Is Polymarket Legal in the US? What Changed in 2026

Yes. Polymarket has been legal for US traders since December 2, 2025.

If you remember it being blocked, you are not misremembering. Polymarket geo-blocked US users for three years following a 2022 CFTC settlement, and a lot of what you will find written about this is from that period.

The thing that trips people up now is that "Polymarket" is two different venues with two different legal statuses. Getting that wrong is the actual risk, not the legality question.

Two Polymarkets

Polymarket US is a CFTC-regulated exchange. Polymarket bought QCEX, a licensed Designated Contract Market and clearinghouse, for $112 million in July 2025. The CFTC granted an Amended Order of Designation that November and US access opened on December 2. It requires full identity verification, runs on dollars, and issues 1099 tax reporting. This is the one you are allowed to use.

Polymarket International is the original wallet-native platform, settling in USDC on Polygon, with no platform-level KYC. It is not available to US persons, and using a VPN to reach it is a violation of its terms rather than a clever workaround. It issues no tax forms.

The US version dropped its waitlist in May 2026, so access no longer queues. Volume moved accordingly: Polymarket US did $5.0B in July 2026, up 54% month over month, while the international platform fell 26% to $7.9B.

The part that is actually contested

Federal legality is settled. What is not settled is whether sports event contracts are financial derivatives or sports bets, and that question is being fought across roughly a dozen states against both Polymarket and Kalshi.

The core dispute is whether these contracts are "swaps" under the Commodity Exchange Act. If they are, and they trade on a licensed exchange, the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction and state gambling law is preempted. If they are not, states can regulate them like any other wager.

The Third Circuit accepted the swaps argument in April 2026. On August 10, Judge Vernon Oliver in Connecticut rejected it, holding that the contracts are "at bottom" sports wagers and that Congress never intended the CEA to occupy this field. Federal courts are now split, which is the usual road to the Supreme Court.

Most of the litigation names Kalshi as the lead defendant because it moved first and moved harder, but Polymarket is a party to a growing share of it.

Where Polymarket faces restrictions, as of August 14, 2026

Elsewhere, sports markets on Polymarket US were available without reported restriction as of mid-August. Non-sports categories have stayed almost entirely clear of the litigation, since nobody has argued that a CPI print or a hurricane landfall resembles sports betting.

Does the legal fight affect your money?

Two practical answers.

Your funds are not the exposure here. Polymarket US clears through a CFTC-licensed clearinghouse, and the state cases are about whether particular contract categories may be offered, not about platform solvency. The realistic worst case in a losing state is that sports markets get geofenced away from you, which is what happened to Kalshi users in Nevada in March.

Taxes are a real difference between the two venues. Polymarket US issues 1099 reporting. The international platform issues nothing and leaves you reconstructing USDC-denominated trades yourself, which is a genuinely unpleasant job at volume, and is a second reason the US version is the right default for anyone in the country.

What to check before you fund an account

Confirm you are on Polymarket US rather than the international site. Confirm your state is not one of the restricted set above, and note that the set changed four times in the five weeks before this was published.

None of this is legal or tax advice. The position moves fast enough that you should verify the current status where you live rather than trusting any article, this one included.

Sources

• Polymarket US fee schedule and exchange documentation
• Polymarket CFTC approval, November 2025
• Connecticut ruling on prediction market sports contracts, August 10 2026
• Prediction markets legal timeline, RotoWire
• Kalshi and Polymarket July volume, The Block
• Baltimore consumer protection actions, August 13 2026