POLYMARKET VS KALSHI

Two different products wear the Polymarket name, and that is where most comparisons go wrong. This page prices all three fee schedules, checks who can actually trade where, and explains how each venue settles. Every number links to the source we read.

Last updated 2026-10-21 | Fees re-checked against both venues' own schedules | 22 sources, listed at the bottom

★ TL;DR — which one should you pick?

Choose Polymarket if…
  • › You are outside the US in a country it still serves — and you accept that the list is long: the UK, France, Germany, Australia and Brazil are all restricted (geoblock list, 2026-10-21).
  • › You want self-custody and crypto rails: an email address or a wallet is enough to open an account, USDC moves in and out with no platform deposit or withdrawal fee (fees, 2026-10-21).
  • › You trade politics, finance or tech: its 0.04 taker rate is the cheapest of the three schedules — and geopolitics markets are fee-free.
Choose Kalshi if…
  • › You want a regulated exchange in plain USD, with bank rails and no wallet to manage — KYC is required for everyone, everywhere (Kalshi, 2026-10-21).
  • › You are in the US, or in one of the many countries its Member Agreement allows — the exceptions are listed there, not on the marketing pages.
  • › You want one fee formula across most of the book, a $1.75-per-100-contracts cap on standard series, no settlement fee on simple yes/no, and interest on idle cash.

In the US this is really Kalshi vs Polymarket US, and their fees are near-identical: $1.75 vs $1.74 per 100 contracts at 50¢. Pick on market selection and cash handling, not fees. Outside the US the choice is Kalshi vs Polymarket International, where fees can differ by 40% or more — but access decides for you before fees get a vote.

Polymarket

Decentralized

Decentralized prediction market on Polygon for real-world events.

VISIT WEBSITE FULL PROFILE

Kalshi

Regulated

First federally regulated event contract exchange in the US.

VISIT WEBSITE FULL PROFILE

$ Fees: three schedules, not two

Polymarket International and Polymarket US are separate venues with separate fee schedules, and Kalshi's schedule has per-series exceptions. Comparing "Polymarket" to Kalshi as if there were one Polymarket fee is the most common way this comparison goes wrong. All three use the same shape — a fee that scales with price uncertainty, p × (1 − p) — which is why they land so close together.

⬌ Trading fees

VenueCharged toFormulaChecked
Polymarket
International · polymarket.com
Taker onlyshares × category rate × price × (1 − price), category rate 0.04–0.07

Makers pay nothing. Crypto 0.07, sports 0.05, politics / finance / tech / mentions 0.04, geopolitics 0. No Polymarket fee to deposit or withdraw USDC, though a bridge or on-ramp may charge its own.

Polymarket fees (2026-10-21)
2026-10-21
Polymarket US
United States · polymarket.us
Taker onlycontracts × 0.0695 × price × (1 − price), Table Tennis 0.10

Maker rebates from 0.0035 to 0.0104 of the same curve by tier; taker rebates of 3–30% paid weekly. Schedule effective 2026-10-19.

Polymarket US fee schedule (2026-10-21)
2026-10-21
Kalshi
Event contracts · kalshi.com
Taker, sometimes makerround up(multiplier × 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price))

That lands between $0.07 and $1.75 per 100 contracts. The default maker multiplier is 0; the fee schedule names the series that do charge maker fees, at 0.0175 on the same curve, and the ones with a multiplier of 0 (no fees at all). No settlement fee on simple yes/no contracts.

Kalshi fee schedule (2026-10-21)Kalshi fee page (2026-10-21)Kalshi API settlement (2026-10-21)
2026-10-21
Same trade, 100 contracts

At 50¢: Kalshi $1.75, Polymarket US $1.74, Polymarket International $1.00 (politics) or $1.75 (crypto).

Where the fee peaks

At 50% probability, for all three. It falls toward both 0¢ and $1, so longshots and heavy favourites are cheap to trade everywhere.

Who pays nothing

Makers on Polymarket International, always. Makers on Kalshi, except on the series its fee schedule names. Nobody pays a settlement fee on a simple yes/no.

= Worked cost example

Example, not a quote. Buy 100 Yes contracts at 40¢, so $40 at risk. If the market resolves Yes you receive $100. Here is what each schedule charges on the way in, using the formulas above and nothing else.

Venue and market typeThe arithmeticFeeNet if right
Kalshiround up(0.07 × 100 × 0.40 × 0.60) = $1.68
$1.68
4.2% of the $40 at risk
$58.32
Polymarket International — politics100 × 0.04 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $0.96
$0.96
2.4% of the $40 at risk
$59.04
Polymarket International — crypto100 × 0.07 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $1.68
$1.68
4.2% of the $40 at risk
$58.32
Polymarket US100 × 0.0695 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $1.67
$1.67
4.2% of the $40 at risk
$58.33

Two things fall out of that. First, the fee is symmetric in price: a 10¢ contract and a 90¢ contract cost the same $0.63 per 100 on Kalshi, because 0.1 × 0.9 equals 0.9 × 0.1. Second, Kalshi and Polymarket US differ by one cent on this trade. If you are a US trader, fees are not your tiebreaker — market selection and how you move money are.

⬡ Who can actually trade

This is the section that decides the question for most readers, and it is the one the marketing pages are least honest about. There are two Polymarket products: an international, non-custodial crypto venue at polymarket.com, and a CFTC-regulated, USD venue at polymarket.us. They do not share users, currency, or a fee schedule.

If you are in the United States

Polymarket US
Kalshi
  • KalshiEX is a CFTC-designated contract market too, and takes US members in USD with full identity verification.
  • Kalshi's position on state gambling law is federal preemption: it argues CFTC regulation governs these contracts even where sports betting is prohibited (Kalshi FAQ, 2026-10-21).
  • That argument is being tested. Washington, Michigan and Nevada customers were blocked in August 2026 while it litigates (CoinDesk on state blocks, 2026-10-21).

If you are outside the United States

Polymarket International
  • Non-custodial: you hold your own keys, collateral sits in a smart contract, and signing up is an email address or a self-custody wallet (Polymarket on record, 2026-10-21).
  • But it is closed to a long list of countries: blocked completely in four OFAC-sanctioned countries and three Ukrainian regions, close-only on both the site and the API in roughly three dozen more — the UK, France, Germany, Australia and Brazil among them — and close-only on the site alone in Ireland, Japan, Malta (sports), the Netherlands and South Korea (Polymarket geoblocks, 2026-10-21).
  • The Help Center's own list, dated 2026-08-14, classifies 39 countries as fully blocked and disagrees with the API list on a few of them. Where they conflict, trust the geoblock endpoint, and never a VPN (Polymarket geo Help Center).
Kalshi

One asymmetry worth naming: Kalshi holds no local licences outside the US, so an international member is trading a US-regulated product without local investor protection. Polymarket International is a non-custodial protocol, so there is no broker to complain to when a market resolves in a way you disagree with — the dispute process described below is the only recourse. Neither is the safer choice in the abstract; they fail differently.

⊚ Settlement: who decides, and when you get paid

Both venues pay $1 for a winning contract and $0 for a loser. The difference is who is allowed to determine the outcome and how long that determination can be argued about.

Kalshi — an exchange decides, against a named source

  • Each market's rules name a settlement source — a league's official stats, a government release, a specific report — and Kalshi's markets team finalises against it. Most markets settle within a few hours of the outcome being known, often about three; waiting on an agency pushes it out (Kalshi settlement FAQ, 2026-10-21).
  • Clearing runs through Kalshi Klear LLC, an affiliate and CFTC-regulated clearinghouse that replaced MIAXdx (Kalshi Klear, 2026-10-21). Idle USD in the account earns 3.25% APY, variable and subject to eligibility rules, while it sits there.
  • Simple yes/no settlement carries no fee; only sub-cent scalar settlement can (Kalshi API settlement, 2026-10-21).

Polymarket International — an oracle decides, and it can be argued with

  • Resolution goes through UMA's optimistic oracle. Anyone can propose an outcome by posting a bond, typically $750 pUSD; there is a two-hour challenge window; if nobody disputes, the market resolves in about two hours (Polymarket resolution, 2026-10-21).
  • One dispute starts a second proposal round. Two disputes escalate to a UMA token-holder vote, and the full path takes four to six days. That is the trade you make for permissionless resolution: slow, expensive, and hard to capture (Polymarket disputes, 2026-10-21).
  • Winning tokens redeem for $1 each on-chain. Polymarket is non-custodial and states that outcomes are immutable once finalised — there is no support desk that can reverse a resolution.

Polymarket US — a clearinghouse decides, in dollars

  • Cleared by Polymarket Clearing (QC Clearing LLC), a CFTC-registered derivatives clearing organisation that clears only fully collateralised positions and runs no margin methodology (Polymarket Clearing, 2026-10-21). Same $1 or $0 payout, but inside a regulated clearinghouse and a USD account.

# Market breadth vs liquidity

Market count is the number everyone quotes and the one that matters least. On 2026-10-21 Polymarket's own fee page listed 13,287 active sports events, 4,199 crypto events and 3,988 events with no platform fee (Polymarket fee page, 2026-10-21). Two reads of that same table hours apart gave 13,479 and then 13,287 sports events. The count moves because markets open and close all day, and none of that tells you whether the market you want has size at the price you see.

What to check instead, in order

  1. Spread and top-of-book size on the exact market. A 1¢ spread with real size behind it is a deeper market than a 4¢ spread with $200 on the touch. This is the only liquidity number that affects your fill.
  2. Whether you will be maker or taker. On Polymarket International, makers never pay and takers fund a rebate pool paid out daily in pUSD (Polymarket maker rebates, 2026-10-21). On Kalshi the default maker multiplier is 0, and the schedule names the series that do charge maker fees — check before you rest an order (Kalshi fee page, 2026-10-21).
  3. Whether the price survives your size. Price impact is not captured by any market count, and it is where a "liquid" venue stops being liquid for the order you actually want to place.
  4. Which category you are actually trading. Coverage differs by category and shifts month to month. Open both live lists — kalshi.com and polymarket.com — and search the category that matters to you rather than trusting a screenshot from a comparison article, including this one.

Both venues now pay for liquidity: Polymarket redistributes a share of taker fees to makers daily in pUSD, and Kalshi runs a Liquidity Incentive Program (Kalshi liquidity programme, 2026-10-21). If you plan to provide liquidity rather than take it, read both programmes before choosing. That is where the real cost difference between these venues sits, and it is invisible in every side-by-side fee table.

→ The decision, in one paragraph

In the US: Kalshi and Polymarket US are the two legal doors, both CFTC-regulated, both in dollars, both requiring KYC. Fees differ by about one cent per 100 contracts. Choose on market selection, on whether you want interest on idle cash, and on which app you actually enjoy using — fees will not decide it.

Outside the US: check the geoblock list before anything else, because Polymarket is closed to a large part of Europe and the Anglosphere and Kalshi's restricted list is buried in its Member Agreement. If both are open to you, Kalshi gives you a regulated USD account and one fee formula; Polymarket International gives you self-custody, signup with an email address or a wallet, cheaper taker fees in politics and finance, and fee-free geopolitics markets.

What would change this answer: fees. Polymarket US replaced its fee schedule on 2026-10-19 and Kalshi last repriced on 2026-07-07, so any comparison older than a quarter is worth re-checking. Access changes faster still — state blocks and country blocks have both moved during 2026.

# Tools that work with both platforms

If you cannot pick one, these 35 tools read both.

Prediction Hunt

Compare Odds Across Every Platform.

ProbEx

Real-time prediction markets intelligence with AI-powered news analysis.

Polysights

Intelligence and strategy layer for prediction markets.

Polyfactual

AI-Powered Prediction Market Research.

The Trade Fox

Institutional-grade aggregator and prime brokerage for Kalshi and Polymarket.

SynthesisTrade

Advanced trading terminal for prediction markets with focus on liquidity.

Stand.trade

Pro trading terminal with automated trades and real-time cross-platform feeds.

Pigeon

AI quant platform for automated prediction market strategies.

BetOnWars

The World's First Online War Room.

ArbBets

Prediction Markets Arbitrage & Positive EV Plays.

Kiyotaka

Advanced Trading Platform.

Oddpool

Compare Kalshi & Polymarket Odds in Real Time.

OkBet

The multiplatform prediction market platform.

PredictingTop

Top Polymarket & Kalshi Traders Leaderboard.

Adjacent News

Forward Looking News.

Forcazt

Next-gen Prediction Market Platform.

PolyRouter

Unified API aggregator for prediction markets.

Matchr

Cross-Platform Prediction Markets. SHUT DOWN.

Chance

Unified platform to discover, evaluate & trade across prediction markets.

Nevua Markets

Prediction Markets Watchlists and Alerts.

Markium

Data analytics and trading platform for prediction markets.

TurbineFi

Build, test, and deploy prediction market bots for Kalshi and Polymarket.

Cobot

AI trading companion aggregating Polymarket, Kalshi, and more.

Mirai

First unified prediction market aggregator on BNB Chain.

Polywise

Free Duolingo-style learning game for prediction markets.

TraderBear

Paper-first AI trading agent and virtual pet for prediction markets.

Alphascope

AI-powered prediction market research workspace for traders and researchers.

Predictions.io

Cross-venue analytics comparing Kalshi and Polymarket odds in topic-based lobbies.

Prediction Bubbles

Live Polymarket and Kalshi odds on one board, sized by volume - see where the venues disagree.

Polyrama

Real-time Polymarket and Kalshi terminal: live odds, wallet analytics, signals, backtests and an MCP server.

Sonist

Automates live mention-market trades on Kalshi and Polymarket from real-time audio and caption feeds.

Oracle Markets

Daily AI forecasts on politics, finance and geopolitics, benchmarked against Polymarket and Kalshi.

Predxy

Combines the same question across 15 prediction venues into one volume-weighted probability.

MKTGAP

Measures price gaps across Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt, Limitless and Gemini after trading fees.

ThinBlimp

Puts Kalshi and Polymarket prices in cents beside de-vigged sportsbook odds, with the cross-venue gap.

↗ Sources

Every figure above traces to one of these. The date is when we read it, and where the source publishes its own effective date we list that too. Fee schedules are read from the venue itself, never from a summary.

  1. 1.
    Polymarket Documentation — Fees checked 2026-10-21

    Help-centre mirror of the same article is dated 2026-07-10.

  2. 2.
    Polymarket US Documentation — Fee Schedule checked 2026-10-21

    Schedule effective exchange-wide from 13:00 ET on 2026-10-19.

  3. 3.
    Kalshi — Fee Schedule (PDF) checked 2026-10-21

    Document states "Last updated and effective: July 7, 2026".

  4. 4.
    Kalshi — Fee schedule checked 2026-10-21

    Listed "no upcoming fee changes scheduled" when checked.

  5. 5.
    Polymarket — Fees (live category table) checked 2026-10-21

    Live active-event counts; also shows the US block.

  6. 6.
    Polymarket Documentation — Geographic Restrictions checked 2026-10-21

    Machine-readable classification; the geoblock endpoint is the operational truth.

  7. 7.
    Polymarket Help Center — Geographic Restrictions checked 2026-10-21

    Article itself dated 2026-08-14. Its classification differs from the API list for some countries.

  8. 8.
    Polymarket — On Record (two platforms) checked 2026-10-21

    States Polymarket US has been fully launched since May 2026.

  9. 9.
    Polymarket US Documentation — What is Polymarket US? checked 2026-10-21
  10. 10.
    Polymarket US Documentation — Create an Account checked 2026-10-21
  11. 11.
    Polymarket Clearing — QC Clearing LLC (DCO) checked 2026-10-21
  12. 12.
    Polymarket Documentation — Resolution checked 2026-10-21
  13. 13.
    Polymarket Help Center — How Are Markets Disputed? checked 2026-10-21

    Article dated 2026-04-05.

  14. 14.
    Polymarket Documentation — Maker Rebates Program checked 2026-10-21
  15. 15.
    Kalshi Help Center — Can I trade on Kalshi from outside the United States? checked 2026-10-21
  16. 16.
    Kalshi — Member Agreement (restricted jurisdictions) checked 2026-10-21

    The restricted list lives in Section VI and changes between versions; check the version date on the PDF.

  17. 17.
    Kalshi — FAQ (event contracts vs state gambling law) checked 2026-10-21
  18. 18.
    Kalshi Help Center — What is Kalshi Klear? checked 2026-10-21
  19. 19.
    Kalshi Help Center — Market FAQs (settlement timing) checked 2026-10-21
  20. 20.
    Kalshi API Documentation — Market Settlement checked 2026-10-21
  21. 21.
    Kalshi Help Center — Liquidity Incentive Program checked 2026-10-21
  22. 22.
    CoinDesk — "Kalshi off-limits in multiple states" checked 2026-10-21

    Article published 2026-08-22.

Spotted a fee change we missed, or a country that should be listed differently?

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