Polymarket now runs two exchanges. The original global venue is on-chain, collateralized in USDC on Polygon, and closed to US persons. Polymarket US is the CFTC-regulated exchange built from the QCEX acquisition, dollar-settled and open to US traders. Which one you can use is determined by where you sit; how they differ beyond that is fees at the margin and depth at the core.
Side by side
| Polymarket | Polymarket US | |
|---|---|---|
| Regulation | Offshore, on-chain (Polygon) | CFTC-regulated via the QCEX acquisition |
| Settlement | USDC stablecoin | US dollars |
| Who can trade | Non-US persons only | US persons |
| Taker fee | 3% to 7% by category; geopolitics free | 4% to 7% by category; geopolitics free |
| Sports rate | 3% ($0.75 max per 100 at 50¢) | 5% ($1.25 max per 100 at 50¢) |
| Maker fee | None, plus rebates from 20% of taker fees | None, volume rebates for large takers |
| Track record | Live since 2020, $36.2B in the year to Feb 2026 | Relaunched December 2025, waitlist dropped May 2026 |
| Depth at size | 0.05¢ slippage on 50,000 contracts | 3.62¢ slippage on the same order |
Taker fees, category by category
Beyond fees: depth and execution
The fee schedules differ meaningfully only on sports, where the global venue's 3% rate undercuts the US exchange's 5%. The bigger gap is liquidity. In our live 50,000-contract case study, the same contract slipped just 0.05¢ on the global book and 3.62¢ on the US book, a difference worth $1,608 on that one order, dwarfing anything in the fee tables.
The same event often trades on more than one venue at different prices, with different depth at each level. That is the gap smart order routing exists to close: River compares the executable price across venues, splits orders across books, and works them passively where maker economics pay.