What Is the Notional Value of a Futures Contract?

The notional value of a futures contract is the size of the underlying position one contract stands for: the contract's unit multiplied by the current price. One Micro E-mini S&P 500 contract carries a $5 multiplier, so at an index level of 2783.30 — the level recorded in the 2019 filing that certified the contract with the CFTC, for 11 March that year — a single contract stood for $13,916.50 of index.

That figure is not the money you put up. Margin is a separate, much smaller deposit, and the gap between the two is where leverage comes from. Knowing both numbers is what tells you whether a position is the size you think it is.

What is the notional value of a futures contract?

Notional value answers one question: if this contract settled against the thing it tracks, how much of that thing would be involved? You get it by multiplying the contract's unit — its multiplier, its barrel count, its bushel count — by the price on the screen.

The CFTC's futures glossary approaches the same idea under a different heading. Its Contract Size entry describes the quantity of the commodity that one contract stands for, and Contract Unit is a cross-reference pointing straight at it. Searching the whole glossary page on 21 October 2026 turns up no entry titled Notional Value at all: all twelve appearances of the word in the page's visible text describe swaps, forward rate agreements or other over-the-counter derivatives, spread across seven entries. One of those entries is Notional Principal, the amount interest rates are applied to when the periodic payments on a swap or a forward rate agreement are worked out.

So notional value is a market phrase resting on a defined specification. The obligation underneath it is defined as well. The glossary's Futures Contract entry sets out four elements: a price fixed when the contract is initiated, both parties bound at that price, the purpose of assuming or shifting price risk, and discharge either by delivery or by offset. Notional value is simply that obligation priced out in dollars today.

How do you calculate the notional value of a futures contract?

Multiply the contract unit by the price. For index futures the unit is a dollar amount per index point, and exchange rule text states it directly: in the certification CME and CBOT filed with the CFTC on 12 April 2019 to list the four Micro E-mini contracts, the Micro E-mini S&P 500 rule (CME chapter 353) sets each contract's value at $5 times the index level, the Micro Nasdaq-100 rule (chapter 361) uses $2, and the Micro Dow rule (CBOT chapter 28) uses $0.50.

The filing does the arithmetic itself, in its position-limit section, with closing index levels it dates to 11 March 2019. The position-limit rule writes the Micro E-mini S&P 500 all-month limit in equivalents of the full-size S&P 500 futures contract — 60,000 of them — and aggregates fifty micro contracts into one of those, so the limit position is three million micro contracts. At 2783.30 that prices out at roughly $41.7 billion, which the filing puts at under 0.18% of the index's $23.38 trillion of market capitalisation at the time. Every operand is printed: index points, dollars per index point per contract, the contract count, and the aggregation ratio.

Away from the index products the unit is a quantity rather than a multiplier, which is why the calculation looks different from one market to the next. Our tradable instruments table lists the unit for every contract alongside its tick size, last verified against CME contract specifications on 31 August 2026.

Is notional value the same as margin?

No. Notional value is the size of the exposure; margin is the deposit that supports it, and the CFTC glossary's Margin entry is explicit that the deposit is not part-payment for a purchase. The entry describes collateral moving from customer to broker, broker to clearing member, and clearing member to clearing organization, under the alternative name performance bond.

The same entry splits margin in two. Initial margin is posted when the position is opened; maintenance margin is a floor that has to be held while it stays open, and equity falling to or below that floor brings a call from the broker to restore the account to the initial level. Exchanges set both figures for each contract, and futures commission merchants are free to require more than the exchange does. We have written separately about how day trading margin differs from overnight margin, which is the part of this that moves intraday.

Neither margin figure belongs to the contract the way the multiplier does: the exchange sets both, and a futures commission merchant may ask for more, which is why this post quotes no margin figure. Notional value moves for its own reason: it tracks the price. Between them sits the glossary's Mark-to-Market entry, the daily routine in which each position's gain or loss is computed from the session's price change and moved into or out of the account balance. Your exposure is re-priced every day; the cash follows.

What does notional value tell you about leverage?

Notional value gives you the numerator. Leverage, as the CFTC glossary defines it, is controlling a large dollar amount of a commodity or security while putting up comparatively little capital, and the arithmetic is notional value divided by the capital behind it. A position worth $200,000 of index held against $20,000 of posted collateral is ten times levered, and nothing about the contract itself decided that.

The numerator changes every tick, because notional value is price times unit. The denominator is whatever capital stands behind the position, and the floor under it is not one number either: the glossary has the exchange setting initial and maintenance margin per contract and futures commission merchants free to require more. A leverage ratio is therefore a snapshot of one account at one moment, not a property of the contract — which is why two traders can quote different leverage figures for the same instrument.

This is also where the micro contracts earn their place. The glossary's Mini entry defines a mini as the same contract in a smaller size, and the micros take that further: the $5 Micro E-mini S&P 500 multiplier is a tenth of the $50 on the E-mini S&P 500, so a micro position reaches one tenth of the notional value per contract. The step from one position size to the next is a tenth as well: adding a contract adds a tenth of the exposure that adding an E-mini would.

How does notional value relate to tick value?

Tick value is notional value cut down to one price increment. The glossary defines the minimum tick as the smallest price step a given contract can trade in, and multiplying that step by the contract unit gives the dollars that step is worth. On our instruments table the identity holds on every row: unit × tick size = tick value, so $50 × 0.25 = $12.50 on the E-mini S&P 500, and 1,000 barrels × $0.01 = $10 on crude.

The filing's specification table gives the increment and its dollar value for all four micro index contracts. The Micro E-mini S&P 500 trades in 0.25 index point increments worth $1.25 per contract, the Micro Nasdaq-100 in 0.25 points worth $0.50, the Micro Russell 2000 in 0.10 points worth $0.50, and the Micro Dow in 1.00 point worth $0.50. Intermonth spreads trade in finer increments — 0.05 index points on three of the four.

Put the two figures side by side and the scale of a tick becomes clear. That $1.25 tick on the Micro E-mini S&P 500 was 0.0090% of the $13,916.50 the contract stood for at the March 2019 index level in the filing. A tick is a rounding error against the exposure, which is precisely why ticks are a poor unit for thinking about position size and a good one for thinking about cost. We go through that distinction in more detail in tick size vs tick value.

Does notional value tell you how much you can lose?

Not by itself. What you stand to lose on a trade is the distance from your entry to your exit multiplied by the contract unit and the number of contracts, and the exit distance is yours to choose. Notional value tells you something narrower and still useful: what a given percentage move in the underlying is worth to you. A 1% adverse move in the underlying is $2,000 against a $200,000 notional position, before any stop intervenes.

That is the figure to convert before a session rather than after one, because moves in an index are quoted in percent and your account is denominated in dollars. Our guide to futures position sizing works the other direction — from a risk budget, through the stop distance, to a contract count — and the two calculations are checks on each other.

A platform will show you the exposure figure under its own name. Quantower's Positions panel documents three columns that measure it: Position exposure, worked from the open price in the account currency, and then Position value at the open price and Position value at the current price as separate columns. Two value columns for one position is the point. The exposure you opened and the exposure you are holding are different numbers as soon as the price moves, and the word notional appears nowhere on that documentation page.

What does notional value mean on a funded account?

Notional value is what turns a contract limit into a risk limit. Our contract limits cap what you can hold at once — four minis or forty micros on a $50K account, with ten micros counting as one mini — and that ceiling is defined in contracts, so the exposure it permits depends entirely on the price of what you buy with it.

Work it through at an index level of 6,000, and substitute today's level when you do this for yourself. Four E-mini S&P 500 contracts at a $50 multiplier is $1,200,000 of notional value. Forty Micro E-minis at $5 is the same $1,200,000, because a $5 multiplier is a tenth of a $50 one and forty is ten times four. Against that, the drawdown on a $50K Classic or Horizon account is $2,000, so the line opens at $48,000, and it is monitored in real time through the session.

So that $2,000 of opening room, divided by $200 per index point across four contracts, is ten index points. At 6,000, ten points is 0.167% of the index. A position at the ceiling puts the whole drawdown inside a move of under two tenths of one percent. These are simulated accounts, with real money paid out on the profit once the payout conditions are met, and the drawdown line is enforced on that simulated balance in real time. Nothing stops you trading the ceiling; the arithmetic just says what it costs if you are wrong, and it is the arithmetic rather than the contract count that should decide the number.

FAQ

Is notional value the same as contract size?

They are closely related and not interchangeable. The CFTC glossary's Contract Size entry defines it as the amount of a commodity one contract represents, which is a fixed specification; on our instruments table that is 1,000 barrels for crude, 5,000 bushels for corn, $50 per index point for the E-mini S&P 500. Notional value is that specification priced at today's market: the unit multiplied by the current price. Contract size changes only when the exchange re-specifies the product; notional value changes every tick.

What is the notional value of one E-mini S&P 500 contract?

Multiply $50 by the current index level. Our instruments table lists the E-mini S&P 500 unit as $50 per index point, so the figure moves with the market and there is no fixed answer to quote. The Micro E-mini version carries a $5 multiplier instead: the rule text in the April 2019 certification filing values each micro contract at $5 times the index, and the same filing records the index closing at 2783.30 on 11 March 2019. Multiply the two and one contract stood for $13,916.50 of index that day.

Does notional value change during the day?

Yes, continuously, because price is one of its two operands. That is why Quantower's Positions panel publishes a position value at the open price and a position value at the current price as two separate columns — the exposure you took on and the exposure you are carrying diverge the moment the market moves. The CFTC glossary's Mark-to-Market entry describes the other consequence: the gain or loss on that re-priced exposure moves through your balance at the end of each session.

Do micro contracts have a lower notional value than minis?

Per contract, yes. The Micro E-mini S&P 500's $5 multiplier is a tenth of the E-mini's $50, so one micro stands for a tenth of the exposure at the same index level. Ten micros come to one mini's notional value exactly, and our contract limits count ten micros as one mini. The glossary's Mini entry makes the general point: a mini is the same contract in a smaller size.