Kalshi's taker fee is 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), times the series multiplier (1 by default) and rounded up to the next cent, so it peaks at 1.75¢ per contract at a 50¢ price. Resting (maker) orders are free on standard series and pay a fee only on the series Kalshi lists with maker fees.
Country-by-country rules, regulator actions and sources for Polymarket and Kalshi.
This is not legal advice, and we don't say whether trading is legal for you in Germany. We report what each platform's published rules say about Germany and the public regulator, court and police actions we could source, each with a date. Those rules change fast, so check the platform's current terms and the law in Germany before doing anything. ‘Not listed’ only means a platform's own list doesn't name Germany; it doesn't mean trading there is permitted.
Status under each platform's own published rules, and the most recent public action we could source, as of 2026-09-24.
Last public action: 2025-09-05 · Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL) · Public warning or intervention (Polymarket)
Source: Official
Dated public actions on record: 1
This page keeps two things apart for Germany: what each platform's own published rules say, and what regulators, courts and police in Germany have publicly done. A platform's list is its own policy and a government order is the government's, so a country can be on one and not the other.
The status labels are the same as in the main table. Restricted means the platform's own list blocks trading from Germany. Close-only means existing users there can close positions but can't open new ones. Some regions means only named regions are restricted. Separate product means residents use a different, separately regulated product, as US residents do with the Polymarket US app. Not listed means the platform's published list doesn't name Germany; that is not the same as permitted, and a regulator may still block the site.
Polymarket publishes two official lists that don't fully match: its Help Center page (updated August 14, 2026) and its developer docs (undated). We follow the dated Help Center list and say where the developer docs differ. Kalshi statuses follow its Member Agreement as fetched on September 24, 2026; the agreement itself is undated.
Each action shows the authority as it names itself, what it did, the platform it concerns and the date: the date of the action where it was published, otherwise the date it was first reported. Every entry is marked Official, Platform document or Secondary report. Where only secondary reporting exists, we say ‘reported by’ and name the outlet; where official sources conflict, we report both.
‘No public action found’ means our searches found none, not that none exists. Nothing on this page says whether trading is legal for you: for that, check the platforms' current terms and the law in Germany.
Polymarket's Help Center page on geographic restrictions (updated August 14, 2026) lists Germany among the 39 countries where it says trading is blocked, and gives Germany a rule of its own: ‘Trading is prohibited. Existing positions must be held until market resolution to redeem shares, after which funds can be withdrawn without restrictions. Market data and commenting features are available.’ Its developer docs (undated, checked September 24, 2026) put Germany in the group that is close-only on both the website and the API, which would let existing users close positions before resolution. The two documents differ on what an existing user can do; we follow the dated Help Center page and record the difference.
The restriction is Polymarket's own geoblock, not a state block: we found no German ISP or DNS blocking order, no payment-blocking order and no app-store removal, and the gaming site gamesbasis.com wrote on April 7, 2026 that there was as yet no state-ordered block in Germany. We found no published date for when Polymarket restricted Germany. It still runs German-language pages (polymarket.com/de) and a ‘Germany Parliamentary Election Winner’ market (fetched September 26, 2026). Polymarket's Terms of Use (effective August 11, 2026) prohibit using a VPN or similar tool to get around its restrictions, and its Help Center says doing so violates those terms.
Kalshi's Member Agreement (section VI, Restricted Jurisdictions, undated, fetched September 24, 2026) lists 55 countries, and Germany is not one of them; Germany wasn't in Kalshi's Exchange Notices of October 23 or November 4, 2025 either, so under this site's labels Germany is Not listed for Kalshi. Kalshi's help center (updated March 20, 2026) says trading from outside the US is ‘subject to the terms of the Kalshi Member Agreement’. We found no Kalshi blog post or notice that names Germany. ‘Not listed’ describes Kalshi's policy only: no GGL document names Kalshi, but the GGL's rule that bets on non-sport events can't be licensed is stated without reference to any platform.
The regulator is the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL), the joint gambling authority of the German states in Halle (Saale), competent since 2023 under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag 2021 (GlüStV 2021), the Interstate Treaty on Gambling. The provisions it cites against prediction markets are § 3 Abs. 1 Satz 4 GlüStV 2021 in connection with § 4 Abs. 5 GlüStV 2021: bets on non-sport events, which the GGL calls Gesellschaftswetten (elections, court rulings, natural disasters, economic developments, TV shows, awards), are ‘nicht erlaubnisfähig’, not capable of being licensed, because of a high risk of manipulation; only sports bets on defined events with verifiable results, and horse-race bets, can be licensed. The GGL's FAQ (as of August 13, 2026) refers to §§ 284 and 285 of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code), the provisions on organising unauthorised gambling and taking part in it, and says the GGL can refer cases to prosecutors; we couldn't verify the statute text and don't state penalty ranges. Germany's financial supervisor, BaFin, has made no public statement naming either platform that we could find. At EU level, ESMA's public statement of July 3, 2026 (ESMA35-243228190-8148) says event contracts that qualify as financial instruments fall under the national bans on binary options for retail clients and that distributing them in the EU requires investment-firm authorisation; it names no platform.
September 5, 2025 (Official). The GGL published a warning titled ‘GGL warnt vor Teilnahme an illegalen Gesellschaftswetten’ (GGL warns against taking part in illegal society bets), naming Polymarket: bets offered on platforms ‘wie “Polymarket”’ are illegal under German law and can't be licensed, and ‘Sowohl das Veranstalten oder Vermitteln solcher illegalen Wetten, als auch die Teilnahme daran, sowie die Bewerbung des Angebotes, sind strafbar’ (organising or brokering such illegal bets, taking part in them and advertising the offer are all punishable). Kalshi is not named. It is a warning addressed to the public, not a blocking order; some secondary sites describe it as a ‘blacklisting’, but the GGL publishes a whitelist of licensed operators, not a blacklist, and the document orders nothing.
June 19, 2026 (Official). The GGL joined the joint statement of nine European gambling regulators (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland) on prediction markets, which points to consumer-protection gaps and addiction and manipulation risks and says such offers are currently subject to no, or only unclear, gambling regulation; it names no platform and announces no platform-specific enforcement measure. August 13, 2026 (Official). The GGL published a press release, ‘GGL informiert über rechtliche Risiken von Gesellschaftswetten und Prognosemärkten’, and a new FAQ page. The core sentence: ‘Gesellschaftswetten sind in Deutschland nicht erlaubnisfähig. Die Teilnahme aus Deutschland ist daher nicht zulässig und kann strafbar sein’ (society bets cannot be licensed in Germany; taking part from Germany is therefore not permitted and can be punishable). No platform is named.
What we did not find, as of September 26, 2026: no GGL blocking order (Sperrverfügung), payment-blocking order or fine against Polymarket or Kalshi, no court case by or against either platform in Germany, and no lifted or reversed measure. The GGL's general enforcement tools, per its FAQ, are IP blocking and payment blocking, but no such order against these platforms is public; whether any non-public administrative proceeding is under way is not something we can say. That means we found none, not that none exists.
The entries below are rendered from the same dated data as the main country table, newest first. Each row shows the date, the authority as it names itself, the type of action, the platform it concerns and the source with its type.
| Date | Authority | Action | Platform | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-05 | Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL) | Public warning or intervention | Polymarket | Source Official Checked 2026-09-26 Also reported by: Secondary report |
Public regulator, court and police actions concerning Polymarket and Kalshi in Germany, as of 2026-09-24. Not legal advice.
This section reports what the law and the authorities in Germany have said about people who take part in these markets, and any enforcement against users that has been made public. It describes; it doesn't advise.
The GGL addresses users directly. Its warning of September 5, 2025 and its FAQ say taking part in such bets ‘ist strafbar’ (is punishable); its press release of August 13, 2026 says participation from Germany ‘kann strafbar sein’ (can be punishable). The gambling-news site casino.de noted on August 27, 2026 (updated September 9, 2026) that the GGL used three strengths of wording on the same day: ‘sind strafbar’, ‘kann strafbar sein’ and ‘kann unter Umständen auch strafrechtlich relevant sein’ (can under certain circumstances also be relevant under criminal law). The provision the GGL refers to for participants is § 285 StGB, taking part in unauthorised gambling. The GGL's FAQ adds that with illegal operators there is no legal protection and that claims to payouts ‘as a rule cannot be enforced’.
We found no prosecution, arrest or court decision involving a Polymarket or Kalshi user in Germany. A criminal-defence lawyer's analysis (Ferner, February 27, 2026, updated June 3, 2026) argues that § 285 StGB requires only conditional intent and says banks increasingly file money-laundering suspicious-activity reports on gambling-linked deposits; it cites no actual prosecution. We found no statement by the Federal Ministry of Finance or a tax office on prediction-market winnings, and no German bank restriction naming the platforms. This page describes; it doesn't advise.
Legal commentary reads the treaty the same way as the GGL: the legal-news site LTO wrote on April 30, 2026 that under the GlüStV only sports and horse-race bets can be licensed and everything else counts as a Gesellschaftswette. Polymarket's Germany rule differs from its close-only wording for Singapore, Poland, Thailand and Taiwan (‘Users may close their existing positions but cannot open new ones’): the Help Center tells existing users in Germany to hold positions until resolution and then withdraw. We found no sponsorship, election-authority statement or payment-rail fact specific to Germany.
PolyKal is a read-only research site, and it does not restrict access by country, including from Germany. Its public pages, including prices on both platforms, order-book depth, after-fee cost comparisons, the fee calculator, and large-trade and whale data, need no account. You don't need a VPN to use them.
Viewing public market data is not trading. PolyKal doesn't place orders, hold funds or give access to trading on either platform, and a restriction on Polymarket or Kalshi in Germany still applies to trading there. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions; getting around a block can also break local law. PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around them.
Start with the compare page, the fee calculator or large trades, or read how Polymarket works and how Kalshi works.
Germany is one of 27 countries, plus the United States, that PolyKal tracks. The full availability table shows every country's status under each platform's rules and its regulator actions side by side, with the same dates and sources as this page, and its change log lists every edit we make.
Every entry is re-checked at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change. The next scheduled full re-check is shown in the sidebar.
We don't give a verdict for you. What the record shows: the GGL, Germany's gambling regulator, said on September 5, 2025 that bets offered on platforms such as Polymarket are illegal under German law because bets on non-sport events can't be licensed (§ 3 Abs. 1 Satz 4 and § 4 Abs. 5 GlüStV 2021), and that organising, taking part in and advertising them are punishable; on August 13, 2026 it said taking part from Germany ‘can be punishable’. Polymarket's own Help Center lists Germany as blocked. We found no German blocking order, fine or court case, and no prosecution of a user. For your own situation, check the current law and the platform's terms.
The block is Polymarket's own: its Help Center (updated August 14, 2026) lists Germany as blocked and says existing positions must be held until resolution, after which funds can be withdrawn. We found no published reason or date for the block from Polymarket, and no German state order requiring one. The GGL's position, stated on September 5, 2025 and August 13, 2026, is that bets on non-sport events can't be licensed in Germany and that offering them, taking part in them and advertising them are punishable.
Kalshi's Member Agreement doesn't list Germany as a restricted jurisdiction (checked September 24, 2026), and its help center says trading from outside the US is ‘subject to the terms of the Kalshi Member Agreement’; that describes Kalshi's policy only. No GGL document names Kalshi, but the GGL's rule that bets on non-sport events can't be licensed in Germany, and that taking part can be punishable, is stated without reference to any platform. Whether trading is lawful for you is not something this page decides.
We don't decide that for you. The GGL says it can be: its warning of September 5, 2025 says taking part in such bets ‘ist strafbar’ (is punishable) and its release of August 13, 2026 says participation from Germany ‘kann strafbar sein’ (can be punishable), referring to § 285 of the Criminal Code on taking part in unauthorised gambling; its FAQ says it can refer cases to prosecutors. We found no prosecution, arrest or court decision involving a German user of either platform as of September 26, 2026, and we couldn't verify the statute's penalty range. A criminal-defence lawyer's analysis argues that conditional intent suffices; it cites no case.
Yes, on PolyKal. PolyKal is a read-only research site that shows prices, order-book depth and fee comparisons for both platforms without an account, and it does not restrict access from Germany. Viewing data is not trading: PolyKal places no orders and gives no access to either platform, Polymarket's own block on Germany still applies to trading there, and the GGL's statements described on this page concern taking part in bets, not reading public prices.
No. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions. Getting around a block can also break local law. You don't need a VPN to research these markets: PolyKal's prices, order books and fee calculator don't require one.
We re-check every country page at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change; each rule and action on the page shows its own date and source. If you spot something out of date for Germany, email [email protected] with a link to the new rule or order.
Every statement on this page rests on the sources below. Platform rules were checked against Polymarket's and Kalshi's own pages on September 24, 2026; regulator, court and police actions were checked against the sources listed on September 24–26, 2026. Each source is marked as official, a platform document or a secondary report. Where only secondary reporting was available, we cite it and say so; where official sources conflict, we report both. We re-verify this page quarterly.
Official: GGL, ‘GGL warnt vor Teilnahme an illegalen Gesellschaftswetten’ (September 5, 2025); GGL, joint statement of nine European gambling regulators on prediction markets (June 19, 2026); GGL, ‘GGL informiert über rechtliche Risiken von Gesellschaftswetten und Prognosemärkten’ (August 13, 2026); GGL, FAQ ‘Gesellschaftswetten’ (as of August 13, 2026); Glücksspielstaatsvertrag 2021, consolidated text published by the GGL (consolidated September 2, 2025); ESMA, public statement on the application of national binary-option measures to event contracts, ESMA35-243228190-8148 (July 3, 2026).
Platform documents specific to Germany: Polymarket, Germany predictions page (German-language) (fetched September 26, 2026); Kalshi Exchange Notice, Updated Member Agreement (October 23, 2025; Germany not listed); Kalshi Exchange Notice, Updated Member Agreement (November 4, 2025; Germany not listed).
Secondary reports: casino.de on the GGL's August 2026 statements and their wording (August 27, 2026, updated September 9, 2026); Ferner (criminal-defence lawyer) on Polymarket and § 285 StGB (February 27, 2026, updated June 3, 2026); LTO on the legal classification of Polymarket and Kalshi (April 30, 2026); gamesbasis.com on whether Polymarket is banned in Germany (April 7, 2026).
Platform documents (all countries): Polymarket Help Center: Geographic restrictions (updated August 14, 2026), Polymarket developer docs: Geoblock (undated), Kalshi Member Agreement (undated; fetched September 24, 2026) and Kalshi Help Center: trading from outside the US (updated March 20, 2026).
PolyKal is an independent research tool. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Polymarket or Kalshi. We report each platform's published rules and public regulator, court and police actions in Germany; we don't say whether trading is legal for you, and we don't help anyone get around a platform's restrictions. Last reviewed September 26, 2026. Not legal or financial advice.
Know of a newer rule, order or court decision for Germany? Email [email protected] with a link to it.
Kalshi's taker fee is 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), times the series multiplier (1 by default) and rounded up to the next cent, so it peaks at 1.75¢ per contract at a 50¢ price. Resting (maker) orders are free on standard series and pay a fee only on the series Kalshi lists with maker fees.
Country-by-country rules, regulator actions and sources for Polymarket and Kalshi.
This is not legal advice, and we don't say whether trading is legal for you in Germany. We report what each platform's published rules say about Germany and the public regulator, court and police actions we could source, each with a date. Those rules change fast, so check the platform's current terms and the law in Germany before doing anything. ‘Not listed’ only means a platform's own list doesn't name Germany; it doesn't mean trading there is permitted.
Status under each platform's own published rules, and the most recent public action we could source, as of 2026-09-24.
Last public action: 2025-09-05 · Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL) · Public warning or intervention (Polymarket)
Source: Official
Dated public actions on record: 1
This page keeps two things apart for Germany: what each platform's own published rules say, and what regulators, courts and police in Germany have publicly done. A platform's list is its own policy and a government order is the government's, so a country can be on one and not the other.
The status labels are the same as in the main table. Restricted means the platform's own list blocks trading from Germany. Close-only means existing users there can close positions but can't open new ones. Some regions means only named regions are restricted. Separate product means residents use a different, separately regulated product, as US residents do with the Polymarket US app. Not listed means the platform's published list doesn't name Germany; that is not the same as permitted, and a regulator may still block the site.
Polymarket publishes two official lists that don't fully match: its Help Center page (updated August 14, 2026) and its developer docs (undated). We follow the dated Help Center list and say where the developer docs differ. Kalshi statuses follow its Member Agreement as fetched on September 24, 2026; the agreement itself is undated.
Each action shows the authority as it names itself, what it did, the platform it concerns and the date: the date of the action where it was published, otherwise the date it was first reported. Every entry is marked Official, Platform document or Secondary report. Where only secondary reporting exists, we say ‘reported by’ and name the outlet; where official sources conflict, we report both.
‘No public action found’ means our searches found none, not that none exists. Nothing on this page says whether trading is legal for you: for that, check the platforms' current terms and the law in Germany.
Polymarket's Help Center page on geographic restrictions (updated August 14, 2026) lists Germany among the 39 countries where it says trading is blocked, and gives Germany a rule of its own: ‘Trading is prohibited. Existing positions must be held until market resolution to redeem shares, after which funds can be withdrawn without restrictions. Market data and commenting features are available.’ Its developer docs (undated, checked September 24, 2026) put Germany in the group that is close-only on both the website and the API, which would let existing users close positions before resolution. The two documents differ on what an existing user can do; we follow the dated Help Center page and record the difference.
The restriction is Polymarket's own geoblock, not a state block: we found no German ISP or DNS blocking order, no payment-blocking order and no app-store removal, and the gaming site gamesbasis.com wrote on April 7, 2026 that there was as yet no state-ordered block in Germany. We found no published date for when Polymarket restricted Germany. It still runs German-language pages (polymarket.com/de) and a ‘Germany Parliamentary Election Winner’ market (fetched September 26, 2026). Polymarket's Terms of Use (effective August 11, 2026) prohibit using a VPN or similar tool to get around its restrictions, and its Help Center says doing so violates those terms.
Kalshi's Member Agreement (section VI, Restricted Jurisdictions, undated, fetched September 24, 2026) lists 55 countries, and Germany is not one of them; Germany wasn't in Kalshi's Exchange Notices of October 23 or November 4, 2025 either, so under this site's labels Germany is Not listed for Kalshi. Kalshi's help center (updated March 20, 2026) says trading from outside the US is ‘subject to the terms of the Kalshi Member Agreement’. We found no Kalshi blog post or notice that names Germany. ‘Not listed’ describes Kalshi's policy only: no GGL document names Kalshi, but the GGL's rule that bets on non-sport events can't be licensed is stated without reference to any platform.
The regulator is the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL), the joint gambling authority of the German states in Halle (Saale), competent since 2023 under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag 2021 (GlüStV 2021), the Interstate Treaty on Gambling. The provisions it cites against prediction markets are § 3 Abs. 1 Satz 4 GlüStV 2021 in connection with § 4 Abs. 5 GlüStV 2021: bets on non-sport events, which the GGL calls Gesellschaftswetten (elections, court rulings, natural disasters, economic developments, TV shows, awards), are ‘nicht erlaubnisfähig’, not capable of being licensed, because of a high risk of manipulation; only sports bets on defined events with verifiable results, and horse-race bets, can be licensed. The GGL's FAQ (as of August 13, 2026) refers to §§ 284 and 285 of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code), the provisions on organising unauthorised gambling and taking part in it, and says the GGL can refer cases to prosecutors; we couldn't verify the statute text and don't state penalty ranges. Germany's financial supervisor, BaFin, has made no public statement naming either platform that we could find. At EU level, ESMA's public statement of July 3, 2026 (ESMA35-243228190-8148) says event contracts that qualify as financial instruments fall under the national bans on binary options for retail clients and that distributing them in the EU requires investment-firm authorisation; it names no platform.
September 5, 2025 (Official). The GGL published a warning titled ‘GGL warnt vor Teilnahme an illegalen Gesellschaftswetten’ (GGL warns against taking part in illegal society bets), naming Polymarket: bets offered on platforms ‘wie “Polymarket”’ are illegal under German law and can't be licensed, and ‘Sowohl das Veranstalten oder Vermitteln solcher illegalen Wetten, als auch die Teilnahme daran, sowie die Bewerbung des Angebotes, sind strafbar’ (organising or brokering such illegal bets, taking part in them and advertising the offer are all punishable). Kalshi is not named. It is a warning addressed to the public, not a blocking order; some secondary sites describe it as a ‘blacklisting’, but the GGL publishes a whitelist of licensed operators, not a blacklist, and the document orders nothing.
June 19, 2026 (Official). The GGL joined the joint statement of nine European gambling regulators (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland) on prediction markets, which points to consumer-protection gaps and addiction and manipulation risks and says such offers are currently subject to no, or only unclear, gambling regulation; it names no platform and announces no platform-specific enforcement measure. August 13, 2026 (Official). The GGL published a press release, ‘GGL informiert über rechtliche Risiken von Gesellschaftswetten und Prognosemärkten’, and a new FAQ page. The core sentence: ‘Gesellschaftswetten sind in Deutschland nicht erlaubnisfähig. Die Teilnahme aus Deutschland ist daher nicht zulässig und kann strafbar sein’ (society bets cannot be licensed in Germany; taking part from Germany is therefore not permitted and can be punishable). No platform is named.
What we did not find, as of September 26, 2026: no GGL blocking order (Sperrverfügung), payment-blocking order or fine against Polymarket or Kalshi, no court case by or against either platform in Germany, and no lifted or reversed measure. The GGL's general enforcement tools, per its FAQ, are IP blocking and payment blocking, but no such order against these platforms is public; whether any non-public administrative proceeding is under way is not something we can say. That means we found none, not that none exists.
The entries below are rendered from the same dated data as the main country table, newest first. Each row shows the date, the authority as it names itself, the type of action, the platform it concerns and the source with its type.
Public regulator, court and police actions concerning Polymarket and Kalshi in Germany, as of 2026-09-24. Not legal advice.
This section reports what the law and the authorities in Germany have said about people who take part in these markets, and any enforcement against users that has been made public. It describes; it doesn't advise.
The GGL addresses users directly. Its warning of September 5, 2025 and its FAQ say taking part in such bets ‘ist strafbar’ (is punishable); its press release of August 13, 2026 says participation from Germany ‘kann strafbar sein’ (can be punishable). The gambling-news site casino.de noted on August 27, 2026 (updated September 9, 2026) that the GGL used three strengths of wording on the same day: ‘sind strafbar’, ‘kann strafbar sein’ and ‘kann unter Umständen auch strafrechtlich relevant sein’ (can under certain circumstances also be relevant under criminal law). The provision the GGL refers to for participants is § 285 StGB, taking part in unauthorised gambling. The GGL's FAQ adds that with illegal operators there is no legal protection and that claims to payouts ‘as a rule cannot be enforced’.
We found no prosecution, arrest or court decision involving a Polymarket or Kalshi user in Germany. A criminal-defence lawyer's analysis (Ferner, February 27, 2026, updated June 3, 2026) argues that § 285 StGB requires only conditional intent and says banks increasingly file money-laundering suspicious-activity reports on gambling-linked deposits; it cites no actual prosecution. We found no statement by the Federal Ministry of Finance or a tax office on prediction-market winnings, and no German bank restriction naming the platforms. This page describes; it doesn't advise.
Legal commentary reads the treaty the same way as the GGL: the legal-news site LTO wrote on April 30, 2026 that under the GlüStV only sports and horse-race bets can be licensed and everything else counts as a Gesellschaftswette. Polymarket's Germany rule differs from its close-only wording for Singapore, Poland, Thailand and Taiwan (‘Users may close their existing positions but cannot open new ones’): the Help Center tells existing users in Germany to hold positions until resolution and then withdraw. We found no sponsorship, election-authority statement or payment-rail fact specific to Germany.
PolyKal is a read-only research site, and it does not restrict access by country, including from Germany. Its public pages, including prices on both platforms, order-book depth, after-fee cost comparisons, the fee calculator, and large-trade and whale data, need no account. You don't need a VPN to use them.
Viewing public market data is not trading. PolyKal doesn't place orders, hold funds or give access to trading on either platform, and a restriction on Polymarket or Kalshi in Germany still applies to trading there. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions; getting around a block can also break local law. PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around them.
Start with the compare page, the fee calculator or large trades, or read how Polymarket works and how Kalshi works.
Germany is one of 27 countries, plus the United States, that PolyKal tracks. The full availability table shows every country's status under each platform's rules and its regulator actions side by side, with the same dates and sources as this page, and its change log lists every edit we make.
Every entry is re-checked at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change. The next scheduled full re-check is shown in the sidebar.
We don't give a verdict for you. What the record shows: the GGL, Germany's gambling regulator, said on September 5, 2025 that bets offered on platforms such as Polymarket are illegal under German law because bets on non-sport events can't be licensed (§ 3 Abs. 1 Satz 4 and § 4 Abs. 5 GlüStV 2021), and that organising, taking part in and advertising them are punishable; on August 13, 2026 it said taking part from Germany ‘can be punishable’. Polymarket's own Help Center lists Germany as blocked. We found no German blocking order, fine or court case, and no prosecution of a user. For your own situation, check the current law and the platform's terms.
The block is Polymarket's own: its Help Center (updated August 14, 2026) lists Germany as blocked and says existing positions must be held until resolution, after which funds can be withdrawn. We found no published reason or date for the block from Polymarket, and no German state order requiring one. The GGL's position, stated on September 5, 2025 and August 13, 2026, is that bets on non-sport events can't be licensed in Germany and that offering them, taking part in them and advertising them are punishable.
Kalshi's Member Agreement doesn't list Germany as a restricted jurisdiction (checked September 24, 2026), and its help center says trading from outside the US is ‘subject to the terms of the Kalshi Member Agreement’; that describes Kalshi's policy only. No GGL document names Kalshi, but the GGL's rule that bets on non-sport events can't be licensed in Germany, and that taking part can be punishable, is stated without reference to any platform. Whether trading is lawful for you is not something this page decides.
We don't decide that for you. The GGL says it can be: its warning of September 5, 2025 says taking part in such bets ‘ist strafbar’ (is punishable) and its release of August 13, 2026 says participation from Germany ‘kann strafbar sein’ (can be punishable), referring to § 285 of the Criminal Code on taking part in unauthorised gambling; its FAQ says it can refer cases to prosecutors. We found no prosecution, arrest or court decision involving a German user of either platform as of September 26, 2026, and we couldn't verify the statute's penalty range. A criminal-defence lawyer's analysis argues that conditional intent suffices; it cites no case.
Yes, on PolyKal. PolyKal is a read-only research site that shows prices, order-book depth and fee comparisons for both platforms without an account, and it does not restrict access from Germany. Viewing data is not trading: PolyKal places no orders and gives no access to either platform, Polymarket's own block on Germany still applies to trading there, and the GGL's statements described on this page concern taking part in bets, not reading public prices.
No. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions. Getting around a block can also break local law. You don't need a VPN to research these markets: PolyKal's prices, order books and fee calculator don't require one.
We re-check every country page at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change; each rule and action on the page shows its own date and source. If you spot something out of date for Germany, email [email protected] with a link to the new rule or order.
Every statement on this page rests on the sources below. Platform rules were checked against Polymarket's and Kalshi's own pages on September 24, 2026; regulator, court and police actions were checked against the sources listed on September 24–26, 2026. Each source is marked as official, a platform document or a secondary report. Where only secondary reporting was available, we cite it and say so; where official sources conflict, we report both. We re-verify this page quarterly.
Official: GGL, ‘GGL warnt vor Teilnahme an illegalen Gesellschaftswetten’ (September 5, 2025); GGL, joint statement of nine European gambling regulators on prediction markets (June 19, 2026); GGL, ‘GGL informiert über rechtliche Risiken von Gesellschaftswetten und Prognosemärkten’ (August 13, 2026); GGL, FAQ ‘Gesellschaftswetten’ (as of August 13, 2026); Glücksspielstaatsvertrag 2021, consolidated text published by the GGL (consolidated September 2, 2025); ESMA, public statement on the application of national binary-option measures to event contracts, ESMA35-243228190-8148 (July 3, 2026).
Platform documents specific to Germany: Polymarket, Germany predictions page (German-language) (fetched September 26, 2026); Kalshi Exchange Notice, Updated Member Agreement (October 23, 2025; Germany not listed); Kalshi Exchange Notice, Updated Member Agreement (November 4, 2025; Germany not listed).
Secondary reports: casino.de on the GGL's August 2026 statements and their wording (August 27, 2026, updated September 9, 2026); Ferner (criminal-defence lawyer) on Polymarket and § 285 StGB (February 27, 2026, updated June 3, 2026); LTO on the legal classification of Polymarket and Kalshi (April 30, 2026); gamesbasis.com on whether Polymarket is banned in Germany (April 7, 2026).
Platform documents (all countries): Polymarket Help Center: Geographic restrictions (updated August 14, 2026), Polymarket developer docs: Geoblock (undated), Kalshi Member Agreement (undated; fetched September 24, 2026) and Kalshi Help Center: trading from outside the US (updated March 20, 2026).
PolyKal is an independent research tool. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Polymarket or Kalshi. We report each platform's published rules and public regulator, court and police actions in Germany; we don't say whether trading is legal for you, and we don't help anyone get around a platform's restrictions. Last reviewed September 26, 2026. Not legal or financial advice.
Know of a newer rule, order or court decision for Germany? Email [email protected] with a link to it.