How to cash out on Kalshi

You cash out on Kalshi by selling your contracts to another trader before the market settles. Open the position, choose Sell, enter the number of contracts, check the estimate and submit. The money lands in your Kalshi cash balance. You can sell all of a position or part of it, any time the market is open.

"Cash out" means three different things on Kalshi, and people mix them up. Selling early turns a position into cash before the result. A payout is what Kalshi pays a winning position at settlement. A withdrawal moves cash from Kalshi to your bank. This guide takes them in that order, with the math for each.

The three ways money comes back to you

How to cash out a Kalshi position early

1. Open the market page, or open Portfolio and pick the position.
2. Switch the order panel to Sell. Your contracts show under Your Position.
3. Enter how many contracts to sell.
4. Read the average price and the estimated payout Kalshi shows for the sale.
5. Submit.

That is Kalshi's quick order sale. It sells a set number of contracts at the current market price, which means it fills against whoever is bidding right now. The second way to sell is a limit order sale: you name the lowest price you will take, and the sale happens only when a buyer bids that price or higher.

Kalshi never closes your position on its own. A position leaves your account three ways: you sell it, a resting sell order you placed fills, or the market settles.

What price you get when you sell

You get the bids, not the price on the screen. Kalshi has no cash out button that the exchange prices for you, the way a sportsbook does. Your sale is an order on the same order book everyone else trades on, and the buyers on that book decide what you receive.

Three numbers sit close together on a market page, and only one of them is yours when you sell:

• The last price is the most recent trade. It is history.
• The ask is the lowest price a seller will take. Buyers pay it.
• The bid is the highest price a buyer will pay. Sellers receive it.

The bid also has a size. If the best bid wants 80 contracts and you sell 200, the other 120 fill against the next bids down. The bigger your sale against a thin book, the lower your average. That gap has a name, and the full explanation sits in what is slippage on Kalshi.

Kalshi's own help center makes the same point about your Portfolio: the value shown for a position is a displayed value, not a price you are sure to sell at. In the mobile app the "Current value" figure estimates your proceeds from the available bids and the estimated sell fee, so it is the closest number to a real cash out quote.

A worked cash out

You hold 200 Yes contracts bought at 40 cents. You paid $80.00 plus a $3.36 taker fee (0.07 x 200 x 0.40 x 0.60). The team takes a lead, the last trade prints at 63 cents, and the screen says your position is worth $126.00. You hit Sell on all 200. Here is the book you sell into:

• Average sale price: 59.9 cents, not 63.
• Trading fee on the sale: $3.37. Each fill pays 0.07 x contracts x price x (1 - price), which comes to $1.33, $1.18 and $0.85 before Kalshi rounds the order's fee up to the cent.
• Cash you receive: $116.43.
• Profit: $116.43 minus the $83.36 you paid, or $33.07.

The screen said $126.00 and you got $116.43. Of the $9.57 gap, $6.20 is the distance between the last price and the bids you hit, and $3.37 is the fee. Neither one is a mistake. It is what a market sale into that book costs.

Three ways to play the same position

The limit sell earns $7.57 more than the market sale on the same 200 contracts. A resting order pays no fee on most Kalshi series and a quarter of the taker fee on the big sports and economics series, and it sells at your price, not the book's. Our rule: when the game is still moving your way and you have time, rest the limit. When you want out now, pay for it and sell at market.

What Kalshi charges when you sell

A sell is a trade, so it pays the same fee as a buy. The taker fee is 0.07 x contracts x price x (1 - price), rounded up to the next cent, charged when your order fills against a resting order. The price in the formula is your sale price, so the fee is largest when you sell near 50 cents and smallest when you sell a near certainty.

Two things follow. Bailing out of a loser at 10 cents costs 6.3% of what you salvage, so selling a dead position for pennies often returns less than you expect. And a round trip pays two fees, one in and one out, while holding to settlement pays one. The full schedule, the series multipliers and the maker fee list are in Kalshi fees explained.

Selling part of a position

Kalshi lets you sell any number of contracts up to what you hold. Enter 100 of your 200 and the other 100 stay open. This is the most useful move on the exchange and beginners rarely use it.

Back to the example. You sell 100 of the 200 contracts: 80 fill at 61 cents and 20 at 60, for $60.80, minus a $1.67 fee. You bank $59.13. Your whole position cost $83.36, so here is where you stand with 100 contracts still open:

• If Yes wins: the remaining 100 pay $100.00. Total profit $75.77.
• If Yes loses: the remaining 100 pay nothing. Total loss $24.23, down from $83.36.

You cut the worst case by 71% and kept two thirds of the best case. A small sale also fills at better prices, because it stays inside the top bids. Selling in pieces is how you get a large position out of a thin market without giving the book a discount.

Sell early or hold to settlement

Sell when the bid is higher than your honest estimate of the chance you win. A contract is worth its probability times $1.00. If the bid is 61 cents and you think Yes wins 55% of the time, the buyer is paying you 6 cents a contract more than the position is worth to you. Take it. If you think Yes wins 75% of the time, selling at 61 hands 14 cents a contract to someone else.

The cases where selling early is right:

• The price ran past your number. You bought at 40 because you thought 55. It trades at 61. Your reason to hold is gone.
• Your reason changed. The injury report, the forecast or the poll you traded on moved against you. Sell at a small loss before it becomes a full one.
• You need the cash for a better trade. Money locked in a 90 cent favorite for a month earns you 10 cents a contract at most.
• The position got too big. A winner that grew into half your account is a risk problem. Sell part.

The case where it is wrong:

• Dumping a near certain winner the night before settlement. Sell 100 contracts at a 97 cent bid and you keep $96.79 after a $0.21 fee. Hold until the morning and the same contracts pay $100.00. You paid $3.21, a little over 3%, to get your money a few hours sooner. Do it only when the remaining risk is real or you need the cash today.

Set the exit before you need it

A limit order sale rests on the exchange until a buyer meets your price, and it can fill while the app is closed. Kalshi also offers an optional auto sell after a buy fills: you pick a target at or above your purchase price, and Kalshi places it as a resting limit sell that you can edit or cancel under Orders. If only some buyers show up at your target, only part of the position sells.

What we do: place the take-profit as a resting limit sell the moment the entry fills. It costs nothing to place or cancel, it pays the lower maker fee or none at all, and it removes the worst habit in trading, which is deciding your exit in the middle of a swing.

Why you can't sell a Kalshi position

How a Kalshi payout works

A winning contract pays $1.00 and a losing contract pays $0. When the market settles, Kalshi adds the payout to your cash balance. You don't claim it, and a standard Yes or No settlement carries no fee. Hold 200 winning contracts and $200.00 appears in cash.

• Payout is not profit. The "potential payout" on a position is the $1.00 a contract you collect if you win. Your profit is that minus what you paid and the entry fee. 200 contracts bought at 40 cents pay $200.00 and earn $116.64.
• Only your net position settles. Kalshi settles what you hold at the close, after any buys and sells.
• The rules decide the result. Every market names its source. A few markets settle at a value between $0 and $1.00 when their rules say so, and a combo pays the product of its legs.

How results get decided, and what happens when a result is disputed, is covered in how prediction market resolution works.

What pending payout means on Kalshi

A pending payout is a position in a market that has finished trading and has not settled yet. Your contracts are fine and the money is on its way. Kalshi's Portfolio has three filters for prediction positions, Open, Pending and Closed, and a position waits under Pending between the end of trading and settlement. Kalshi's guidance for pending funds is that no action is needed from you.

The stages every market goes through:

"Pending" covers the two middle rows. It shows up most when the event is over on your TV and the market still has no result, because Kalshi settles from an official source and that source hasn't published yet.

How long a Kalshi payout takes

• Most markets: a few hours after the outcome is known.
• Combos: 1 to 12 hours after the last leg resolves, because a combo gets its own review after the legs.
• Data markets: as long as the source agency takes to publish final numbers.
• Markets with a later determination time: the time in the rules, which can sit well after the event appears to end.

Every market page has a Timeline and Payout section that shows when it opened, when it closes and when it is expected to pay out. Read it before you trade a market you plan to hold. Kalshi's guidance on a slow one: when a standard market has gone about 12 hours past the end of the event with no update, check the rules for a later determination time first, then contact support in the app.

A market that stays open after the event ends has not gone wrong either. Kalshi often waits on official data before it closes or determines a market, and it does not settle a market again just because trading was still open when the event finished.

Getting the cash off Kalshi

Sale proceeds and payouts both land in your Kalshi cash balance. From there, open your balance, choose Withdraw, pick a method and confirm. Kalshi charges no withdrawal fee on any method.

• Debit card: usually within a few hours.
• Crypto: about 30 minutes, for accounts with an earlier crypto deposit.
• Bank transfer: a few business days.

One rule catches people right after a win. Kalshi holds fresh card and bank deposits until they settle, so the amount available to withdraw can be lower than your cash balance. Winnings above your deposits are free to leave once they are settled cash. Every method, the hold rules and the reasons a withdrawal stalls are in how to withdraw from Kalshi.

A cash out checklist

1. Look at the bid and its size, not the last price.
2. Read the average price and estimated payout on the sell screen before you submit.
3. Selling more than the top bid wants? Split the sale or rest a limit.
4. Compare the bid with your own estimate of the chance you win. Sell when the bid is higher.
5. Count the exit fee. It peaks when you sell near 50 cents.
6. Within hours of settlement on a near certain winner, hold.
7. Place your take-profit as a resting limit sell when the entry fills.

Cash out Kalshi positions from Rivo

Rivo is the prediction market terminal for Kalshi, Polymarket, Polymarket US and Gemini. It costs $9 a week or $15 a month, and your money stays in your own Kalshi account. Everything on this page is faster with it.

• See the real cash out number first. Rivo's order ticket walks the live Kalshi order book level by level before you send. It shows the average fill, the limit it will send, the exact fee and the total, so the gap between the screen price and your proceeds is on the ticket before the sale happens.
• Sell from one portfolio. The Rivo portfolio lists your Kalshi positions beside your other venues, and you can sell any of them from there, in full or in part.
• Control the price of a market sale. A market order from Rivo goes out as an immediate-or-cancel limit at the worst level it walked plus the slippage you chose. It fills what the book offers inside that price and cancels the rest.
• Rest the limit in the same ticket. Limit sells trade what crosses on arrival and rest the remainder, and open orders sit in the portfolio where you can amend or cancel them.
• Practice the exit on paper. Paper mode places the same order against the real book with no money, so you can rehearse an entry and a cash out at your size.
• Let a bot handle the exit. A live Kalshi bot can sell when the trader it copies sells, and it carries a loss limit that stops it, and can close its positions, when the limit is reached.

Open the terminal to trade and sell Kalshi positions with the book in front of you, or build a bot that exits with the traders on the Kalshi leaderboard. To know the moment a market reaches your sell price, set a level on price alerts. The full tour is on the prediction market terminal. New to the exchange itself? Start with how does Kalshi work.

Frequently asked questions