Polymarket Fees Explained: What You Actually Pay

The fee formula

C is shares traded, P the share price in dollars, and feeRate the rate for the market's category. Polymarket only charges takers, orders that fill immediately against resting liquidity. Makers are never charged a fee, in any category, at any price. Fees are rounded to 5 decimal places and the smallest fee charged is 0.00001 pUSD (Polymarket's USDC-backed trading dollar), so very small trades near the price extremes can incur no fee at all.

Fee rate by category

Live check, 2026-10-12 20:44 UTC, across the 299 most-traded open events: the table shows Polymarket's published rate per category, but Polymarket sets the rate on each market, and the rates live markets declare in Polymarket's API don't all match it. Declared rates that differ from the table, or more than one declared rate: Sports: 5% on 100, 3% on 20 (e.g. Bills vs. Rams); Politics: 4% on 40, 0% on 1 (e.g. Tyler Robinson convicted of homicide?). Every sampled market declared the table's rate: Crypto 7%, Economics 5%, Culture 5%, Weather 5%, Other / General 5%, Finance 4%, Tech 4%, Mentions 4%, Geopolitics 0%. Counts are events in the sample. Paste a market link into the calculator to get that market's own rate. PolyKal re-checks this at least once a day. On-chain check, 2026-10-12 08:36 UTC: 49 real taker fills across 12 of 12 category/rate combinations were charged exactly what the declared rate implies.

Crypto carries the highest rate and matches Kalshi's 0.07 exactly, so on crypto markets the fee is a wash and the comparison comes down to spread and depth. Geopolitics markets are free for both sides. PolyKal reads the rate for each specific market from Polymarket's Gamma API rather than assuming the category.

Worked examples

How price affects the fee

The table is symmetric around 50¢: a 30¢ and a 70¢ trade carry the same dollar fee. That is the P × (1 − P) term, not a quirk. The most contested markets are the most expensive to trade; lopsided long shots and near-certainties are cheap to enter and exit.

Costs the fee formula leaves out

• Slippage. A market order larger than the resting size at the best price walks the book and fills at progressively worse prices. The fee is charged on the price you fill at, which can be worse than the quote you saw.
• Spread. The gap between best bid and best ask is paid implicitly on entry and again on exit. On illiquid markets it can exceed the fee.
• Deposits and withdrawals. Polymarket charges no fee to deposit or withdraw. USDC deposits are converted 1:1 into pUSD, the USDC-backed dollar token Polymarket has used for trading since April 28, 2026; intermediaries such as bridges or exchanges may charge their own fees.

Common misconceptions

• “Polymarket has no fees.” Takers pay a real fee that varies by category, from 0 (geopolitics) to 0.07 (crypto). Makers pay nothing, which is where the “no fees” framing comes from.
• “The fee is a flat percentage of trade value.” It is proportional to P × (1 − P): highest at 50¢, lowest near 5¢ or 95¢, for the same share count.

Polymarket vs. Kalshi at a glance

On crypto markets the taker fee is identical. On every other category Polymarket's taker rate is lower: 29% lower on 0.05 categories, 43% lower on politics, finance, tech and mentions, and free on geopolitics against Kalshi's 0.07. Makers pay nothing on Polymarket; on Kalshi they pay nothing on standard series and 0.0175 on maker-fee series. See the fee calculator or the Kalshi fees breakdown.

Frequently asked questions

What are Polymarket's fees?

Polymarket charges takers a fee that Polymarket sets per market by category — 7% on crypto markets, down to 0% on geopolitics — using shares × rate × price × (1 − price). Makers pay nothing. As of 2026-09-20.

Does Polymarket charge makers?

No — Polymarket makers pay nothing; only takers pay a fee. This held across every category we checked against real on-chain deductions. As of 2026-09-20.

Why did my Polymarket fee differ from the posted rate?

Because Polymarket sets the fee per market, a market's actual rate can be lower than its category's headline rate. As of 2026-09-20, on-chain fills show some markets charging 0% where the category's published rate is higher; the fee schedule page lists which categories we have verified against real on-chain deductions and which are still declared-only. Trust the after-fee price the calculator shows for the specific market.

Is Polymarket cheaper than Kalshi?

On crypto markets the taker rate is the same on both (7%). On most other categories Polymarket's taker rate is lower, and Polymarket never charges makers, while Kalshi charges makers only on flagged series. Spread and depth often matter more than the fee — compare the exact after-fee cost of your trade in the calculator. As of 2026-09-12.

How to cite

You may quote this page with credit to “PolyKal” and a link to it. Market prices are third-party data from Polymarket and Kalshi.

The fee data on this page is also available as free, machine-readable JSON, with a verified_on date for every rate.

Sources & verification

Formula, category rates, maker rule and rounding: Polymarket Help Center — Trading fees (article updated 2026-07-10), last checked 2026-09-03. Per-market rates: Polymarket Gamma API. Every rate and multiplier in one table, with a changelog and free JSON: fee schedule. Method details: methodology. Rates can change; the fee charged at execution on Polymarket is authoritative.

Independent tool. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Polymarket or Kalshi. Data from public sources. Not financial advice.