Unlike traditional stock trading accounts, all commodity traders are granted margin accounts (without any special considerations or requirements).  Further, commodity traders do not have to pay interest to their futures broker for access to leverage in a margin account.  By definition, margin is an amount of money deposited by both buyers and sellers of futures contracts and by sellers of option contracts to ensure performance of the terms of the contract (the making or taking delivery of the commodity or the cancellation of the position by a subsequent offsetting trade). Margin in futures is not a down payment, as in securities, but rather a performance bond.