Polymarket Fees Explained: What You Actually Pay

Polymarket charges a taker fee on most categories, never charges makers on the international platform, and nothing to move USDC — the rate depends on which product you use. As of September 2026 the international platform uses a per-category coefficient of 0.04 to 0.07 with geopolitics free, Polymarket US uses 0.06 for takers and pays makers a rebate, and Perps charge a percentage of notional starting at 0.0400% taker and 0.0125% maker.

How Polymarket calculates a fee

The event-market fee scales with how uncertain the market is, not just with how much you trade. Both the international platform and Polymarket US use:

fee = coefficient × number of shares × p × (1 - p)

p is the price you trade at, in dollars. A taker matches immediately against an order resting on the book; a maker posts an order that waits to be hit. Because p × (1 - p) peaks at 0.25 when p is $0.50, the fee is largest in a coin-flip market and symmetric around it — a trade at 30 cents costs the same as one at 70 cents (why a price is a probability).

Main platform: 0.04 to 0.07 by category, geopolitics free

The international platform at polymarket.com is not available to US residents for trading. Its fees are set by the protocol and applied at match time; you never put fee information in an order. The docs are explicit: makers are never charged fees; only takers pay fees, and the maker fee rate is 0 in every category.

Taker coefficients as of September 2026:

Crypto: 0.07

Sports, Economics, Culture, Weather, Other/General: 0.05

Finance, Politics, Mentions, Tech: 0.04

Geopolitics: 0

Geopolitical and world events markets are fee-free, and Polymarket states it does not profit from trading there. Moving USDC in or out carries no Polymarket fee; withdrawals are documented as instant and free.

Those taker fees fund rebates: makers are paid daily in pUSD, Polymarket's collateral token, once $1 accrues, and the Taker Rebate Program, live since May 28, 2026, returns 3% at Bronze up to 50% at Obsidian on 30-day weighted volume. Chasing a tier costs more than it returns unless the trades were worth making anyway (strategy guide).

Since the April 28, 2026 exchange upgrade, fees are charged in USDC rather than shares, so they show as a line in trade history. Category drives your cost: check it on live markets or the screener, since the same position costs nearly twice as much in crypto as in politics.

Polymarket US: 0.06 taker, and makers get paid

Polymarket US is the CFTC-regulated product for US residents, a designated contract market and clearing organization. It lists event contracts only, no perpetuals; its fee schedule has been effective exchange-wide since 12 AM ET on July 1, 2026.

Taker coefficient 0.06, maxing out at $1.50 per 100 contracts at a price of $0.50.

Maker rebate coefficient -0.0125: the maker receives up to $0.31 per 100 contracts, credited at the point of trade.

Taker rebates on prior-month volume: 10% back on $250,000 to $999,999, 25% on $1,000,000 to $9,999,999, 50% on $10,000,000 and above, paid weekly.

Banker's rounding to the nearest cent, and no fee on cancelled, expired or rejected orders.

Availability is not uniform across every state, so confirm eligibility at signup (Polymarket US explainer).

Perps: a percentage of notional, plus funding

Polymarket Perps launched broadly on September 3, 2026 and prices differently: each fill is charged on notional — the absolute value of price × quantity, times your rate, in pUSD. Rates tier on trailing 30-day volume, re-evaluated every UTC day, from 0.0400% taker and 0.0125% maker down to 0.0200% taker with a 0.0050% maker rebate above $1 billion.

Funding settles hourly, is capped at plus or minus 4% per hour, and transfers directly between longs and shorts with no protocol cut. Liquidation fills add a per-instrument liquidation fee on top of the maker or taker rate. With up to 20x leverage on major crypto, index and commodity markets and 10x on single stocks, a losing position can be liquidated long before the fee matters. Model it on the Perps calculator, read the full fee schedule, and check funding on the Perps screener.

Perps block order placement from the United States and Canada, alongside several sanctioned jurisdictions; circumventing those restrictions violates Polymarket's terms. See Perps country eligibility.

Worked examples

Main platform, 100 shares taken at $0.50: crypto costs 100 × 0.07 × 0.50 × 0.50 = $1.75 on $50 traded, politics $1.00, geopolitics nothing. At $0.10 the published table gives $0.63 per 100 crypto shares — same share count, smaller fee, because the price sits further from a coin flip.

Polymarket US publishes its own: on 1,000 contracts at $0.50 the taker pays $15.00 and the maker receives $3.12; at $0.10 it is $5.40 and $1.12.

At the Perps base tier, a $10,000 notional fill costs $4.00 as a taker and $1.25 as a maker. Hold overnight and hourly funding can dominate the entry fee; which side pays depends on the sign of the funding rate.

The costs no fee schedule shows

The spread you cross. Polymarket US documents the extreme case: a contract near 97 cents close to resolution can fill at 94 cents once demand thins on the likely-winner side.

On-ramps and network fees. Polymarket's fee documentation lists no user-paid network fee on trades, and moving USDC costs nothing on Polymarket's side. But its docs note intermediaries such as Coinbase or MoonPay may charge their own fees, and every asset has a minimum deposit (deposit guide). Those docs also flag slippage on size: for deposits over $50,000 from a chain other than Polygon they recommend a third-party bridge, and for withdrawals over $50,000 — which unwrap pUSD to USDC through a Uniswap swap — they suggest splitting the amount or using a bridge.

Fiat rails on Polymarket US. Withdrawals are free, but funds must return to the original funding source, deposits take three to four business days to clear, and debit cards cap at $25,000 per transaction, $50,000 per day.

Broker markups. Polymarket US's partner program, in beta as of September 2026, lets a firm declare its own per-order vendor fee charged to the retail participant; the exchange neither sets nor computes it. Ask any third-party app what it charges.

How this compares

Kalshi's published schedule uses the same p × (1 - p) shape with 0.07 as its general coefficient, before per-series or per-event multipliers. Like-for-like, Polymarket's 0.04 politics and finance categories and Polymarket US's 0.06 sit below that; the 0.07 crypto category is level.

A sportsbook is a different structure, not a dearer fee. Polymarket US's documentation draws the contrast: a central limit order book where your order matches another user's, with the platform neither taking the other side nor setting prices.

Readers outside the US can open Polymarket; readers outside the US and Canada can open Polymarket Perps — availability depends on jurisdiction. US readers should use Polymarket US, and our free whale tracker and alerts feed work wherever you trade.

Frequently asked questions

Is Polymarket free to use?

Partly. Makers pay no fee on the international platform, geopolitics and world events markets are fee-free, and moving USDC costs nothing. Taker fees apply everywhere else, and on Perps makers pay too — until the $500M volume tier, where the maker rate reaches 0.0000% and becomes a 0.0050% rebate above $1 billion.

Are there withdrawal fees?

Not from Polymarket. The international platform documents withdrawals as instant and free, and Polymarket US withdrawals are free too, though funds must return to the original funding source and the deposit must clear first.

Do Polymarket fees change?

Assume they will. Fee parameters are read per market on the international platform, the Polymarket US schedule carries an effective date of July 1, 2026, Perps tiers re-evaluate every UTC day, and rebate percentages are at Polymarket's discretion.

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