------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| Instrument | Spot pairs (`BTC_USDT`) | Perpetual pairs (`BTC_PERP`) |
| Maximum leverage | 10x | 100x |
| Documented MMR | 3% for 1x–10x | 3% for 1x–10x |
The [leverage endpoint](/api-reference/trading/change-collateral-account-leverage) accepts `1`, `2`, `3`, `5`, `10`, `20`, `50`, and `100`. Leverage is an account-level setting — a change affects all open positions across both products. A market's `max_leverage` field may be lower than `100`, and setting leverage above a market maximum returns an error.
The `brackets` object on `GET /api/v4/public/futures` maps each leverage multiplier to the **maximum open position size in USDT equivalent** at that level. Brackets are position-size limits, not MMR percentages. A position that exceeds a bracket limit moves to higher tiers with progressively lower leverage.
## Liquidation sequence
Partial liquidation is the primary mechanism: a portion of the position (for example, 20–30%) closes first to restore margin. Full liquidation follows only when partial liquidation is insufficient. Collateral allocated to a liquidated position is lost.
Exposure closes in a fixed order:
1. Margin positions, from smallest to largest initial margin value
2. Crypto borrowings
3. Futures positions
On futures markets, [Auto-Deleveraging](/concepts/auto-deleveraging) is the final stage, reached only when order-book liquidity cannot absorb the liquidation order.
## Liquidation state in API responses
| Field | Surface | Meaning |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `liquidationPrice` | [Open positions](/api-reference/trading/open-positions) | Liquidation price for the current position state. Nullable — a position already under a margin call can return `null` |
| `liquidationState` | [Open positions](/api-reference/trading/open-positions) | `margin_call` or `liquidation`. Nullable while neither state applies |
| `marginFraction` | [Collateral account summary](/api-reference/trading/collateral-account-summary) | Ratio of used margin to account equity, returned alongside `equity`, `margin`, `freeMargin`, and `pnl` |
| `liq_price`, `liq_stage` | [Positions](/websocket/account-streams/positions) stream | Liquidation price and stage per position, pushed every second. `liq_stage` is `margin_call`, `liquidation`, or `null` when healthy |
| `liq_price` | [Borrows](/websocket/account-streams/borrows) stream | Liquidation price of an individual borrow |
| Event type | [Borrows events](/websocket/account-streams/borrows-events) stream | `1` = margin call, `2` = liquidation |
| `liq_stage` | [Margin positions events](/websocket/account-streams/margin-positions-events) stream | Event-driven margin call and liquidation notifications; no snapshot on subscribe |
Because `liquidationPrice` is nullable, a risk monitor treats a missing value as "not yet computed" rather than "no liquidation risk", and tracks `marginFraction` alongside.
## Cost of borrowed funds
A commission applies to borrowed funds on margin positions, charged only when an order is at least partially executed. Unexecuted orders incur no borrowing fee. Current rates are published on the [trading fees page](https://whitebit.com/trading-data/trading-fees).
No public endpoint returns the borrowing rate itself. Accrued borrowing cost per open borrow is available as `unrealized_funding` on the [Borrows](/websocket/account-streams/borrows) stream — the funding due at the next borrow stage change.
> **Coming soon:** the full mark price calculation method (snapshot cadence and basis handling), the trigger price for margin positions on spot pairs, MMR values for leverage brackets above 10x, and per-position liquidation price formulas. For institutional risk-modelling requirements, contact [institutional@whitebit.com](mailto:institutional@whitebit.com).
**API naming convention:** WhiteBIT's API uses "collateral" endpoints for both
Margin and Futures trading. The market pair determines the product:
spot pairs (e.g., `BTC_USDT`) for Margin, perpetual pairs (e.g., `BTC_PERP`)
for Futures. All endpoints under `/api/v4/order/collateral/` and
`/api/v4/collateral-account/` serve both products.
## What's Next
The final liquidation stage, counterparty selection, and the ADL Grade indicator.
Main, Trade, and Collateral accounts, and how funds move between accounts.
Open a first leveraged position and read position risk fields.