Polymarket fees in 2026: who pays, how much, and how to pay nothing

For years Polymarket was famous for charging no trading fees at all. That changed in 2026. Fees arrived in January on the ultra-short 15-minute crypto markets, and today taker fees apply to most categories. The system is simple and predictable, and if you trade the right way, you can avoid paying.

Only the taker pays

Every trade has two sides. The maker placed a limit order that sat in the order book. The taker filled it, either with a market order or with a limit order priced to execute immediately. On Polymarket only the taker pays a fee. The docs put it plainly: “makers are never charged fees”.

Fees are charged automatically when your order is matched, with no separate bill, so estimate them before you trade. The formula below takes ten seconds.

The formula

The fee depends on the number of shares, the category's rate and the price:

fee = shares × rate × price × (1 − price)

The price × (1 − price) part shapes the curve: the fee peaks at 50¢ and shrinks toward 0¢ and $1. Buying 100 shares at 50¢ in a crypto market costs $1.75 in fees. The same 100 shares at 10¢ in a politics market cost about $0.36.

Rates by category (October 2026)

These are the rates in Polymarket's documentation. They change from time to time, and Polymarket also runs temporary promotions. On October 20, 2026 it announced that fees on NBA, politics, economics, weather, finance, culture, mentions and tech markets would be waived through the end of October. Check the current fee page before you trade.

Makers get paid

Taker fees fund a maker rebates program: a share of the fees in each category is distributed daily to the traders who provided liquidity. According to the docs, makers receive 20% of taker fees in crypto, 15% in sports and 25% in most other categories. So the same trade can cost you money or pay you, depending on which side of the order book you're on.

When the fee starts to hurt

On a single trade the fee looks tiny. It starts to matter in three situations:

• Frequent trading near 50¢. In a crypto market a taker pays about 1.75¢ per share at 50¢, which is 3.5% of the price. Buy at 50¢ and sell at 53¢ as a taker, and the fees in and out come to more than the 3¢ you made.
• Arbitrage. When the prices of all outcomes add up to slightly less than $1, the gap is often smaller than the taker fees for buying every outcome.
• “Sure things” are cheap to trade. At 95¢ the factor price × (1 − price) is only 0.0475, so the fee is small. So is the upside, and the risk is still there.

How to pay close to nothing

1. Be the maker. Place a limit order inside the spread and let others come to you. You pay nothing and may earn rebates.
2. Don't cross the spread in a hurry. A limit order priced through the best ask is still a taker order.
3. Trade less, size better. Fewer, better-researched trades beat dozens of small scalps that bleed fees.
4. Do the math first. Run shares × rate × price × (1 − price) before you click and see whether the trade still makes sense after fees.

What about deposits and withdrawals?

Polymarket itself doesn't list a deposit fee: all deposits are converted to pUSD automatically, and the minimum depends on the network (a few dollars on most, more on Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron). Polymarket charges no fee to withdraw USDC either. Card providers and exchanges can charge their own fees, so a direct USDC transfer is usually the cheapest route.