Kalshi fees: what you pay to trade, deposit and withdraw

Kalshi’s fee schedule (effective 7 July 2026) sets the trading fee as round up(M × 0.07 × C × P × (1 − P)), where C is the number of contracts, P the price in dollars and M a multiplier that is 1 unless a market says otherwise. Kalshi describes it as a fee on the contract’s expected earnings, and it is charged only on orders that match immediately against an order already on the book — that is, to the taker.

Because P × (1 − P) is largest at 50¢, the fee is too. Kalshi’s own table, for 100 contracts:

The rounding is upward, so on a single contract the fee comes to a whole cent or two even where the formula gives less — 2¢ at 50¢ rather than 1.75¢. Buying in very small lots costs proportionally more. The app shows the exact fee before you confirm: Kalshi’s help centre points to the “i” icon beside “You’re buying”.

A maker — whose resting order is later filled by someone else — pays nothing unless the market is one Kalshi lists for maker fees. On those series, makers pay round up(M × 0.0175 × C × P × (1 − P)), a quarter of the taker rate: up to 44¢ per 100 contracts. Cancelling a resting order is free. The live fee schedule (read 26 October 2026) lists the exceptions:

• Maker fees apply on many sports game markets (NFL, NBA, NHL, college football, the World Cup, the Champions League, the Premier League) and on economics markets such as the Fed decision, CPI, GDP and payrolls.
• Combos pay maker fees of 50% of the taker rate, except combos of uncorrelated NFL legs.
• MLB game, spread, total and player markets charge half the taker fee before the game starts and the full fee once it is live.
• A short list of series charges no fees at all, among them two of its Bitcoin and Ethereum series.

Perpetual futures, a separate product, are charged as a percentage of notional value on opening and closing, not by this formula; their rates fall with your 30-day volume.

Sources: the fee schedule, which caps alternative payment methods at 0–2%, and Kalshi’s pages on card and PayPal deposits. American Express is not accepted, and a credit card’s issuer may add its own cash-advance fee. How each withdrawal works is in how to withdraw from Kalshi.

The fee schedule states that there is no settlement fee and no membership fee, and we found no inactivity fee on any Kalshi page. In the other direction, Kalshi pays some traders: its liquidity incentive programme rewards resting orders on selected markets until 1 January 2027 (not for international users), and it pays interest on cash and positions above a minimum balance. Rewards and interest above IRS thresholds are reported to the IRS — see Kalshi taxes.

For how Kalshi’s fees compare with Polymarket US, DraftKings and the rest, see prediction market fees compared.