The short answer
On Polymarket, the fee is paid by the trader whose order trades at once against an order that is already waiting: an instant buy or an instant sale. A limit order that waits for its price, and is later taken by another trader, pays no fee and gets a share of other traders' fees. But a limit order with a price that already meets an order on the other side trades at once, and then it pays the fee like any instant buy.
Polymarket's documents call the waiting side the maker and the instant side the taker. The fee is charged to the instant side.
To see what your instant buys and sales cost in the last 30 days, to the cent, type your Polymarket @name or paste your profile address into the free check above.
This page is about polymarket.com. Polymarket US has its own rules and is not covered here.
Two ways to trade
Polymarket's documents say that every order is a limit order. A market order is a limit order with a price set to trade right away against the best waiting orders. So the fee does not depend on the name of the order. It depends on whether the order trades at once or waits.
- Buy or sell now. Your order takes the best price on the other side and pays the fee: fee = rate × shares × price × (1 − price). Price is in dollars, so 50¢ = 0.50. The rate is 0.05 for sports, 0.07 for crypto, 0.04 for politics, finance and tech, and 0 for geopolitics. All rates are on our Polymarket fees page. A market order never waits: any part that finds no other side is cancelled.
- Wait for your price. You set a price that nobody offers yet, and the order waits. When another trader takes it, you pay no fee. Each day, Polymarket puts part of the fees from that market into a pool for the waiting orders that traded there: 15% in sports, 20% in crypto, 25% in other markets with a fee. The pool is shared in proportion to the fee each waiting order would have paid, by the same formula, and is sent to your wallet once $1 or more has built up.
When a limit order still pays
In Polymarket's rules, a buy at or above the lowest price sellers ask, or a sell at or below the highest price buyers offer, trades at once against the orders already waiting. That trade pays the fee, the same as a market order.
Say sellers ask 50¢. A limit buy at 50¢ trades right away and pays the fee. A limit buy at 52¢ also trades right away, at the seller's 50¢, and pays the fee too. If there are not enough shares at that price, the part that finds no seller stays open and waits. That part pays no fee if another trader takes it later.
A worked example
A sports market. Sellers ask 50¢ and buyers offer 48¢. You want 200 shares.
| How you buy | Price | Fee | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy now | $100.00 | $2.50 | $102.50 |
| Limit 50¢ | $100.00 | $2.50 | $102.50 |
| Limit 49¢, taken | $98.00 | $0 | $98.00 |
| Limit 49¢, not taken | $0 | $0 | No shares |
- Buy now: 200 × 0.50 = $100.00. Fee: 0.05 × 200 × 0.50 × 0.50 = $2.50.
- Limit at 50¢: sellers already ask 50¢, so the order trades at once. Same price, same $2.50 fee.
- Limit at 49¢: nobody sells at 49¢ yet, so the order waits. If a seller later sells into it instantly, you pay 200 × 0.49 = $98.00 and no fee. That is $4.50 less than buying now: $2.00 from the price and $2.50 from the fee.
- The seller's fee: 0.05 × 200 × 0.49 × 0.51 = $2.50 ($2.499 before rounding). 15% of it, $0.37, goes into the pool for that market. Your order counts as $2.50 when the pool is shared with every other waiting order that traded in that market that day, so your part depends on the whole day, not on this sale alone.
The catch with waiting
- It may never trade. If no seller comes down to 49¢, you get no shares. The order can also trade in part: you hold some of the 200 shares, and the rest keeps waiting.
- The price can move away. If the price rises to 60¢ and stays there, 200 shares then cost 200 × 0.60 = $120.00, plus a fee of 0.05 × 200 × 0.60 × 0.40 = $2.40. That is $122.40, or $19.90 more than buying at 50¢ at the start.
- Sports games cancel it. On sports markets, Polymarket cancels open limit orders when the game begins. Start times can shift, and if a game starts early, orders may not be cleared in time, so Polymarket asks traders to watch their orders. Orders that trade at once on sports markets wait 3 seconds before they go through.
Selling works the same way: an instant sale pays the fee, and a sell order at your own price pays none but may not find a buyer. More in cashing out early on Polymarket.
What we saw in 117 wallets
We looked at 117 public wallets checked on polyfees, over the last 30 days, from Polymarket's own public records. In those wallets, 104,854 instant buys and 18,156 instant sales paid a fee. Most of the money came from instant buys: 89% of all fees, $165,088 of $185,670. 117 wallets are a sample, not everyone.
Questions
Do limit orders pay fees on Polymarket?
Not when they wait. A limit order that waits for its price and is taken later by another trader pays no fee. A limit order with a price that already meets the other side trades at once and pays the fee, with a rate of 0.05 for sports. Rates for other markets are on our Polymarket fees page.
What is a maker and a taker on Polymarket?
These are Polymarket's names for the two sides of a trade. The waiting side is the order that sat at its price until someone took it, and it pays no fee. The instant side traded at once against it, and it pays the fee. A market order is always on the instant side; a limit order can be on either side, depending on its price.
Why did my limit order pay a fee?
Because its price met an order that was already waiting, so it traded at once. A limit buy at or above the lowest price sellers ask, or a limit sell at or below the highest price buyers offer, pays the fee like an instant trade. If only part of the order traded at once, only that part paid the fee.
Do limit orders get paid on Polymarket?
A waiting limit order that trades gets a part of a daily pool: 15% of the fees in that market for sports, 20% for crypto, 25% for other markets with a fee, shared in proportion to the fee each waiting order would have paid. This money does not show in the profit or loss on your profile; see does Polymarket give any fees back?
Is a market order more expensive?
In fees, yes: a market order always pays the fee, and a limit order that waits pays none. A market order also pays the price sellers ask, which is above the price buyers offer. But a waiting order may never trade, the price may move away, and on sports markets it is cancelled when the game begins. To see what your instant trades cost, read how much have I paid in Polymarket fees.