Kalshi Fees Explained: What Every Trader Needs to Know

Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, and like any exchange, it charges transaction fees on trades. The standard fee structure uses a quadratic curve tied to contract price, so fees peak around 50¢ and taper toward the extremes. The fee revenue supports the exchange’s operations as a regulated marketplace.

Every market has taker fees when your order matches immediately. Some markets also have maker fees on resting orders, but not all of them — Kalshi's help center explicitly says maker fees apply only in some cases, and the live fee schedule identifies which markets use them. On markets with maker fees, the raw maker multiplier is 0.0175 versus the standard 0.07 taker multiplier.

On the standard taker schedule, the published one-contract fee is either $0.01 or $0.02 depending on the price. That ceiling matters: no matter what you trade, the posted fee for a single standard taker contract never exceeds two cents. On a platform where contracts pay out $1 on a correct prediction, that keeps costs predictable relative to potential returns.

Kalshi’s fee is not a flat rate. It follows a quadratic curve based on the contract price, and the shape mirrors what you see on Polymarket: fees peak when contracts trade at 50¢ and drop toward zero at both extremes.

Kalshi's standard fee schedule expresses the taker fee as `fees = round up(0.07 × C × P × (1 - P))`, where `C` is contracts and `P` is the contract price in dollars. On maker-fee markets, the raw maker formula uses `0.0175` instead of `0.07`. The critical term is `P × (1 - P)`. At 50¢, that expression equals 0.25 — its maximum. At 10¢, it drops to 0.09. At 90¢, the same 0.09. At 5¢ or 95¢, it’s just 0.0475.

What this means: the more confident the market is about an outcome, the cheaper it is to trade. A contract at 90¢ (implying 90% probability) carries roughly one-third the effective fee rate of a contract at 50¢. High-conviction trades — buying yes at 85¢ or no at 15¢ — are the cheapest trades on the platform. Contested 50/50 markets are where fees peak, which makes sense: those are the most actively traded markets where the exchange captures the most revenue.

On markets that carry maker fees, the raw maker multiplier is exactly one-quarter of the standard taker multiplier. The taker rate is 0.07; the maker-fee rate is 0.0175. That 4x gap is the single most important cost difference in Kalshi's schedule.

On 100 contracts at 50¢, the standard taker fee is $1.75. The maker fee on the same maker-fee market is $0.44. That’s $1.31 saved on the same 100-contract trade. For larger or repeated orders, the savings compound quickly.

Maker fees are only charged when the trade actually executes. If you place a limit order and cancel it before it fills, there is no fee. One nuance: on very small fills, cent rounding can compress the displayed gap, so the 4x relationship is clearest on larger sizes. But the underlying multiplier difference still favors resting orders whenever the market applies maker fees.

The published standard taker schedule rounds one-contract examples to whole cents. At 10¢, the listed fee is $0.01. At 30¢, it is $0.02. At the 50¢ peak, it is still $0.02. At 70¢, $0.02 again. At 90¢, it drops back to $0.01. The curve is still symmetric, but cent rounding compresses the smallest trades.

For 100-contract taker trades, the quadratic math is easier to see. At 10¢ or 90¢, 100 contracts cost $0.63. At 30¢ or 70¢, they cost $1.47. At 50¢, the fee peaks at $1.75. Those figures match Kalshi's February 5, 2026 fee schedule.

For context, Kalshi's peak standard taker fee on a 100-contract trade at 50¢ works out to 1.75% of the $50 notional. At 20¢, the effective rate drops to 1.12%. At 80¢, it is the same. On maker-fee markets, the raw fee multiplier is one-quarter of taker, though cent rounding matters more on very small fills.

Kalshi’s fee docs describe two layers of rounding. The public fee schedule shows one-contract examples rounded up to whole cents, while the exchange's fee-rounding docs explain that individual fill fees are tracked to four decimal places ($0.0001) before final balance alignment.

Here’s how it works: after calculating the trade fee, Kalshi floors your balance change toward negative infinity to the nearest cent. If the result produces a fractional cent, a rounding fee of $0.0000–$0.0099 is added to bring the balance back to a clean cent amount. This rounding fee is tiny — always less than one cent.

To prevent rounding fees from compounding unfairly, Kalshi maintains a fee accumulator per order. The accumulator tracks cumulative rounding overpayment across all fills of that order. Once the accumulated overpayment reaches $0.01, a one-cent rebate is issued. The accumulator persists across all fills of the same order regardless of whether they are taker or maker fills. The net effect: rounding costs approach zero over multiple fills.

Kalshi's help center says ACH, wire, PayPal, and Venmo deposits have no processing fees. Debit card deposits may incur a 2% processing fee. The February 5, 2026 fee schedule also notes that crypto deposits and withdrawals can carry fees from Kalshi's third-party payment processor, and the help center says crypto deposits may also include blockchain gas costs.

Withdrawals are different. ACH withdrawals are free. Kalshi's current help-center article for debit card withdrawals says those withdrawals have no fee, not the same 2% charge that can apply to debit deposits. Wire fees vary by bank, and crypto withdrawals may include processor fees disclosed before the transfer.

Standard binary settlement does not carry a scheduled settlement fee, but Kalshi's fee-rounding docs note an edge case: if a scalar or fractional payout would create a sub-cent balance change, the exchange can post a tiny rounding adjustment below $0.01 to keep balances cent-aligned.

Use limit orders on maker-fee markets whenever timing is not critical. This is the single highest-impact fee change you can make there. Every market order you convert to a resting limit order cuts the raw fee by 75%. Over hundreds of trades, the savings compound into real money. A trader placing $10,000 in monthly volume at an average taker fee of 1.5% saves $112 per month by switching to maker-fee limit orders — $1,350 per year.

Trade at the extremes when you have edge. Contracts near 10¢ or 90¢ carry a fraction of the fee you’d pay at 50¢. If your strategy involves buying contracts that the market prices at 85¢ but you believe should be 95¢, fees stay relatively small compared with the payoff swing you are targeting. Strategies that operate in the mid-range around 50¢ face the highest fee headwind.

Factor fees into your P&L tracking. On 0xinsider.com/terminal, the whale trade feed and trader profiles show realized P&L that accounts for trading costs. When calculating your personal edge, make sure your expected return exceeds the round-trip fee — buying and selling each incur a fee. A trade that looks profitable at 3% gross return stays profitable after fees. A trade at 1% gross return might not, especially near the 50¢ price point.

Do I pay fees when I deposit or withdraw? Debit card deposits may incur a 2% processing fee. ACH, wire, PayPal, and Venmo deposits have no processing fees. ACH and debit card withdrawals are currently listed as free, while wire and crypto can involve bank or processor fees.

Is there a settlement fee? Standard settled contracts do not have a scheduled settlement fee. In edge cases involving sub-cent payouts, Kalshi's fee-rounding docs say the exchange may post a tiny rounding adjustment to keep balances in whole cents.

What is the maximum fee per contract? The maximum taker fee is approximately $0.0175 at the 50¢ price point. Rounded up, the per-contract fee never exceeds $0.02.

Do all markets have the same fees? Most markets use the standard quadratic taker model, but some markets have special fee schedules and only some markets apply maker fees. Kalshi's fee schedule and fee_changes endpoint are the source of truth for those exceptions.

How do maker fees work? On markets with maker fees, a resting order that later executes uses the 0.0175 maker-fee multiplier instead of the standard 0.07 taker multiplier. If you cancel an unfilled resting order, you pay nothing.

Can I check the fee on a specific market? Yes. Kalshi’s API returns fee information per market, including the fee type (quadratic, quadratic_with_maker_fees, or flat). The trading interface also shows the estimated fee before you confirm a trade.