---
title: "Set your simulation defaults"
description: "Set once, in Settings → Simulation defaults, the starting capital, base currency, tax rules and interest markups every run of your own strategies starts from."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/backtesting/set-your-simulation-defaults"
last_updated: "2026-10-07"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/backtesting/set-your-simulation-defaults.md"
---

# Set your simulation defaults

Your starting capital, base currency, tax rules and interest markups are set once, in **Settings → Simulation defaults**, and every run of your own strategies starts from them.

## Steps

1. Open **Simulation** in the sidebar, under **Other** — or **Settings** in the account menu, then **Simulation defaults**.
2. Read the **Next simulation** summary at the top: one sentence with the capital, the currency and how the run will be taxed, beside the rates it uses. It follows your edits as you make them, before you save.
3. Under **Parameters**, pick a **[Starting capital](/glossary/starting-capital)** from the list and a **[Base currency](/glossary/base-currency)**. Each choice is saved the moment you make it, and a toast confirms it: `Starting capital saved`, `Currency saved`.
4. Under **Fiscal profile**, choose your **[Tax residency](/glossary/tax-residency)** and adjust the rates it starts you on, then press **Save** — [Set the tax rules your backtests use](/docs/backtesting/set-the-tax-rules-your-backtests-use) walks through this section.
5. Under **Interest**, set the **Borrowing rate markup** and the **Short rate markup** — the [spreads](/glossary/interest-rate-markups) a run adds to the reference rate when it borrows capital or shorts — then press **Save**. The toast reads `Interest rates saved`.
6. Run your strategies on the new values. A change here leaves each of your strategies at **Needs re-run** until it runs again — press **Re-run** on it; a [strategy](/glossary/strategy) you follow Live is recomputed for you.

**Done.** The **Next simulation** summary states what your next run assumes, and every strategy you own runs on it from its next run onwards.

## Which strategies do the simulation defaults apply to?

Every strategy you own — the ones you already created included, not only new ones. Each section carries the badge **Your strategies** to say so, and the summary ends with "It also applies to strategies you already created." A strategy does not keep a capital, currency or tax rule of its own: every simulation of it reads your saved defaults when it runs, which is why a change here sends your strategies to **Needs re-run** — [why a change flips the status](/glossary/run-status#why-does-a-strategy-flip-to-needs-re-run).

A Public strategy you do not own is the exception: it always runs on Fincanva's defaults rather than yours, so every viewer sees the same figures — see [starting capital](/glossary/starting-capital#how-does-fincanva-handle-it) and [base currency](/glossary/base-currency#how-does-fincanva-handle-it).

## What do the simulation defaults start at?

Until you save values of your own, the page shows Fincanva's:

- **Starting capital** 100,000, chosen from ten fixed amounts between 10,000 and 10,000,000;
- **Base currency** USD, one of six: USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, CAD and AUD;
- **Tax residency** following your interface language — United States in English, Italy in Italian — with the rates that residency starts on;
- **Borrowing rate markup** 1.5% and **Short rate markup** 2%, each settable up to 10%.

## Why do some changes save at once and others need Save?

**Parameters** are single choices, so each is saved as you make it. **Fiscal profile** and **Interest** are groups whose values only make sense together — a residency with the rates it re-seeds — so they are saved whole. While a group has a change, a bar in its section counts them, such as `2 unsaved changes`, with **Save** and **Cancel**; each changed field is marked until you save. **Cancel** puts back what was saved. Leaving the page with a change still pending asks `Discard changes?` first.

The interest markups and the tax rates reach a result only when the strategy's [simulation assumptions](/glossary/simulation-assumptions) include them: **Costs & interests** for the markups, **Taxes** for the tax rules.

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)