Is Polymarket legal in the US? Polymarket vs Polymarket US

Polymarket US is legal in the US; the international polymarket.com is not open to US residents. QCX LLC, which runs Polymarket US, is on the CFTC’s register as a designated contract market since 9 July 2025, and its contracts clear through QC Clearing LLC, a registered clearing organisation by an order of 16 December 2024.

polymarket.com — the international exchange most coverage means by “Polymarket” — is not open to US residents. Its own help centre names the United States among 39 completely restricted countries, and its API documentation puts the US on its close-only list. For a US resident, Polymarket’s markets are reached through the separate Polymarket US app, after identity verification. None of this is legal advice.

On 21 July 2025 Polymarket announced it was acquiring QCEX for $112 million: a CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange (QCX LLC) and clearinghouse (QC Clearing LLC). QCX had been designated twelve days earlier. That is the whole route — Polymarket did not obtain a new licence for polymarket.com; it bought an exchange that already held one and runs its US product on it.

An amended order of designation dated 25 November 2025 lets users trade through futures commission merchants — the brokers that hold customer accounts — as well as directly. Like any designated contract market, Polymarket US is supervised under the Commodity Exchange Act; what designation means covers what that does and does not settle.

Polymarket US publishes no list of eligible states, and its rulebook (14 September 2026) contains no state exclusion list. States have moved against it anyway. The Nevada Gaming Control Board brought a civil enforcement action in January 2026, and a Nevada court issued a preliminary injunction on 29 May 2026, so Polymarket US is unavailable there. New York’s Attorney General filed a petition against it on 24 September 2026 — a petition, not yet a ruling.

The argument is the one Kalshi faces: a federal exchange says federal law governs its contracts, and states say some of them are wagers under state law. How Kalshi is legal sets out that dispute and the court orders it has produced so far; the Polymarket US review keeps the dated state record.

• Polymarket US: run by QCX LLC, CFTC-designated, US dollars, identity verification before any deposit or trade, US residents only. Review.
• polymarket.com: the international exchange, settled in USDC on-chain, with the United States on its restricted list. Its operator and jurisdiction could not be verified, which is why its review lists no licence. Review.
• The two accounts are not linked, prices can differ between them, and so can fees: our fees guide prices the same trades on both.