Kalshi's fee schedule, effective February 5, 2026, keeps the per-contract formula but adds volume-based taker tiers. We run the numbers on what you actually pay.
Kalshi's current fee schedule took effect on February 5, 2026. The core mechanic is unchanged: there is no flat commission and no settlement fee. Instead, you pay a trading fee calculated from a single formula every time you take liquidity. What is new for 2026 is a volume-based tier system that gives high-volume accounts a discounted taker rate, while everyone else trades on the standard schedule.
The standard trading fee is:
fee = roundup(0.07 x C x P x (1 - P))
Here C is the number of contracts and P is the price in dollars (a 50-cent contract is P = 0.50). A small set of premium markets carry different multipliers: S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 contracts use 0.035 instead of 0.07, and crypto markets sit higher. To see the after-fee picture on any contract, run it through the prediction market fee calculator.
The formula has one property that surprises new traders: fees peak at 50 cents and shrink as the price moves toward either end. Here is the standard rate on 100 contracts at three prices:
| Contract price | Calculation | Fee on 100 contracts |
|---|---|---|
| $0.50 | 0.07 x 100 x 0.50 x 0.50 | $1.75 |
| $0.20 | 0.07 x 100 x 0.20 x 0.80 | $1.12 |
| $0.90 | 0.07 x 100 x 0.90 x 0.10 | $0.63 |
At 50 cents you are paying $1.75 to put on $50 of notional, which is 3.5% of the money at risk. That is the most expensive point on the curve. The same 100 contracts bought at 90 cents cost 63 cents in fees against $90 of notional, or 0.7%. The lesson is concrete: Kalshi's fee structure punishes coin-flip markets and rewards lopsided ones. Before you size a position, check what the round trip costs against your edge in the prediction market EV calculator.
The 2026 schedule adds two taker tiers. The retail tier pays the standard formula above. An active-trader tier applies a discounted taker rate once an account clears a monthly volume threshold, which matters for high-frequency and institutional flow. Maker orders that add resting liquidity continue to be treated more favorably than taker orders that remove it, so limit orders that sit on the book remain the cheaper way to trade.
For a typical retail trader placing a handful of positions a month, nothing changes: you are on the standard rate. The tiers only move the math for accounts trading large monthly volume.
The non-trading costs are simple:
The 2% debit card fee is the one most people miss. Funding a $1,000 account by debit card costs $20 before you place a single trade, and another $20 to pull it back out by card. Use ACH and that cost disappears.
A fee is just negative edge. If your probability estimate gives you a 3% edge on a 50-cent contract and the round-trip fee eats 3.5% of notional, you are underwater before the market resolves. The only way to know is to put the fee and your estimated probability side by side. That is what the prediction market EV calculator does, and it is why we treat fee schedules as math inputs, not trivia.