Polymarket Fees in 2026: Taker Fees by Category, Maker Rebates, Perps and Withdrawal Costs

Polymarket was free to trade for years. It isn't anymore, but the fees are structured in a way most traders can avoid almost entirely. This guide explains the 2026 fee formula, lists every category rate, shows what a real trade costs, covers the separate perps schedule, and tells you what deposits and withdrawals actually cost once you count exchange and network fees.

The Short Version

• Takers pay, makers don't. A fee applies only when your order takes liquidity (a market order, or a limit order that fills immediately). Resting limit orders pay nothing and earn rebates.
• Fees depend on category and price. The formula is shares × rate × p × (1 − p). Fees peak at 50 cents and shrink toward 0 and 1.
• Rates range from 0 to 0.07. Geopolitics markets are free. Crypto is the most expensive category.
• Perps are separate. 0.04% taker and 0.0125% maker on notional, tiered by volume.
• Deposits and withdrawals are free on Polymarket's side. Your exchange and the network charge small amounts.

How the Fee Formula Works

For every fill that takes liquidity:

fee = shares × feeRate × p × (1 − p)

where p is the share price between 0 and 1. The p × (1 − p) term is what makes fees highest at 50 cents (0.25) and tiny near the extremes (0.09 at 10 cents or 90 cents, 0.0099 at 1 cent). The fee is set by the protocol at match time and deducted from the trade, so you never enter it in your order.

Category Rates (International Site)

Category	Taker rate	Fee on 100 shares at 50¢	Maker rebate share
Crypto	0.07	$1.75	20%
Sports	0.05	$1.25	15%
Economics, Culture, Weather, Other	0.05	$1.25	25%
Politics, Finance, Tech, Mentions	0.04	$1.00	25%
Geopolitics	0	$0.00	n/a

Makers pay 0 in every category. The maker rebate column is the slice of collected taker fees that Polymarket redistributes daily to accounts that provided the liquidity.

Fee parameters have changed several times in 2026 and will change again. Each market object in the API carries its own feeType and feesEnabled flags, and the market page shows whether fees apply. Treat the table as the schedule at the time of writing, October 2026.

What a Real Trade Costs

Example 1: $100 of a crypto market at 50 cents. You buy 200 shares. Fee = 200 × 0.07 × 0.5 × 0.5 = $3.50, or 3.5 percent of what you spent. If the market resolves Yes you collect $200, so the fee is 1.75 percent of the payout.

Example 2: $100 of a politics market at 80 cents. You buy 125 shares. Fee = 125 × 0.04 × 0.8 × 0.2 = $0.80, or 0.8 percent of your outlay.

Example 3: the same $100 at 80 cents, but you place a limit order at 0.79 and wait. Fee = $0, and you earn a rebate when a taker hits your order.

Example 4: $1,000 of a geopolitics market, market order. Fee = $0. Geopolitics is the free category.

The pattern is clear: fees matter most for market orders on crypto markets priced near 50 cents, and barely at all for patient limit orders, extreme prices or geopolitics.

Maker Rebates and Taker Rebates

Fees collected from takers are pooled per category and paid out daily to makers in proportion to the liquidity they provided. If you regularly rest orders in sports or politics markets, your rebates can exceed what you pay in occasional taker fees. Rebate percentages are at Polymarket's discretion and have been adjusted during 2026.

There is also a tiered Taker Rebate Program that returns part of the fees to high-volume takers. Polymarket has not published the tier thresholds, so assume it only applies at institutional volumes.

Perps Fees

Perpetual futures, launched in September 2026, charge on the notional value of every fill rather than on p × (1 − p):

30-day volume	Taker	Maker
$0+	0.040%	0.0125%
$1M+	0.037%	0.010%
$5M+	0.035%	0.008%
$25M+	0.030%	0.005%
$100M+	0.027%	0.002%
$500M+	0.025%	0.000%
$1B+	0.020%	−0.005% (rebate)

Because leverage multiplies notional, perps fees are a bigger share of your margin than the percentages suggest: $1,000 at 50x is $50,000 notional, so a market order in and out costs $40, or 4 percent of margin. Liquidated positions pay an extra 0.5 percent per fill, and funding payments transfer between longs and shorts every hour. Details in the perps guide.

Deposit and Withdrawal Costs

Polymarket does not charge for moving USDC in or out. The costs come from elsewhere:

Route	Typical cost	Notes
Exchange withdrawal of USDC on Polygon	About $1	Cheapest. Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and OKX all support it.
Deposit from Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum or Solana	Network gas plus a small bridge spread	Routed through Polymarket's bridge; Ethereum mainnet gas can be $5 to $20.
Card purchase through the payment provider	3% to 5%	Convenient, expensive. Fine for small first deposits.
Withdrawal to an exchange on Polygon	Near zero	Polymarket covers gas for smart wallet accounts.
Exchange to bank	$0 to $25	Depends on the exchange and your country.

The funding methods guide ranks the options by total cost.

Polymarket US Fees

Polymarket US, the CFTC-regulated exchange for U.S. residents, uses the same formula with its own category schedule. Third-party trackers report the same 0.04, 0.05 and 0.07 parameters and free geopolitics since July 2026, but the U.S. exchange sets its rates independently, so check the fee page inside the app before trading size. Funding costs on Polymarket US depend on the intermediary you deposit through. The two platforms are compared in Polymarket US vs International.

Polymarket vs Kalshi Fees

Kalshi uses the same shares × rate × p × (1 − p) structure with a standard taker parameter of 0.07 on most markets, rounded up to the cent. That makes the comparison straightforward:

Category	Polymarket taker rate	Kalshi taker rate
Crypto	0.07	0.07
Sports	0.05	0.07
Politics, Finance	0.04	0.07
Geopolitics	0	0.07 (where offered)

Polymarket is cheaper or equal for takers in every category, and both platforms let makers trade free on most markets. Kalshi's advantage for U.S. users is regulatory, not price. See Polymarket vs Kalshi for the full comparison.

How to Pay Less

1. Use limit orders. Zero fee plus rebates. Our limit orders guide shows how to pick a price that still fills.
2. Trade geopolitics for free. If your edge is in conflict, diplomacy or leadership markets, there is no fee at all.
3. Avoid 50-cent market orders in crypto. That is the single most expensive trade on the platform. The same dollars in a politics market at 80 cents cost a quarter as much.
4. Fund through an exchange on Polygon. One dollar instead of 3 to 5 percent on a card.
5. On perps, keep leverage modest and post maker orders. Fees scale with notional, and maker is roughly a third of taker.

Summary

For a typical trader who mixes market and limit orders across politics and sports, total fees run well under 1 percent of money traded, and under 2 percent of profits. Heavy crypto market-order users pay more. Pure limit-order traders can run a net positive fee balance thanks to rebates. On every route, deposits and withdrawals are cheap if you use an exchange and Polygon.

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