When your order does not fill
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 5 min
In short
A limit order that does not fill either has not been reached by the market, or has been reached but your place in the queue has not come up. Check your open orders screen to confirm the order is still live, then look at where your limit sits relative to the book. Not filling is not a malfunction — it is the consequence of naming a price.
Key points
- A limit order prioritises price, which necessarily means it may never fill
- Orders at the same price generally fill in the sequence they were placed
- Thin assets and quiet hours make fills harder
- An order can also lapse from its time limit, or be invalidated by insufficient balance or margin
Definition
An order that has been placed but not executed, sitting unfilled on the book — most often a limit order whose price condition has not been met.
First, confirm the order is alive. On your open orders screen, check that it is still listed as active or unfilled. If it is not there, it may have expired, been rejected for insufficient funds, or been cancelled by accident. Cross-checking against your trade history shows where it went.
If it is live, look at where your price sits. For a buy, a limit below the best current ask will not fill until the market comes down to it; for a sell, the reverse. The order book also shows how much volume is queued ahead of you — a large stack at the same price can mean the market touches your level without your turn arriving. 'The order book' covers how to read it.
The asset and the hour matter too. Thinly traded assets simply have fewer orders on the other side, so even a near miss does not execute, and quiet hours behave the same way. If filling matters more than price, a market order is the alternative — at the cost of accepting a price you did not specify. 'Choosing an order type' compares them.
Check your balance and margin conditions as well. A buy order locks up the funds it needs, so capital tied up in other open orders can block a new one. When you have several unfilled orders, review the list to see what is holding funds and cancel what you no longer want.
One point of judgement to close on. Chasing the market by repeatedly moving your limit closer tends to end with you buying higher or selling lower than your original reasoning supported. A non-fill only means the condition you set has not been met. If you change the condition, change it for a reason rather than out of impatience.
Watch out for
- · Do not install external tools or bots that promise guaranteed fills. Handing over API keys hands over control of your assets
- · Repeatedly chasing the market with your limit tends to produce a worse execution overall
- · Anyone pitching automated trading that 'always profits' is running a scam, and speed of execution is a favourite selling point
Frequently asked questions
The market reached my limit price but my order did not fill.
Your turn does not come until the orders queued ahead of you at that price are consumed. If the market only touched the level briefly before turning, not every order sitting there executes. The depth of the book explains it.