The demo account is a practice account where no money or financial requirements is needed. Yet, it's an account that one has to be serious about for knowledge and trading experience to be impacted. And based on my experience as a trader and tutor, it's good to spend at least 6 months with a demo account.

The training should however continue even if the trader has proceeded in opening and trading with a live account. This is because almost all new traders will lose on their first tries, so they often have to return to the drawing table of the demo account to try to fix the missing pieces.

Frankly, the time spent on the demo account might not matter much, what matters is the seriousness of the trader and the sincerity that he has really graduated from the virtual account category before leaving the account for a real one.