Swaps and commissions in the MT5 report: where they hide and what they cost
By the Trading Journal team · Updated · 6 min read
Where the costs are in the report
Export the history from the History tab as a report (how to export your MT5 trade history). The costs appear in three places:
- Positions. One row per position, with Commission, Swap and Profit side by side. Profit is what the price move made; the costs are next to it, not inside it.
- Deals. One row per deal, with Commission, Fee, Swap, Profit and the running Balance. The balance moves by all four, so it is the only column that already holds the net result.
- The last row of the Deals table. The totals of Commission, Fee, Swap and Profit for the exported period, and the final balance. The Profit total also contains deposits and withdrawals: MT5 prints them in the Profit column too.
Newer MetaTrader 5 builds also have a Trading Report. Its help page says gross profit and gross loss there are counted without swaps and commissions, which it lists as separate totals. So before you compare a profit figure with anything, check whether the costs are in it.
The spread has no column: it is already in the prices you were filled at, so it is already inside Profit.
Commission: how brokers charge it
MetaQuotes’ help on the symbol specification lists the ways a broker can set it up:
- per lot or per deal, in money, as a percentage or in points;
- on entry, on exit, or on both;
- immediately, on each deal — or at the end of the trading day or month.
To see your broker’s terms, right-click the symbol in Market Watch and open Specification: the Commission line says how it is charged.
The last case matters. When commission is charged at the end of the day or month, the deal rows show 0.00 and the money leaves the account in a separate row of type commission. Every trade then looks cheaper than it was. MQL5 lists these as their own deal types — daily and monthly commission, interest, additional charges (deal properties). Add them to your costs by hand.
Fee is a separate charge «for making a deal, charged immediately after performing a deal», in MetaQuotes’ words. Many brokers leave it at zero.
Swap: the price of holding overnight
A position still open at the daily rollover is charged — or paid — a swap. In the same specification window:
- Swap type — in points, in money, or as a percentage of the price;
- Swap long and Swap short — different for buys and sells, and either can be positive;
- a multiplier for each weekday. MetaQuotes’ own example: $1.50 a night, times three on Wednesday, so the night from Wednesday to Thursday costs $4.50. Brokers usually triple one night to cover the weekend.
While the position is open, the swap builds up on it. When it closes, the whole amount lands on the closing deal: MQL5 describes a deal’s swap as the «cumulative swap on close». A trade held for five nights shows all five nights’ swap on the day it closes.
A month in numbers
Twenty trades of 1.00 lot on EURUSD, a USD account. Commission $3.50 per lot on entry and on exit — $7 a trade. Swap −$7.00 a night. Three positions were held for one night, one from Wednesday to Thursday at three times the rate. These numbers are an illustration; yours are in your specification.
| By the Profit column | After commission and swap | |
|---|---|---|
| Result | +$620 | +$438 |
| Winning trades | 11 of 20 (55%) | 8 of 20 (40%) |
| Profit factor | 3.36 | 2.27 |
| Expected payoff | $31.00 | $21.90 |
- Commission: 20 trades × $7 = $140.
- Swap: three nights at $7 and one tripled night at $21 = $42.
- Costs together: $182 — 29% of what the Profit column shows.
Where did three winners go? Three trades were closed by a stop moved to 0.3 pip above the entry: +$3 each in the Profit column, −$4 each after the $7 commission. On this account the commission is worth 0.7 pip a trade ($7 ÷ $10 per pip for a lot of EURUSD), so a «breakeven» stop has to sit at least 0.7 pip past the entry just to pay for the trade.
The last row of this month’s Deals table, after a $10,000 deposit:
| Commission | Fee | Swap | Profit | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| −140.00 | 0.00 | −42.00 | 10,620.00 | 10,438.00 |
The Profit total holds the deposit: 10,620 − 10,000 − 140 − 42 = 438, the same as the balance gained.
Count your own costs in five minutes
- Export one month as a report.
- In the last row of the Deals table, take the Commission, Fee and Swap totals.
- From the Profit total, take out deposits and add back withdrawals: that is what your trades made before costs.
- Divide the costs by it. If they take more than a fifth, look at how often you trade and how long you hold.
- Work out commission in pips: commission per lot for a full trade ÷ the value of a pip for one lot. Compare it with your average winner in pips.
Also look for rows that are not buy or sell — commission, interest, charges. They belong to the account, not to a trade, but they are still your costs.
Costs and prop firm limits
Prop firms count costs against your limits. FTMO, for one, checks the daily loss against equity with commissions and swaps included (how FTMO’s daily loss limit is calculated). A tight scalping day pays commission on every trade, and a position held over the tripled night pays three nights at once — both come off the room you have left for the day.
How the journal counts them
Upload the report or connect the read-only connector. Each deal’s commission and fee go to the trade’s Fees, and its swap to Swap / funding: a trade’s net result is gross minus fees plus swap. Rows of commission that belong to no deal are kept as account operations, outside every trade, and the import says so.
Reports switch between Net and Gross, so you can see what costs take from each symbol, hour and setup. Every import is checked against the statement’s total, and a day counts a trade on the day it closes — its whole swap included. When the journal and the broker disagree, see why your P&L differs from the broker.
This guide is part of How to keep an MT4/MT5 trading journal.