Is Kalshi down? How to check, and the weekly maintenance window

“Kalshi is now open for trading 24/7 (with exceptions for maintenance)”, with maintenance “from the hours of 3:00 AM ET to 5:00 AM ET on Thursdays” (trading hours). Its developer docs add: “If an exchange pause occurs outside the scheduled Thursday window, it indicates a temporary Kalshi Exchange outage” (maintenance and pauses). During a trading pause you can still cancel orders; during an exchange pause you cannot.

Open https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/exchange/status in a browser; it needs no login. It returns two flags: exchange_active, “true unless we are under maintenance”, and trading_active, which Kalshi can switch off “at any time in case issues are detected” (exchange status). When a pause is on, an estimated resume time may appear, which Kalshi warns can be extended. The /exchange/schedule endpoint lists the weekly hours and any planned maintenance.

• Both true: the exchange is up. The problem is more likely your app, connection or account.
• trading_active false: trading is paused; resting orders can be cancelled.
• exchange_active false: maintenance or an outage; nothing can be changed until it ends.

• A card deposit shown as pending usually releases within 1–2 business days; part of a bank deposit can stay unavailable until the transfer settles, typically within 5 business days.
• Verification codes not arriving: see Kalshi phone verification not working.
• API users: HTTP 429 means you hit a rate limit, not an outage. Limits by tier are in the Kalshi API.
• Anything else: contact Kalshi support through the chat.