How Polymarket fees work: taker rates by category

Polymarket charges a fee only to takers: orders that fill immediately against the book. The fee is shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price), where the rate depends on the market category (0.04 to 0.07, or zero for Geopolitics). Makers, meaning limit orders that rest on the book, pay nothing. Deposits and withdrawals are free.

All numbers below come from Polymarket’s fee documentation as of September 2026. Polymarket introduced category-wide fees on March 30, 2026 and has adjusted them since, so check the docs before trading in size.

How much does Polymarket charge per trade?

Category	Taker fee rate	Fee on 100 shares at 50¢	Maker fee	Share of fees paid back to makers
Crypto	0.07	$1.75	0	20%
Sports	0.05	$1.25	0	15%
Economics, Culture, Weather, Other	0.05	$1.25	0	25%
Politics, Finance, Tech, Mentions	0.04	$1.00	0	25%
Geopolitics	0	$0	0	none

The sports rate went up from 0.03 to 0.05 on July 10, 2026, according to Polymarket’s changelog. Crypto markets of every duration, including the 5-minute, 15-minute, hourly and daily up/down markets, carry the 0.07 rate.

Fees are rounded to five decimal places, with a minimum of 0.00001 USDC. Tiny trades near 1¢ or 99¢ can round to zero.

Why does the fee depend on the price?

The price × (1 − price) term is largest at 50¢ and shrinks toward both ends. It is also symmetric: 100 Crypto shares cost $1.47 in fees at both 30¢ and 70¢.

That is the fee per share. In practice, what matters is the fee as a share of the money you spend, and that works out to simply rate × (1 − price):

Buy price	Crypto (0.07)	Sports / Other (0.05)	Politics / Finance (0.04)
10¢	6.3%	4.5%	3.6%
30¢	4.9%	3.5%	2.8%
50¢	3.5%	2.5%	2.0%
70¢	2.1%	1.5%	1.2%
90¢	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%

This is the most useful table on this page. Buying longshots with market orders is expensive. A $100 market buy of a 10¢ Crypto outcome pays $6.30 in fees, so the outcome has to be meaningfully more likely than 10% just to break even.

Worked examples

Politics, market order. You buy 1,000 Yes shares at 40¢ ($400). The fee is 1,000 × 0.04 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $9.60 (2.4%). If the market resolves Yes, you collect $1,000, for $590.40 profit after fees.

Same trade as a limit order. You post a bid at 40¢ and a seller fills it. The fee is $0, and your fill counts toward the maker rebate pool for that market.

Crypto round trip. You market-buy 500 shares at 50¢ ($250), then market-sell them at 60¢.

• Buy fee: 500 × 0.07 × 0.5 × 0.5 = $8.75
• Sell fee: 500 × 0.07 × 0.6 × 0.4 = $8.40
• Gross profit $50, minus $17.15 in fees, equals $32.85. Fees ate a third of the move.

With limit orders on both legs, the fees would have been zero, provided both orders filled.

Taker Rebate tiers

Since May 28, 2026, Polymarket pays takers a daily rebate based on their tier. Your tier depends on weighted volume (wV) over the last 30 days:

wV = trade size × (1 − entry price) × category weight

Category weights are 1.0 for Sports, 1.3 for Politics, Finance, Mentions and Tech, 1.7 for Economics, Culture, Weather and Other, and 2.3 for Crypto. Geopolitics earns nothing. Only taker trades count.

Tier	30-day wV needed	Rebate on fees	One-time 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

Source: Taker Rebate Program. Rebates are paid daily at midnight UTC in pUSD once you have accrued at least $1, and they apply only to trades made after you reach a tier.

Example: $1,000 of Crypto market orders at 50¢ earns 1,000 × 0.5 × 2.3 = $1,150 wV. About $1,750 of that activity in 30 days gets you to Bronze. At Gold, the $9.60 fee from the Politics example above would come back as $1.73 the next day.

The tier system rewards buying cheap outcomes and trading Crypto: both raise your weighted volume per dollar. Chasing a tier is not a good reason to take positions you would not otherwise take.

Maker rebates and liquidity rewards

Part of each category’s taker fees (15–25%) goes into a daily pool shared among makers whose resting orders were filled in that market. Your share depends on the fee-equivalent value of your fills compared with other makers in the same market (maker rebates). Payouts are daily in pUSD, with a $1 minimum.

Separately, Polymarket runs liquidity rewards on selected markets for keeping competitive quotes near the midpoint. These matter mostly to active market makers.

Deposit, withdrawal and other costs

• Deposits: free on Polymarket’s side. Card purchases and exchange transfers carry the provider’s fees.
• Withdrawals: free and, per the docs, instant. The conversion from pUSD to native USDC runs through a Uniswap pool that the interface caps at under 0.1% price difference.
• Gas: transactions go through Polymarket’s relayer, so you don’t hold POL for gas.
• Spread: not a fee, but often the biggest cost. A 4¢ spread on a 50¢ market costs a taker 2¢ versus the midpoint, which is more than the Politics fee.

How to cut your Polymarket fees

1. Post limit orders a tick inside the spread instead of crossing it. Zero fee, better price. This single habit removes the fee entirely on Polymarket.
2. Avoid market-buying longshots. That is where the percentage fee is highest.
3. Hold to resolution when your thesis hasn’t changed. Redeeming winning shares carries no trading fee, but selling early as a taker does.
4. Know the free markets. Geopolitics and world events markets carry no fees.
5. Ignore the referral link for savings. It gives the referred user nothing. See our Polymarket referral page for details.

How do Polymarket fees compare with Limitless?

Limitless also charges only takers, but uses a percentage curve: buys cost 3% at any price up to 50¢ and fall to 0.4% near $1, while sells peak at 1.5% at 50¢. For a 40¢ buy, that is 3.0% on Limitless versus 2.4% in Polymarket Politics or 4.2% in Polymarket Crypto. The full breakdown is in Polymarket vs Limitless.

New to Polymarket? Our step-by-step Polymarket guide covers deposits and your first limit order.