Polymarket vs. Polymarket US: The Two-Company, One-Brand Split
Codes mentioned here live on the Polymarket US page, with current verification dates.
Search “Polymarket referral code” and you’ll land on pages that casually mix two different services as if they were one. They aren’t. Polymarket.com and Polymarket US are separate companies, built on separate technology, regulated under separate rules, with separate referral programs. If you sign up on the wrong one expecting the other one’s product, nothing will work the way the page you read described.
Here’s how the split actually works, and which side you’re allowed to use.
Two companies, one brand
Polymarket.com is the original, international prediction market. It’s the site most “Polymarket” news coverage and most crypto-forum chatter is about — the one with the huge election and sports markets, open to users nearly everywhere except a short list of restricted countries.
Polymarket US is a separate company. Its own structured business listing states it plainly: Polymarket US is “operated by QCX LLC d/b/a Polymarket US, a CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market” (polymarket.us/about). That’s not a rebrand or a regional mirror of the international site — it’s a different legal entity, registered with and overseen by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a designated contract market (DCM) and derivatives clearing organization. QCX LLC licenses the Polymarket name and some of the underlying technology, the same way Binance.US licenses the Binance name while running its own order books and compliance program — a pattern we cover in detail for that exchange.
The practical result: being verified on one side tells the other side nothing about you. Separate sign-up, separate identity check, separate account.
Why the international site locks US traders out
Polymarket.com isn’t built to the CFTC’s rulebook, so it can’t legally let Americans open new positions. Its own geographic restrictions page lists the United States under “Regulatory-Restricted Jurisdictions (Close-Only on Frontend and API)” — a category the page defines as: “Users can close existing positions but cannot open new ones, on both the frontend and the API.”
That’s narrower than a full ban. A US resident who somehow already holds positions on polymarket.com can exit them, but can’t place a new trade there, on the website or through the API, full stop. A VPN doesn’t change this: the restriction is tied to compliance obligations the company can’t meet for US persons, not to a geofence you can route around with a server in another country. If that sounds familiar, it’s the same shape of problem US residents run into trying to use Binance’s global exchange — the workaround that looks tempting on paper fails at the identity-verification layer, not the IP layer.
Polymarket US exists specifically to give Americans a legal way to trade the same kind of event contracts without running into that wall.
Separate referral codes, separate apps
Because they’re different companies, the two sites don’t share a referral system, a login, or a mobile app.
- A Polymarket US referral code only works on Polymarket US. It’s tied to a QCX LLC account, applied during sign-up on polymarket.us or its app, and it credits a Polymarket US-specific trading-credit balance. The mechanics — what the credit is, what you can withdraw, and the math on using it — are in our full breakdown of the Polymarket US $25 referral credit.
- A polymarket.com referral code only works on polymarket.com, under whatever terms that company runs, and it has no effect on a Polymarket US account.
- The apps are different downloads from different publishers, tied to different accounts. Installing one doesn’t give you access to the other, and a username or login on one means nothing on the other.
If a referral link or code doesn’t seem to “do anything,” checking which of the two companies it actually belongs to is the first thing to rule out — not a bug, just the wrong account.
Which one you can actually use
If you’re a US resident, the only side you can open new positions on is Polymarket US. Polymarket.com’s own restriction page settles that; there’s no workaround that doesn’t run into the identity checks described above.
Eligibility within the US isn’t a simple state list, and we’re not going to print one here as if it were fixed. Polymarket US requires traders to be at least 18 (or the age of majority in their state) and to pass identity verification, and its own sign-up flow — not a third-party coupon page — is what tells you in the moment whether your account can be approved. If you’re outside the US, the question flips: polymarket.com is the service built for you, and a Polymarket US account isn’t available to you at all.
The two-company split shows up in other referral programs too, even when the names aren’t as similar: a global platform spins off a separately licensed domestic entity to satisfy a regulator, and the resulting confusion is exactly why we spell out “which company, which app, which code” instead of assuming readers already know.
The bottom line
Polymarket.com and Polymarket US look like the same product wearing the same logo, but they’re different companies, licensed differently, restricted differently, and running entirely separate referral programs. If you’re in the US, Polymarket US — operated by QCX LLC under CFTC oversight — is the one you can actually open an account and trade on. Polymarket.com can’t legally let you open new positions, no matter what a code or link promises.
Our Polymarket US hub has the current referral code, the sign-up steps, and the date we last checked each claim against Polymarket’s own documentation — the same verification standard explained on how we verify.