Polymarket Fees Explained (2026): Taker Fees, Rebates and Examples

If you buy shares the moment you click, you are a taker, and on most Polymarket markets that costs a small fee. If you place a limit order and wait to be filled, you are a maker, and you pay nothing. This guide shows the exact formula, the rate for each category and what the fee looks like in dollars.

All numbers below come from Polymarket's own documentation, linked as we go. We are an independent site, not part of Polymarket, so check the official fees page before you trade. We last compared against it on 25 October 2026.

How the Polymarket fee formula works

Polymarket's docs give one formula for every taker trade:

fee = C × feeRate × p × (1 − p)

• C is the number of shares you trade.
• p is the price per share, between $0 and $1.
• feeRate is set by the market's category (table below).

The fee is applied by the protocol at match time. You do not add it to your order. It is calculated in USDC and, per the docs, is "symmetric around 50% probability": a trade at 30¢ pays the same dollar fee as one at 70¢.

Because p × (1 − p) peaks at 0.25 when the price is 50¢, the fee is biggest for coin-flip markets and tiny for near-certain ones. Fees are rounded to five decimal places, and anything under 0.00001 USDC rounds to zero (fee precision).

Fee rates by category

Category	Taker rate	Maker fee	Maker rebate	Fee at 50¢, as share of trade value
Crypto	0.07	0	20%	3.5%
Sports	0.05	0	15%	2.5%
Economics, Culture, Weather, Other	0.05	0	25%	2.5%
Finance, Politics, Mentions, Tech	0.04	0	25%	2.0%
Combos	0.05	0	0%	2.5%
Geopolitics	0	0	none	0%

Rates and rebate shares are from the Polymarket fees page. The last column is our arithmetic: at 50¢ the fee as a share of trade value is feeRate × (1 − p), which is feeRate × 0.5.

Combos, which bundle several legs into one position, use their own rate whatever the underlying categories are.

Worked examples at 50¢ and 90¢

Take 100 shares in a sports market, which has a 0.05 rate.

At 50¢. The trade costs $50.

100 × 0.05 × 0.50 × 0.50 = $1.25

That is 2.5% of what you put in.

At 90¢. The trade costs $90.

100 × 0.05 × 0.90 × 0.10 = $0.45

That is 0.5% of what you put in. The same share count at the same rate costs about a third as much ($0.45 against $1.25), because the market is already near-certain.

Both figures match Polymarket's own 100-share fee tables. Here is how the fee for 100 shares compares across rate groups, taken from those tables:

Price	Crypto (0.07)	Sports, Economics, Culture, Weather, Other (0.05)	Finance, Politics, Mentions, Tech (0.04)
10¢	$0.63	$0.45	$0.36
30¢	$1.47	$1.05	$0.84
50¢	$1.75	$1.25	$1.00
70¢	$1.47	$1.05	$0.84
90¢	$0.63	$0.45	$0.36

Fee versus your possible profit

Shares pay $1 if you are right, so buying at 90¢ can earn at most 10¢ per share. In the sports example the $0.45 fee takes 4.5% of that $10 maximum gain. At 50¢ the $1.25 fee takes 2.5% of a $50 maximum gain.

This is our own arithmetic (feeRate × p), not a Polymarket figure. It is a useful reminder that a small percentage of trade value can be a bigger bite out of a small potential gain. Our odds guide shows how to size that gain.

Makers never pay fees

Polymarket's docs state that makers "are never charged fees." A maker is someone whose order rests on the book until another trader takes it. Polymarket explains the difference on its prices and order book page: a market order executes immediately at the best available price, while a limit order only executes at your price or better and may sit unfilled.

Taker fees fund a Maker Rebates program that pays liquidity providers daily in pUSD. A minimum of $1 in accrued rebates is needed for a payout, and fills on fee-free markets earn no maker rebate.

If you are not in a hurry, a limit order can avoid the fee, with the trade-off that it may not fill. Our first-trade guide explains when each order type makes sense.

Which markets are fee-free

Geopolitical and world-events markets charge no fees, and Polymarket says it does not profit from trading on them. They are also excluded from rebates: the taker rebate page gives them a category weight of 0, so trades there earn no tier progress.

Markets can also be made fee-free temporarily. The docs mention "fee holidays", during which taker trades earn no weighted volume and no rebate.

Taker rebate tiers: Bronze to Obsidian

The Taker Rebate Program went live on 28 May 2026. Taker trades earn weighted volume (wV), and your tier depends on your wV over the last 30 days.

wV = Trade Size × (1 − Entry Price) × Category Weight × Bonuses

Category weights: Sports 1.0; Politics, Finance, Mentions and Tech 1.3; Economics, Culture, Weather and Other 1.7; Crypto 2.3; Geopolitics 0.

Tier	30-day wV needed	Rebate	One-time level-up bonus
Bronze	$2,000	3%	$10
Silver	$20,000	8%	$50
Gold	$200,000	18%	$250
Platinum	$1,000,000	32%	$1,500
Diamond	$4,000,000	44%	$7,500
Obsidian	$10,000,000+	50%	$25,000

Polymarket's own example: a $400 taker trade at 40¢ in a politics market earns 400 × 0.60 × 1.3 = $312 wV.

A smaller example in the same spirit: a $50 sports trade at 50¢ earns 50 × 0.50 × 1.0 = $25 wV. Reaching Bronze at $2,000 wV would take 80 of those inside 30 days (our arithmetic).

How the rebate works in practice:

• It applies to trades after you reach the tier, with no backfill.
• Tiers update daily at midnight UTC, and rebates are paid daily in pUSD once you have accrued at least $1.
• Only taker trades count. Maker fills are rewarded separately.
• Polymarket describes the program as returning a portion of fees to takers. Rates, thresholds and weights can change without notice.

For most new traders the tiers are a long way off. Treat them as a bonus for heavy activity, not a reason to trade more.

Deposit and withdrawal costs

Polymarket says there are no Polymarket fees to deposit or withdraw USDC, though "intermediaries like Coinbase or MoonPay may charge their own fees." Check what your card provider or exchange charges before you fund an account.

Two details from the deposit and withdrawal docs matter for small accounts:

• Each deposit asset has a minimum. Most L2 networks (Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism) are $2, Ethereum is $7, and Bitcoin and Tron are $9. Deposits under the minimum may not be processed.
• Withdrawals unwrap pUSD to USDC through a swap pool. The docs say the interface enforces less than 10 basis points (0.1%) of difference in the output amount.

What fees mean for how you trade

Three practical points follow from the formula:

1. Cost is highest near 50%. Coin-flip markets are where a taker fee takes the largest share of trade value.
2. Splitting orders does not help. The fee is proportional to shares and price, so many small takes cost the same as one big one, apart from rounding.
3. Look at the fee before the odds. A 2.5% fee on a market that is already close to fair price is a real hurdle. Our guide to how Polymarket odds work covers the spread, which is often the larger cost.

If you follow big traders on our whale feed, remember they pay the same formula as everyone else, so a large trade near 97% costs very little in fees. Our whale-reading guide explains why trades that close to $1 say little about conviction.

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