Polymarket charges no fee to deposit or withdraw, and for years charged nothing to trade either. That second part is no longer true: there is now a published trading fee, it is paid only by takers, and the rate depends on which category the market sits in.
Last verified 16 October 2026 against Polymarket's own fee documentation. Fee schedules change — check docs.polymarket.com/trading/fees before trading on anything that matters.
The trading fee formula
Polymarket prices its fee off how uncertain the market is, rather than charging a flat percentage:
fee = shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price)
The price × (1 − price) term peaks at 50¢ and falls away towards both ends. In practice that means a coin-flip market costs the most to trade, and a market priced at 95¢ costs very little — the fee shrinks as the outcome becomes more certain.
Fee rates by category
| Category | Taker fee rate | Maker rebate |
|---|---|---|
| Crypto | 0.07 | 20% |
| Sports | 0.05 | 15% |
| Economics, Culture, Weather, Other | 0.05 | 25% |
| Finance, Politics, Mentions, Tech | 0.04 | 25% |
| Geopolitics | 0 — fee-free | — |
What that costs in practice
Buying 100 shares at 50¢ — a $50 position, and the most expensive point on the curve:
| Category | Calculation | Fee | As % of stake |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crypto | 100 × 0.07 × 0.5 × 0.5 | $1.75 | 3.5% |
| Sports | 100 × 0.05 × 0.5 × 0.5 | $1.25 | 2.5% |
| Politics | 100 × 0.04 × 0.5 × 0.5 | $1.00 | 2.0% |
| Geopolitics | — | $0.00 | 0% |
Now the same 100 shares in a crypto market priced at 90¢ — a $90 position: 100 × 0.07 × 0.9 × 0.1 = $0.63. Three times the money at stake, roughly a third of the fee. This is the single most useful thing to understand about the pricing: the cost is driven by uncertainty, not by position size alone.
Makers pay nothing — and get paid
Only takers pay. A taker is anyone who accepts an order already sitting in the book. If instead you post a limit order and wait for someone else to trade against it, you are a maker: you pay no fee, and you earn a rebate worth a share of the taker fees collected in that market.
For anyone trading regularly, that gap is the difference between paying 2–3.5% to get filled instantly and being paid to provide patience. The trade-off is real though — a resting order might never fill, and on a fast-moving market the price can leave you behind.
Deposits, withdrawals and the costs that aren't Polymarket's
Polymarket charges nothing to deposit or withdraw USDC. That is not quite the same as it being free:
- On-ramp providers charge. Buying USDC through a card provider or exchange such as Coinbase or MoonPay carries that provider's own fee, which can dwarf the trading fee.
- Network costs. Polymarket settles in USDC on the Polygon network, so moving funds involves network fees, small though they usually are.
- Conversion spread. If you hold anything other than dollars, the currency conversion into USDC is a cost that never shows up on a fee schedule.
The spread is usually bigger than the fee
On quiet markets the gap between the best buy and sell price is often several cents wide — far more than the 1–3.5% the fee costs. If you buy at the ask and immediately sell at the bid, you lose the spread, every time. Checking the order book depth before trading matters more than optimising the fee, which is also why the volume figure is worth looking at on every market page.
Polymarket US is priced differently
The US exchange, which Polymarket operates through its CFTC-regulated entity after acquiring QCEX, publishes its own schedule with a single taker coefficient rather than per-category rates, plus maker rebates that tier by the previous month's volume.
The US schedule has changed several times during 2026 and the sources we checked disagree on the current coefficient. We are deliberately not quoting a number here — read it from docs.polymarket.us/fees, which is the authoritative source.
The price matters more than the rate
Because the fee depends on the price you trade at, the cheapest way to take a position is usually to get a better price — not to hunt for a lower fee rate. A single cent of price improvement on a 100-share trade is $1.00, which is the entire politics-category fee at 50¢.
Live markets, with current prices:
World
Polymarket
Will Russia and Ukraine hold any diplomatic meeting by October 31, 2026?
Politics
Polymarket
2026 Balance of Power: R Senate, R House
Sports
Polymarket
Will Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026?
Sports
Polymarket
Will Kylian Mbappé win the 2026 Ballon d'Or?
Polymarket
Will the Fed increase interest rates by 25 bps after the October 2026 meeting?
Polymarket
Will there be no change in Fed interest rates after the October 2026 meeting?
Common questions
Did Polymarket used to be free?
Yes. For most of its history there were no trading fees, which was a major part of its appeal. The current schedule introduced category-based taker fees with maker rebates.
Which markets are cheapest to trade?
Geopolitics is listed fee-free. After that, Finance, Politics, Mentions and Tech at 0.04 are the lowest, and Crypto at 0.07 the highest. Trading away from 50¢ lowers the cost in any category.
Is there a fee when my contract settles?
Polymarket's published trading-fee documentation covers taker fees and maker rebates. Always confirm the current schedule for any settlement charge before relying on it.
Where can I check the current rates myself?
Polymarket publishes them at docs.polymarket.com/trading/fees, and the US exchange at docs.polymarket.us/fees. Both change from time to time.
Do I pay a fee if my order doesn't fill?
No. Fees apply to executed trades. A resting limit order that never trades, or that you cancel, costs nothing.