Polymarket Fees Explained: What You Actually Pay (2026)
Polymarket charges no account, deposit, or inactivity fees. Trading fees follow a published formula that scales with how close a contract is to 50¢. Here's exactly what you pay.
- Trading fees — small, formula-based, published. Highest near 50¢, smallest at the tails.
- Bid/ask spreads — the gap between buy and sell prices on a market. On thin markets this is the biggest cost.
- Withdrawal network fees — none for ACH; standard Polygon gas if you off-ramp to USDC on-chain.
Short answer: Polymarket charges no account fees, no deposit fees, and no inactivity fees. Trading fees follow a published formula that scales with how close the contract is trading to 50¢. A contract at 5¢ or 95¢ pays a much smaller fee than one near 50/50. The full schedule lives at docs.polymarket.com/fees.
The three real costs to know
- •Trading fees — small, formula-based, published. Highest near 50¢, smallest at the tails.
- •Bid/ask spreads — the gap between buy and sell prices on a market. On thin markets this is the biggest cost.
- •Withdrawal network fees — none for ACH; standard Polygon gas if you off-ramp to USDC on-chain.
What 'formula-based' means in practice
Polymarket's fee is a function of price — it goes to zero at 0¢ and 100¢ and peaks near 50¢. The practical takeaway: tail bets (5¢ longshots, 95¢ favorites) are cheap to trade. Coin-flip bets near 50¢ carry the highest fee on a per-dollar basis. The trade ticket displays the exact fee before you confirm.
Spreads matter more than fees on small markets
On Polymarket's biggest political and crypto contracts, the YES/NO spread is often 1¢ wide — you can enter and exit cheaply. On long-tail markets (niche political subcategories, lightly traded sports props) spreads can be 3–5¢. That spread is a real cost: a 3¢ spread on a contract you flip the same day costs more than any explicit fee.
Polymarket fees vs Kalshi fees vs OG fees
- •Polymarket — formula-based, scales with price distance from 50¢. No account/deposit/inactivity fees.
- •Kalshi — formula-based, similar shape. Published at kalshi.com/fee-schedule.
- •OG by Crypto.com — published per-contract fee schedule. Up to $100 welcome offer with code MIAPREDICTS.
Cost-control tips
- •On deep, liquid markets, spreads are the smallest cost item — size up.
- •On thin markets, use limit orders. Crossing a 4¢ spread is a 4% round-trip cost before fees.
- •Hold to resolution when conviction is high — the fee is paid once on entry, not on exit if you let it expire to $1 or $0.
- •Off-ramp via USDC on Polygon if you'll redeploy on-chain — saves the ACH cycle.
Frequently Asked Questions
Polymarket is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange where you can buy YES or NO shares on real-world questions — elections, sports, crypto, weather. Here's how it actually works.
Related guides
Pillar pages
Sources & references
- 1.Polymarket US — Fee Schedule — Polymarket Docs
- 2.Polymarket Announces Acquisition of QCX (CFTC-Registered DCM) — PRNewswire / Polymarket
- 3.Commodity Futures Trading Commission — Event Contracts — CFTC.gov
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Catie Di Stefano has spent 15 years working with online gambling across some of the most regulated and competitive gambling markets in the world.
Starting at Betsson Group in Malta in 2011, she has in recent years worked her way through VIP management, CRM, gamification and marketing leadership across European and North American operations. Catie was a licensed consultancy for Hard Rock Casino in New Jersey, where she held a DGE vendor license and owned the execution of the online CRM program from launch day in 2018.