Polymarket US Referral Code: What the $25 Credit Really Is
Codes mentioned here live on the Polymarket US page, with current verification dates.
Polymarket US, the regulated American version of the prediction market, runs a simple-looking referral offer. Sign up with a friend’s code, deposit at least $10, and you both get $25. Most pages that repeat it stop there, and a few round it up to “$50”. The part that decides what the offer is actually worth sits one level down in Polymarket’s documentation: the $25 is promotional trading credit, and the credit itself can never be withdrawn.
That doesn’t make the offer bad. It does make it a different kind of offer from a cash bonus, and it changes how you should use it. This article goes through the mechanics as Polymarket’s own terms describe them, with the math, so you know what you’re signing up for before you hand over your Social Security number.
How the referral works
Polymarket’s Refer-A-Friend FAQ sets three conditions for the new user:
- Sign up as a new Polymarket US user using a referral code. The code is the referrer’s username. On a referral link it’s applied automatically.
- Apply the code during sign-up. Polymarket is explicit that codes must be applied at sign-up, and each new user can only be referred once. If you create the account first and go looking for a code afterward, the window has already closed. That’s the same rule most programs use, which we cover in whether you can add a referral code after signing up.
- Deposit at least $10. The bonus is credited only after every step is done.
When all three are met, both people get $25 in credit. Polymarket’s incentive program terms say referral credits are issued within seven days of the requirements being satisfied. Each person can collect at most 50 referral bonuses, and only one bonus is paid per verified identity.
Before any of that, you have to pass identity verification. Polymarket US is a CFTC-regulated exchange, so sign-up asks for your date of birth, phone number, legal name, home address and Social Security number, and some people are asked for a photo ID and a selfie. You can’t deposit until verification clears. If you’re wondering why every financial sign-up bonus starts this way, see why exchanges make you verify your identity first.
Credit is not cash
Here is the rule that matters most, from Polymarket’s page on why promotional credit can’t be withdrawn:
- Promo credits are trading credits, not cash.
- They can’t be withdrawn, including after they’ve been used in a trade or after the related position settles.
- Any account balance above the credit amount is regular cash and can be withdrawn under the normal rules.
- Your existing cash is used before the credit.
Polymarket’s own example: you receive a $20 credit and trade with it. If that trading produces $10 of proceeds after settlement, up to $10 becomes withdrawable. The $20 stays non-withdrawable.
So the $25 behaves like a chip. You can put it on a market. If the market goes your way, the winnings above the chip are yours to take out. If it doesn’t, the chip is gone. You never get to convert the chip itself into money in your bank account.
This is a common structure for promotional balances, and it’s why we always separate “credit” from “cash” when we describe a reward. The difference between the two, including why promo balances don’t get the legal protections a gift card does, is in why promo credit can expire when a gift card can’t.
The math on one trade
Every contract on Polymarket US pays $1 if its outcome happens and $0 if it doesn’t. A contract’s price, between 1¢ and 99¢, is roughly the market’s estimate of the probability. There’s also a trading fee, calculated as 0.0695 × contracts × price × (1 − price) under the fee schedule effective October 19, 2026.
Here’s what happens if you put the full $25 credit into a single position at three different prices. The figures include the fee and assume you hold the position until it settles.
| Contract price | Contracts bought | Cost incl. fee | If it wins: withdrawable | If it loses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20¢ (long shot) | 118 | about $24.91 | about $93 | credit gone |
| 50¢ (toss-up) | 48 | about $24.83 | about $23 | credit gone |
| 80¢ (favorite) | 30 | about $24.33 | about $5.67 | credit gone |
Two things stand out. First, betting on favorites with the credit produces very little withdrawable money even when you’re right, because the win barely clears the $25 floor. Second, if you win, Polymarket’s rule leaves the $25 credit in your account as non-withdrawable balance you can trade again. Each win spins off some withdrawable cash, and the credit keeps going until a loss uses it up.
What the table can’t tell you is whether you’ll win. If the market price is a fair estimate of the odds, the 20¢ contract wins about one time in five and the 80¢ contract about four times in five. Nobody should treat the credit as guaranteed money. It’s a free stake in a market that can go either way.
What happens to your $10
The $10 deposit is your own money and stays withdrawable, but two details matter. Polymarket uses your cash before your credit, so if you trade, the first $10 you spend is the deposit. And withdrawals need the deposit to fully clear first, which Polymarket says typically takes three to four business days.
If you only want the $25 credit and don’t want to risk your own money, the clean approach is to deposit $10, wait for the credit, and trade with an amount no larger than the credit. You can withdraw the $10 once it clears. Be aware that the deposit is the trigger and that minimum-deposit offers have their own catches, all covered in the minimum-deposit traps to check before chasing any bonus.
Is it really $50?
You’ll see “$50 Polymarket bonus” on a lot of promo pages. Here’s where that number comes from, and why we don’t use it.
Polymarket runs a separate Deposit Incentive Program. Its current campaign, starting October 16, 2026, pays new users $25 for a first deposit of $10 or more made within seven days of onboarding. Add that to the $25 referral credit and you get $50.
The documentation doesn’t say the two combine. It says each new user is placed in the campaign tied to the code or link they signed up with, and that only users who used no code fall into whatever campaign is running at the time. That could mean a referral sign-up gets the referral credit instead of the deposit incentive, not on top of it. We couldn’t confirm either way, so we quote $25. If your account shows a second credit after you deposit, that’s a bonus, not something we promised.
The rules that void it
Polymarket’s terms ban self-referrals, referring accounts you control, and creating multiple accounts. Bonuses obtained that way can be withheld or clawed back, and Polymarket may review any bonus before paying it. Since every account is tied to a verified Social Security number, a second account in the same name is easy for the exchange to spot. If you want to know how platforms catch this, see how exchanges detect and claw back referral abuse.
Who can use it
The offer is for anyone eligible to trade on Polymarket US. The exchange’s rulebook requires individual traders to be at least 18 and to have reached the age of majority in their state. Polymarket doesn’t publish a list of eligible states in its documentation, so the app’s own check at sign-up is the one to trust.
One common source of confusion: Polymarket US and polymarket.com are different services. Polymarket US is run by QCX LLC as a CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market. Polymarket.com is the international exchange, and its own geographic restrictions page lists the United States as close-only, meaning US users can close existing positions there but can’t open new ones. A Polymarket US referral code does nothing on the international site, and the reverse is also true.
The bottom line
The Polymarket US referral offer is $25 of trading credit for depositing $10. That credit is a real, usable stake, but it isn’t cash and never becomes cash on its own. Only the winnings it produces can be withdrawn. Plan on that, and ignore any page promising $50 without explaining where the second $25 comes from.
If you want to sign up, our Polymarket US referral code page has the current code, the date we last checked it against Polymarket’s terms, and the step-by-step. How we check codes, and what each verification label means, is explained on how we verify.