Polymarket is a prediction market: a trading platform where you buy and sell shares in the outcomes of real-world events, from elections and sports to crypto prices and tech launches. Each market displays a live probability between 0% and 100%, and if your call resolves correctly, each share pays $1.
This guide breaks down how the referral program pays, who qualifies, and what the payout means for the person on each side of the link. You can compare it with other deals on our crypto referral codes page.
The fine print
Rewards are paid on net fees, and the clock starts when the referred user signs up. Everything else is in the table below.
| Item | Terms |
|---|---|
| Direct referral | 10% of net fees |
| Indirect referral | 5% of net fees |
| Reward window | 30 days from sign-up, or until the referral reaches Platinum |
| Eligibility | $10,000 lifetime trading volume on your own account |
| Payout | Daily at 00:00 UTC, in pUSD |
| Minimum payout | None |
Net fees are what Polymarket keeps after the referred user’s own tier rebate. Volume on fee-free markets generates no rewards.
What is Polymarket, in plain words?
Think of Polymarket as a stock market for opinions about the future. Instead of buying a company, you buy "yes" or "no" shares in a specific question: Will X happen before Y? The price you pay is effectively the market's current estimate of the probability.
If you buy "yes" at 40 cents and the event happens, your share redeems for a full dollar, a 150% return on that position.
Prices move in real time as news breaks, which is why Polymarket odds are often quoted in mainstream media as a live measure of what the market actually believes. Liquidity is deepest on political and crypto markets, and trading happens on-chain, so balances and positions stay verifiable and self-custodied.
The referral program: who gets paid, and how much
Before the numbers, one distinction: the program pays the person who shared the link, not the person who signs up through it. If you arrived here from a referral link, the 10% and 5% below are the referrer’s, and nothing about your own fees changes.
If you are considering sharing a link yourself, this is what you would earn: 10% of the net fees generated by your direct referrals, and 5% of the net fees generated by indirect referrals, the people your referrals bring in. Refer Alice and Alice refers Bob, and you earn from both.
For a referrer, the rewards run for each referred user’s first 30 days after sign-up, or until that user reaches the Platinum tier, whichever comes first. They apply through every tier up to and including Gold.
Payouts land once a day at midnight UTC in pUSD, Polymarket’s dollar-pegged balance, with no minimum threshold to wait for.
The eligibility gate: whose volume counts
There is one important requirement before earnings start, and it belongs to the referrer: the account that wants to earn must reach at least $10,000 in lifetime trading volume. If you signed up through a link, this gate does not apply to you, and you do not need $10,000 to trade.
If you want to earn, you can share links before you qualify (anyone who clicks and signs up within 30 days still becomes your referral), but rewards only begin flowing once you cross the threshold.
This makes the program a natural fit for active traders, market makers and content creators who are already trading seriously on the platform. If you are starting from zero, treat the $10,000 gate as part of your plan rather than a surprise.
How to claim Polymarket referral rewards
Sharing works through the platform itself: use the share button on any market or profile page, and anyone who signs up within 30 days of clicking your link counts as your referral. The ReferralLinks link at polymarket.com/?r=ReferralLinks works the same way. Open it, sign up, and the referral attachment is automatic.
If you are the person signing up rather than the referrer, there is nothing to claim. The link records the attribution; the rewards are the referrer’s side of that transaction. On the referrer side, once your referrals start trading, their net fees convert into your rewards automatically.
You do not need to submit claims or track anything manually. The dashboard shows your referral activity, and the daily midnight UTC payout handles the rest.
What the link gives you, and what it does not
The two sides are not symmetrical, and most referral pages blur them. The referred account receives no discount on trading fees. Polymarket does not run a fee-cut program.
What the link changes for the referrer is that a share of the net fees from that account is paid out; what it changes for the referred account is nothing about its own costs, apart from the attribution being recorded.
Polymarket does operate a tier system that reduces fees as an account’s own volume grows. That is a property of the account, earned by trading, not of the referral. If you were hoping the link lowers what you pay, the honest answer is that it does not.
How the payout is calculated
Rewards are calculated on net fees, meaning what Polymarket keeps after the referred user’s own tier rebate, not on gross fees. Not every market carries a fee, so volume on fee-free markets produces no reward at all. The more a referrer’s users trade on fee-bearing markets, the more the link earns.
Two limits are documented: the $10,000 lifetime volume gate on the referrer’s own account, and the net-fee basis itself, which excludes fee-free markets. Beyond those, the terms reserve the right to cap, disqualify or claw back rewards for self-referrals, linked accounts or inauthentic trading, and no fixed cap figure is published.
Plan on the percentage, not on an uncapped version of it.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the Polymarket referral program pay?
The referrer earns 10% of net fees from direct referrals and 5% from indirect referrals, the people those referrals bring in. Rewards are calculated on net fees rather than gross fees, so only trading on fee-bearing markets counts.
Do I need $10,000 in volume to earn referral rewards?
Yes, if you want to earn. The referrer’s own account must reach $10,000 in lifetime trading volume before payouts begin. You can share links before you qualify, and anyone who signs up within 30 days still counts as your referral.
When are Polymarket referral rewards paid out?
Payouts run once a day at midnight UTC and land in pUSD, Polymarket’s dollar-pegged balance. There is no minimum threshold you have to reach first.
Are referral rewards paid on fee-free markets?
No. Not every market carries fees, so volume on fee-free markets generates no rewards. Trading on fee-bearing markets is what produces referral earnings, and the program also allows Polymarket to cap or disqualify rewards.
Risks to know before you trade
Prediction markets carry real risk: outcomes are genuinely uncertain, and a position on the wrong side resolves to zero. Never stake money you need, and remember that even a 90% probability fails one time in ten.
Always verify you are on the official polymarket.com domain before signing in, and bookmark it. Fake clones of popular trading platforms are the most common way users lose funds. Referral terms can change, so check the current program details on Polymarket itself before you commit.
Before you commit
These answers do not depend on the current rate, so they stay true when the numbers above them move.
How to check that the Polymarket code actually applied
Check on the platform, not on a code list. Open polymarket.com from its own domain, start the sign-up (or the first deposit) and read the confirmation screen before you approve anything.
A referral that registered shows up as one of three things: a reduced fee in the order preview, a rebate line in the account, or a visible referral tag next to your address.
If none of the three is there, stop and reopen the link from this page instead of signing up and looking for a code field afterwards.
Almost every program in this list attaches the referral at registration only; a code typed later, or a page refreshed later, cannot retroactively claim an account that was created without one. This site re-tests each flow by hand and prints the date in the sidebar.
How we test codes describes what that involves.
What happens if the Polymarket program changes or ends
Two different things end at two different times. The terms you signed up under usually keep applying to your account while the program runs, and the platform can change those terms with notice, so a rate you earned last month is not a rate you are owed next month.
When a program ends, the code field stops accepting new codes and new sign-ups stop being attributed; existing balances revert to the standard rate on the platform’s own schedule.
Commission already credited is the platform’s obligation to the person who referred you, not something this site can recover or guarantee. If a page here is out of date, it is because the change has not been re-checked yet, not because the number was invented: every figure carries the date it was last confirmed.
