How to Get Started With Polymarket: Sign Up, Deposit, Fees and Who Can Trade
If you want to get started with Polymarket, the process takes only a few minutes, but the order matters: check that your country is allowed, sign up, deposit USDC, and read the fee rules before your first trade. This guide follows Polymarket’s own help pages and documentation. We checked them on October 25, 2026. It also says plainly what the referral link gives a new user, and what it does not. This is not financial advice, and prediction markets can lose you everything you put in.
The Polymarket homepage as it appeared on October 25, 2026. The site showed its interface in Italian for our browser, based on location.
What You Should Know Before You Get Started With Polymarket
Polymarket describes itself as the world’s largest prediction market. You trade shares on the outcome of a future event, and each share is priced between 0.00 and 1.00. According to Polymarket’s help center, that price is the market’s implied probability, so a YES share at 18 cents implies an 18% chance. Users set the prices through supply and demand, not Polymarket.
$1.00 USDC fully backs each YES and NO pair. When a market resolves, shares on the correct outcome pay $1.00 USDC each and shares on the losing side become worthless. You can also sell your shares at the current market price before the market resolves.
The UMA Optimistic Oracle resolves markets and follows the rules under each market’s order book. Someone first proposes an outcome. Then a 2-hour challenge period starts, and anyone who disagrees can dispute it. Read the resolution rules of a market before you trade it, because the rules decide what counts as the outcome.
Step 1: Check That Polymarket Is Available Where You Live
This is the step most guides skip. Polymarket publishes a geoblock list in its documentation, and as we read it on October 25, 2026 it works in three tiers. Polymarket blocks some places completely: Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, and the Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. Many more places are close-only on both the website and the API. That means you can close existing positions but cannot open new ones. That list includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Australia, Belgium, Poland, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, among others. A few more places, such as Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea, are close-only on the website only.
The list changes, so check the live page first. We do not recommend trying to get around location checks. If your country is close-only or blocked, this guide is for information only and you should not deposit.
Step 2: Sign Up With Google, Email or a Crypto Wallet
Polymarket’s help center describes three ways to sign up, and each starts with the Sign Up button.
- Google: choose the Google option, link your account and finish the sign-up.
- Email: enter your email address, then type the 6-digit code that Polymarket sends you.
- Crypto wallet: connect a supported wallet (MetaMask, Rabby or Phantom), sign the first message to connect it, then sign the second message to enable trading.
Polymarket advises using the same wallet and login method every time, to avoid discrepancies with your account. If you pick the wallet route with Phantom, our beginner guide to setting up Phantom wallet covers the setup and the recovery phrase backup.
Open Polymarket With Our Link →
Step 3: Deposit USDC the Safe Way
Polymarket’s deposit guide lists the steps like this: click Deposit, select a deposit method (for example Transfer Crypto), then choose the token and the network you want to use. Each Polymarket account has a fixed crypto deposit address tied to its profile. You cannot change it or regenerate it manually. Each network has its own address. The address for Solana or Bitcoin can differ from the one for Polygon or other EVM networks.
There are minimums. The help page gives $20 for Ethereum and $3 for Solana as examples. Deposits below the minimum stay pending until the total reaches it. After your transaction confirms, refresh the page to see your balance. The most important warning on the page is that nobody can reverse a transfer sent to the wrong chain or address. So send a small amount first and check that it arrives, even though the page does not require it.
Step 4: Understand the Fees Before You Trade
According to Polymarket’s fee documentation, the platform charges no fee to deposit or withdraw USDC, although intermediaries such as Coinbase or MoonPay may charge their own fees. On trading, only takers pay: makers are never charged fees. The taker fee equals shares traded times a fee rate times the price times one minus the price. It is highest near a 50% price.
- Crypto markets use a rate of 0.07.
- Sports, Economics, Culture, Weather and other general markets use 0.05.
- Finance, Politics, Mentions and Tech markets use 0.04.
- Geopolitical and world events markets are fee-free.
As Polymarket’s own example shows, 100 Crypto shares traded at $0.50 cost a $1.75 fee. Fees can change: when we opened the help center on October 25, 2026, a banner said there were zero fees on NBA, Politics, Economics, Weather, Finance, Culture, Mentions and Tech markets through October 31. That is a time-limited promotion, so check the current fee page before you trade.
What Our Referral Link Gives You, and What It Does Not
The button on this page is our referral link. Polymarket’s referral documentation says that a referrer earns 10% of the net trading fees of the people they refer, and 5% on the referrals of those people, with caps, and that the referred user has to sign up within 30 days of clicking the link. The same page does not describe any sign-up bonus or other perk for the new user. Some third-party sites advertise bonuses with referral codes. We could not verify any in Polymarket’s own documentation, so we do not promise one. Using our link supports this site. As far as the documentation says, it does not change what you pay. Polymarket can change these terms at any time.
Get Started With Polymarket: Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a sign-up bonus?
Polymarket’s referral documentation describes rewards for the referrer and no perk for the new user. Treat promises of a guaranteed bonus with caution.
Can I use Polymarket from the United States, the UK or Italy?
According to Polymarket’s geoblock list as we read it, those places are close-only, meaning you can close positions but not open new ones. Check the live list before you act.
Do I pay to deposit USDC?
Polymarket says it charges no deposit or withdrawal fee, but the exchange or service you use to send funds may charge its own.
Can I lose all my money?
Yes. Shares on the losing outcome become worthless, so only use money you can afford to lose.
Get Started With Polymarket: The Bottom Line
To get started with Polymarket, check your country’s status first, sign up with Google, email or a supported wallet, deposit on the right network, and read the fee rules and the market’s resolution rules before your first trade. The referral link supports this site, and it is not a source of promised bonuses. If you decide to go ahead, use the button below.
