Platform review
Kalshi review
CFTC-regulated event contract exchange
Our verdict
The only venue here whose regulator you can look up. Kalshi appears on the CFTC's own register as designated since 3 November 2020, the oldest designation in this pool, and that registration is the whole point of choosing it: a supervised order book, a stated fee schedule, dollars in a brokerage-style account rather than a wallet you manage, and an exchange under a duty to run surveillance. That duty is visible in practice — the CFTC fined a White House teleprompter operator in August 2026 for trading its mention markets on speeches he had read in advance — and so is its limit, since the order arrived months after the trades. The cost of all this is friction: identity verification, and a market set narrower than the on-chain venues list. Market data is public, so you can read prices and resolution rules before opening anything. Best for a US-eligible trader who wants a regulated counterparty more than the widest board.
Verified documents & product scope
Check country eligibility
Choose the country you want to check. This lookup does not change your site region or establish individual account approval.
Eligibility
Kalshi accepts applications from international customers, subject to identity checks and the Member Agreement. Many countries are expressly excluded from event-contract trading. Absence from that list does not by itself verify an individual’s eligibility.
Understanding the fees
The general taker formula is 0.07 × multiplier × contracts × price × (1 − price), subject to schedule rounding. Maker fees use 0.0175 with a default multiplier of zero, but selected series charge maker fees. No settlement fee; funding charges depend on the payment method.
These are document checks, not a funded-account test. Access may depend on residence, physical location, account approval and the contract category. Check the operator’s current terms before depositing.
- Member Agreement, 17 June 2026 — checked
Section VI lists jurisdictions where event-contract trading is prohibited. Account membership and non-trading access are distinct from permission to trade.
- International access — checked
International signup exists, subject to the Member Agreement, residency confirmation and identity verification. Payment methods vary by region.
- Fee schedule effective 7 July 2026 — checked
Trading fees depend on price, contract count and series multipliers. Maker exceptions exist; ACH deposits and withdrawals have no Kalshi fee.
Pros and cons
What works
- CFTC-designated contract market
- Fiat deposits and withdrawals, no wallet needed
- Default maker fee is zero, with charged series exceptions
- Mobile apps on both platforms
What doesn’t
- Country restrictions and account approval apply to international users
- Narrower market selection than on-chain venues
- KYC required before you can trade
- Trading fees vary by contract price and series
Prices and liquidity
We do not currently publish live quotes for Kalshi. Check the platform’s order book before placing an order: the last trade can differ from the price available for your position size.
How to assess liquidity and spreads →How Kalshi works
Kalshi runs KalshiEX as a designated contract market — an exchange registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the same category of registration a futures exchange holds. That registration is what makes an event contract here a regulated derivative rather than a bet, and it is the single biggest structural difference between this venue and the on-chain ones.
It appears on the CFTC’s own Designated Contract Market register as “Kalshi — Designated — 11/03/2020”, the oldest designation of any platform in this pool. Designation is not a blanket endorsement: it says the exchange is registered and supervised, not that every contract listed on it is appropriate or lawful where you live.
Prices are decimal dollars between 0 and 1 — a contract at 0.61 is the market saying 61%. Both YES and NO are quoted as asks, so their sum carries the real spread rather than a midpoint that hides it. A market where nobody is offering one side quotes that side at a full dollar, which is a real and awful price rather than a placeholder, and our board withholds it rather than printing an implied probability nobody can trade against.
Fees and costs
Kalshi publishes a fee schedule, and unlike the on-chain venues the cost of a trade here is stated rather than inferred. Read it against the spread: on a liquid contract the fee is the larger half of your cost, and on an illiquid one it is not.
Settlement is in dollars in a brokerage-style account rather than a wallet you control, which removes the network-fee question entirely and replaces it with the ordinary bank-transfer one.
What regulation actually buys you
A registered exchange carries duties an unregulated venue does not. The CFTC’s February 2026 advisory on prediction markets states that designated contract markets have “an independent duty pursuant to the core principles of the Act to maintain audit trails, conduct surveillance, and enforce rules against prohibited practices”.
Those duties are visible in enforcement, and it is worth knowing what that looks like in practice. In August 2026 the Commission fined a White House teleprompter operator who had read presidential speeches before delivery and traded Kalshi’s mention markets on the words they contained — release 9289-26, $172,539 and a three-year ban. The case is evidence the surveillance works, and also evidence of its limit: the order came roughly six months after the trades, which is no help to whoever was on the other side at the time.
The same period saw the CFTC assert its jurisdiction against individual states, suing Kentucky in June 2026 on the argument that a state’s effort to restrict CFTC-registered exchanges “obstructs Congress’ decision to federally preempt state law”. That dispute is unresolved, it is mostly about sports contracts, and it is the part of this page that dates fastest.
Accounts and access
An account here works like a brokerage account rather than a wallet connection, and identity verification is part of that. This is the trade the venue makes: more friction on the way in, in exchange for a regulated counterparty and a supervised order book.
Market data is public. Anyone can read prices and each market’s resolution rules without an account, which is unusual in this category and is why the criteria on this venue are the easiest of the three to check before committing.
User reviews
We have no approved reviews for Kalshi. Every submission is read by a moderator before it appears, and none has passed for this platform. The User Score is not published below 3 reviews, so nothing is averaged here either — the Editor Score above is measured against our own criteria and does not depend on it.
New review submissions are temporarily closed. For corrections, contact bestpredictionmarkets@proton.me.
Kalshi FAQ
- Is Kalshi legal in the United States?
- Kalshi operates as a CFTC-designated contract market, which is the clearest regulatory position in this category. Product availability can still vary by state — verify before trading. Not legal advice.