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Crypto futures fees fall into four types: a maker or taker fee on every fill, a funding payment every eight hours on perpetual positions, a settlement fee on dated contracts at expiry, and a liquidation penalty if the exchange force-closes the position. Every one is calculated on the full position size, not the deposit.
That distinction is where most traders get caught. A trader opens a $5,000 BTC position with $500 deposited. Entry fee: $2.50. Funding over 24 hours: $1.50. Exit: $2.50. Total: $6.50 consumed before the trade moves a dollar. That is 1.3% of the deposit, gone to fees alone.
Crypto futures fees are calculated on the full size of the position, not the deposit used to open it. That matters because leverage makes the position much larger than the deposit. A fee that looks small against a $10,000 position is a much bigger number against the $500 or $1,000 that was actually put up. The more leverage, the harder fees hit. And fees stack: there is one on entry, one every eight hours the position stays open, and a larger one if the position gets liquidated.
There are four. Each one fires at a different point in the trade lifecycle.
| Fee Type | When It Applies | Typical Range | Who Gets It |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker fee | When a limit order fills and adds to the order book | 0%–0.02% | Exchange (rebate on some platforms) |
| Taker fee | When a market order fills and removes from the order book | 0.04%–0.06% | Exchange |
| Funding fee | Every 8 hours a perpetual position is open | Variable; typically 0.01% per interval, spikes higher | Paid to the opposite side of the trade |
| Liquidation fee | Only if the position is force-closed by the exchange | ~0.5% of position size | Exchange insurance fund |
These figures represent standard (non-VIP) rates. Actual costs vary by exchange and volume tier.
What most traders think: Fees are a small percentage of what was deposited: manageable background noise.
What actually happens: Every fee is calculated on the full position size, not the margin. At 10x leverage, a 0.05% taker fee takes 0.5% of the deposit on every fill. Add the exit fill and 24 hours of funding, and 1.4% of the margin is gone before the trade does anything useful. At 50x, the same 24-hour trade costs 7% of the deposit in fees alone.
Every fill on a futures exchange falls into one of two categories. The fee depends on which one it is.
A limit order placed away from the current price sits on the order book and waits. It adds liquidity. The exchange rewards this with a lower fee called the maker rate, because liquid books attract more traders and make the platform work better for everyone.
A market order fills immediately against orders already sitting in the book. It removes liquidity. The exchange charges more for this: the taker rate. A limit order priced to fill immediately counts as a taker order too.
Most exchanges calculate fees based on how much a trader has moved in the last 30 days. More volume means lower rates. Most retail traders never reach the first tier reduction. Some platforms let traders shortcut this by holding the platform’s own token. Binance uses BNB. That unlocks a discount regardless of volume level.
At high leverage, round-trip trading fees become a significant share of the deposit. At 20x leverage, a 0.05% taker fee on entry and exit costs 2% of the deposit in trading fees alone, before funding or anything else. The trade has to move at least that far in the right direction just to break even on costs.
Perpetual futures never expire. That creates a problem: without something anchoring the price to the real market, the contract would drift away from where BTC or ETH actually trades. The funding rate mechanism is the solution.
Every eight hours, a payment moves between the traders on the long side and the traders on the short side. When the perpetual is trading above the spot price, meaning demand for long positions is heavy, longs pay shorts. When it is below, shorts pay longs. The payment nudges the contract price back toward the real one. When that pressure builds to an extreme, it can trigger a long squeeze or short squeeze.
The current rate is visible on every major exchange next to the mark price. A rate of 0.01% per interval is normal. Above 0.05% per interval, positioning on one side is getting crowded. Above 0.1% per interval, the market is heavily one-sided. Whoever is on the paying side at those rates is carrying a real cost just to hold the position.
The rate at each interval is not fixed when the position opens. It recalculates from live market conditions. A position entered when funding was calm can start paying elevated rates hours later if market sentiment shifts.
Funding rates spike when markets get volatile. A rate above 0.1% per 8-hour interval works out to roughly 109% per year. A position on the wrong side of a funding spike has to move significantly in the right direction just to offset what the carry is costing. Check the rate and direction before entering any position held for more than a few hours.
When the equity in an account drops to the minimum required level, called the maintenance margin, the exchange closes the position automatically. That closure is not free. It triggers a fee on top of whatever the trade has already lost.
The reason is mechanical. Liquidation is a forced market order handled by the liquidation engine. The exchange fills against the live book, which costs the taker rate. Then a liquidation penalty is added on top of that. The combined total runs around 0.5% of the full position size. That fee goes to the exchange’s insurance fund, which covers cases where a position closes at a loss so large the deposit does not fully cover it.
Most traders think of liquidation as losing the deposit. The fee makes it worse than that. On a $10,000 position opened with $1,000 at 10x leverage, a 0.5% liquidation fee costs $50. That is 5% of the deposit, charged in addition to whatever loss happened on the price move. A stop-loss exit at taker rates would have cost a fraction of that. The gap between a planned exit and a forced one is the liquidation penalty.
Whether the account uses cross margin or isolated margin affects how and when the exchange steps in. The liquidation price calculator shows exactly where the risk level sits before opening a position.
Liquidation is the most expensive exit possible. On a $10,000 position with $1,000 deposited, a 0.5% liquidation fee costs $50, which is 5% of the deposit, charged on top of the trading loss. A stop-loss order at taker rates costs a fraction of that. The difference between a planned exit and a forced one is the liquidation penalty.
The math shifts as leverage goes up. Fees stay the same percentage of the position size. But the position gets larger relative to the deposit, so fees hit harder as a share of what was actually put up.
The table below shows what a 24-hour hold costs at different leverage levels, using a $1,000 deposit and standard-tier rates. Entry fee: 0.05%. Exit fee: 0.05%. Funding: 0.03% per 8-hour interval, three intervals.
| Leverage | Position Size | Entry Fee | Exit Fee | Funding (24h) | Total Cost | As % of Deposit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1x | $1,000 | $0.50 | $0.50 | $0.30 | $1.30 | 0.13% |
| 5x | $5,000 | $2.50 | $2.50 | $1.50 | $6.50 | 0.65% |
| 10x | $10,000 | $5.00 | $5.00 | $3.00 | $13.00 | 1.30% |
| 20x | $20,000 | $10.00 | $10.00 | $6.00 | $26.00 | 2.60% |
| 50x | $50,000 | $25.00 | $25.00 | $15.00 | $65.00 | 6.50% |
At 50x, fees and funding consume 6.5% of the deposit over a single day. The position has to move more than 6.5% in the right direction just to break even on costs before any trading profit is possible.
These figures use illustrative standard-tier rates. Actual costs depend on the exchange, volume tier, and live funding rate at each 8-hour interval.
Standard-tier rates are similar across major exchanges. The funding rate is usually the bigger variable for anyone holding positions beyond a few hours.
| Exchange | Maker Fee | Taker Fee | Funding Interval | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Binance | 0.02% | 0.05% | Every 8 hours | Discount available with BNB |
| Bybit | 0.02% | 0.055% | Every 8 hours | VIP tiers based on 30-day volume |
| OKX | 0.02% | 0.05% | Every 8 hours | Native token discounts available |
| Hyperliquid | –0.01% (rebate) | 0.035% | Every 8 hours | Maker receives a rebate, not a fee |
These rates represent standard (non-VIP) tiers. Check each platform’s live fee schedule, as rates change and volume thresholds vary between exchanges. For a broader comparison of how major platforms compare on costs, leverage limits, and liquidation mechanics, see the crypto futures platforms comparison page.
Three approaches consistently lower the cost of trading crypto futures.
Funding is a payment that moves between traders, not a fee collected by the exchange. When funding is positive, long positions pay short positions. When negative, shorts pay longs. The exchange does not take a cut on the transfer. From the perspective of whoever is on the paying side, it functions like a fee, but the money goes to other traders, not to the platform.
Spot trading fees are calculated on the value of the asset bought or sold. Futures fees are calculated on the full size of the position: the total leveraged exposure, not the deposit. A 0.05% fee on a $10,000 spot trade costs $5. The same rate on a $10,000 futures position opened with $1,000 still costs $5 on the position, but that $5 is 0.5% of the actual deposit, not 0.05%.
Yes. Liquidation triggers a fee on the full size of the position. It combines the taker execution rate with a liquidation penalty. The combined total usually runs around 0.5% of the position size. This is charged on top of whatever loss already occurred on the price move.
On most major exchanges, funding settles every 8 hours. A position held open for one week gets charged funding 21 times. The rate at each interval is not fixed at entry. It recalculates from live market conditions at the time of each settlement.
On most exchanges, the maker rate is simply lower than the taker rate, not a true rebate. Some exchanges, including Hyperliquid, offer a negative maker rate, meaning the exchange pays traders a small amount for posting limit orders that add liquidity. This is uncommon at standard tier but exists on some platforms.
Crypto futures fees are not a single charge. They stack. The maker or taker rate hits every fill. Funding accumulates every eight hours for as long as the position stays open. The liquidation fee is the most expensive exit on the menu, and it only applies when everything else has already gone wrong.
Which fee dominates depends on how a position is used. Frequent traders feel the trading fees compound across every round-trip. Traders holding positions for days often find funding is the larger cost. For anyone using high leverage, the liquidation fee is the number to avoid at all costs. The liquidation price calculator shows exactly where that threshold sits before the position is opened.
This article is published under Leverage.Trading’s leverage trading & crypto derivatives education , an independent risk-first learning system built to help traders quantify and manage risk before trading.
