Kalshi fees explained

The Kalshi fee formula

Kalshi's fee schedule was last updated on July 7, 2026, and took effect that day. Apart from a few products it lists with their own schedule, it prices trading fees on its event contracts with one formula:

• C is the number of contracts in the fill.
• P is the price of the contract you trade, in dollars. A 55c contract is 0.55.
• M is the multiplier for the series. It defaults to 1. Kalshi sets it per series and can override it for a single event.

The fee applies when your order takes liquidity: it matches an order that was already resting on the book. That is the taker side. On most series, an order that rests and gets filled later pays nothing. The maker fee section below covers the series that charge resting orders.

Take 100 contracts at 50c. P × (1 - P) is 0.25, so the fee is 0.07 × 100 × 0.25 = $1.75. You pay $50.00 for the contracts plus $1.75 in fees. Kalshi takes the fee when the order fills. So it is the same whether the contract later settles at $1 or at zero.

Kalshi describes the fee as a percentage of a contract's expected earnings. A contract bought at P can gain at most 1 - P, and P is the market's implied chance of that gain. Multiply the two and you get the P × (1 - P) term.

Only the price of the contract you trade enters the formula. Buying NO at 45c costs exactly the same fee as buying YES at 55c, because 0.45 × 0.55 and 0.55 × 0.45 are the same number. Opening and closing are priced the same way too. A sale is a trade like any other.

Kalshi fee table by price

Each row shows the taker fee at M = 1 and the maker fee on series that charge one. The dollar columns are what a direct Kalshi member pays on one fill of 100 contracts. Members who clear through a futures commission merchant (FCM) pay the same fees rounded up to the cent. Kalshi's own table in the fee schedule prints those cent figures, such as $0.34 at 5c and $0.07 at 1c. The rounding section below explains the difference.

On a series with M = 0.5, halve every fee in the table. On a series with M = 0, every fee is zero. For other prices and sizes, the Kalshi fee calculator runs the same formula.

Why the fee peaks at 50c

P × (1 - P) is a parabola. It reaches its maximum of 0.25 at a price of 50c and falls toward zero at both ends. So in dollars, a coin-flip contract costs the most to trade. 100 contracts at 50c pay $1.75 as a taker. The same 100 contracts at 95c pay about $0.33.

As a share of what you pay for the contract, the fee is 0.07 × (1 - P). That makes it largest on cheap contracts. The buyer of YES at 5c and the buyer of NO at 95c in the same market each pay 0.3325c per contract. For the first, that is 6.65% of the stake. For the second, it is 0.35%.

The dollar figure tells you what a trade costs. The percentage tells you how far your estimate has to beat the price before the trade pays. The edge section below covers that.

Maker fees and which series charge them

A maker order rests on the book and is filled later by someone else's order. On most Kalshi series the maker pays nothing. Kalshi's API gives every series a fee_type. That value decides what a filled resting order pays.

The taker pays the 0.07 rate under all three. The API also defines a fourth value, flat. It points to the specific trading fees table in the schedule.

Kalshi's API changelog says combo maker fees were switched on at 5:00 AM ET on August 20, 2026. Combos built only from independent NFL legs carry no maker fee if they were created after 11:59 PM ET on August 19. Since 11:59 PM ET on August 21, a combo quoter who executes against an order that has rested for less than five seconds pays the maker fee. The resting order pays the taker fee.

The multiplier M scales both fees. On October 19, 2026, no series had a multiplier above 1. Most sat at 1. Baseball series ran at 0.5, which is half the usual fee. These include professional baseball games (KXMLBGAME) and their run, hit and total props. A short list of series ran at 0 and were free to trade. Most were year-end and long-dated political markets. Examples include the Greenland purchase market (KXGREENLAND) and the year-end bitcoin range (KXBTCY).

So a resting bid on a CPI or Fed market is charged when it fills, and so is one on an NFL game. The same bid on a weather market is not. Kalshi's help center says markets with different fees are often tied to special events, such as an election, an awards ceremony or a large sporting championship. To check a market before you trade, look at its series and event through the API:

• GET /series/{series_ticker} returns fee_type and fee_multiplier.
• GET /series/fee_changes lists scheduled fee changes for a series. Add show_historical=true to see past changes.
• GET /events/fee_changes lists event-level overrides. An override takes precedence over the series fee for that event's markets.
• A market's fee_waiver_expiration_time, when present, shows when a temporary fee waiver on that market ends.

How Kalshi rounds fees

Kalshi's API documentation sets out how every fill is rounded. It comes down to three parts.

1. The trade fee is the formula's result, rounded up to the nearest $0.000001.
2. Your balance is held to a set precision. Direct members are aligned to $0.0001. Members who clear through an FCM are aligned to $0.01. If a fill would leave your balance off that grid, Kalshi adds a rounding fee to bring it back.
3. Any rounding overpayment goes into a running total across every fill of the same order, maker and taker fills alike. When it adds up to a full unit of your precision, it comes back as a rebate on a later fill.

The net fee on a fill is the trade fee plus the rounding fee minus any rebate. It is never negative.

On small orders the gap is large. One contract at 50c has a formula fee of $0.0175. A direct member pays $0.0175. An FCM-cleared member pays $0.02, because the balance has to land on a whole cent. At 1c, the formula gives $0.000693. A direct member pays $0.0007. An FCM-cleared member pays $0.01. That is as much as the contract itself costs.

On larger orders the rounding mostly disappears. 100 contracts at 50c cost $1.75 in fees for both kinds of member. Many older guides say every Kalshi fee rounds up to the next cent. Under the current rules, that describes FCM-cleared accounts only.

To see what you were charged, read the fills. Each fill in the API carries fee_cost and an is_taker flag. Each order reports taker_fees_dollars and maker_fees_dollars.

What the fee does to a small edge

Suppose you estimate a YES outcome at 58% and can buy it at 55c. The gross edge is 3c a contract. The taker fee at 55c is 0.07 × 0.55 × 0.45, or 1.73c. That leaves 1.27c. The fee has taken 58% of the edge.

Keep the same 58% estimate, but say YES is offered at 52c. The gross edge is 6c, the fee is 1.75c and the net edge is 4.25c. The fee hardly moved, yet it is now 29% of the edge. Whenever the gross edge is less than twice the fee, the fee takes more than half of it.

The same arithmetic gives a break-even probability for every price. If you buy as a taker at price P, the outcome has to happen more often than P plus the fee per contract:

A filled maker order on a quadratic series pays no fee, so its break-even is the price itself. The expected value guide works through the full calculation for YES and NO. The Kelly and EV calculator takes the fee into account when it sizes a position. The odds converter turns any price into implied odds.

Maker or taker on a round trip

You pay a fee on the way in, and again on the way out if you sell before settlement. Take 100 contracts bought at 50c and later sold at 50c.

Holding to settlement skips the exit fee, because Kalshi charges no settlement fee. An exit at a different price carries a different fee. Sell those 100 contracts at 70c as a taker and the exit costs $1.47. Resting orders cost less or nothing. But they fill only when someone trades against them, and the price can move away first. The guides to Kalshi limit orders and selling a contract before settlement cover both choices in detail.

Deposits, withdrawals and other costs

Trading fees are the main cost of using Kalshi. The table below lists the other charges. They come from Kalshi's fee schedule and help center as of October 19, 2026.

The fee schedule's section on alternate payment methods also reserves Kalshi's right to charge between 0% and 2% on every payment method. Kalshi can change those rates as well. If you trade Kalshi markets through a futures commission merchant, it may charge fees that differ from Kalshi's schedule. The schedule says those fees are disclosed before the transaction.

Questions traders ask

Does Kalshi charge a fee on losing trades?

Yes. The trading fee is paid when the order fills, before anyone knows the outcome. A contract that settles at zero has already paid its fee on entry. Kalshi charges no fee at settlement, so winning and losing positions pay the same entry fee and nothing more.

Is there a fee to sell a Kalshi contract before it settles?

Yes. A sale is a trade, so it pays the taker fee at the sale price when it fills against a resting order. If the sell order rests and fills later, it pays that series' maker fee. That is zero on most series. Holding the contract to settlement avoids the exit fee entirely.

What is the Kalshi maker fee?

On most series it is zero. On series whose fee type is quadratic_with_maker_fees, a filled resting order pays 0.0175 × C × P × (1 - P). That is a quarter of the taker fee, scaled by the series multiplier. Combo series with combo maker fees charge half the taker rate. Canceling a resting order costs nothing.

Is the fee the same for YES and NO?

Yes. The fee depends only on the price of the contract you trade and the number of contracts. YES at 55c and NO at 45c in the same market both pay 1.73c per contract as a taker, because 0.55 × 0.45 and 0.45 × 0.55 are the same number.

Why do two markets at the same price charge different fees?

Kalshi sets the fee type and multiplier per series. It can override them for a single event, and it can waive fees on a market for a period. Its help center says these differences are often due to a special event, such as an election or a large championship. The series and event fee endpoints show which rule applies.

Does Kalshi charge to deposit or withdraw?

Bank transfers are free in both directions, and so are debit card withdrawals. Debit card deposits may carry a 2% processing fee. Wire deposits carry no Kalshi fee but need at least $1,000. Crypto withdrawals are free, while crypto deposits can carry provider and network fees.

Sources

• Kalshi, Fee Schedule, last updated and effective July 7, 2026 (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, Fees (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API documentation, Fee Rounding (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API documentation, Get Series (fee_type and fee_multiplier) (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API documentation, Get Series Fee Changes (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API documentation, Get Event Fee Changes (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API documentation, Get Market (fee_waiver_expiration_time) (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API documentation, Get Fills (fee_cost and is_taker) (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API changelog, entries of August 20 and August 22, 2026 on combo maker fees (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi API documentation, FIX Market Settlement (settlement fee fields) (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, Bank Deposits (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, Bank Withdrawals (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, Card Deposits (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, Debit Card Withdrawals (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, How to Deposit Funds via Wire Transfer (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, Crypto Deposits (accessed Oct 19, 2026)
• Kalshi Help Center, Crypto Withdrawals (accessed Oct 19, 2026)