KuCoin Fees: A Full Breakdown Before Trading Crypto

2022/10/14 11:44:37

The cryptocurrency market has evolved rapidly in the few years since its birth, attracting more institutional and retail investors worldwide to enter this space. With a market cap that exceeds $1 trillion and hundreds of digital assets to trade, the market offers an exciting avenue for traders. No wonder then that there are so many cryptocurrency exchanges offering various trading services.

From the many options available, KuCoin retains its position among the leaders owing to its wide range of crypto assets on offer, trading products, and of course, highly competitive trading fees. Net value left after accumulative transactions could be vastly different across crypto exchanges with different tiered trading fees, especially for frequent retail traders or institutional traders who handle large trading volumes.

This article will provide a full breakdown of KuCoin trading fees, deposit & withdrawal fees, and how you can save trading costs on KuCoin. Let’s get into it.

Key Takeaways

-KuCoin offers some of the lowest trading fees on the market (with a base fee of 0.1% for both market makers and takers for spot trading), alongside providing deep liquidity for its hundreds of supported cryptocurrencies.

-The platform offers spot and derivatives trading, leveraged token trading, as well as trading bot trading, among the top traded products.

-You can reduce your trading fees by becoming a VIP here, as well as by holding and paying for transaction fees in KCS tokens.

What are Trading Fees in Crypto?

When attempting to trade cryptocurrencies on an exchange, you might have noticed that a small percentage of the transaction is taken as a fee. Fees represent the commission that the cryptocurrency exchange takes in order to facilitate the trade.

Put simply, it’s the cost of using the platform they are providing. Since there are no subscription costs to exchanges, such trading fees are an important revenue stream for crypto exchanges. They are one of the key deciding factors considered by traders looking for the right crypto trading platform.

KuCoin has an edge over its competition in the market as we offer some of the most affordable trading fees to our users. In addition, the KuCoin fee structure is highly transparent and easy to understand, making it convenient not just for the new trader but just as accessible for the novices in the crypto market.

KuCoin is celebrating its 5th anniversary! As a thank you to all our users, we are offering 0-fee trading for all BTC and ETH trading pairs!

Understanding Maker and Taker Fees

One thing to note is that, in the eyes of crypto exchanges, not all trades are equal. There are trades that add towards the liquidity of the platform, and those that take the liquidity away. However, before getting into liquidity, we have to understand the terms order book and market depth.

An order book is a record of active buy and sell orders in a single market. Orders in an order book are separated into bid orders and ask orders. Bid orders represent buyers, while ask orders represent sellers. Market depth, on the other hand, would represent the visualized part of the order book.

In usual cases, If you would use a limit order to buy a cryptocurrency at a certain price, you would have to wait until the price has reached the level you set in the order. By doing this, you have offered your liquidity to the platform. This would make you a market maker. In this case, the order would be reflected in the order book.

However, if you used a market order to instantly buy a cryptocurrency at the market price, you would take liquidity away from the platform. This would make you a market taker. Market orders are never reflected in the order book, as they are instantly filed.

Another thing to note is that, while all market orders are market takers, some limit orders can be market takers as well. If the limit price set by the limit order is higher than the best ask (for buying orders) or the best bid (for a sell order), the order will be instantly executed, therefore becoming a taker order.

While some exchanges offer the same fees for market makers and takers, most prominent exchanges offer a substantial discount in trading fees for market makers, as they contribute to the market liquidity and make users' orders execute faster in a tight-spread crypto order book.. Users will enjoy a more cost-effective trading experience in a more liquid market. This is especially true with volatile markets.

A Look at the KuCoin Trading Fee Structure

KuCoin has a multi-tiered approach toward its maker and taker fees, and the fee it charges can vary drastically based on your trading volume, as well as the product you are using to trade.

Before we start, let’s split the fees into major categories:

Spot Trading Fees
Futures Trading Fees
Leveraged Token Fees
Trading Bot Fees

It’s important to note that KuCoin offers some of the lowest trading fees on the market, alongside deep liquidity for its hundreds of supported cryptocurrencies.

KuCoin Spot Trading Fees

KuCoin offers over 1,500 spot markets, with over 700 cryptocurrencies supported. These cryptocurrencies are split into three classes (Class A, Class B, and Class C) based on their volume, as well as some other factors.

Furthermore, KuCoin offers a different trading fee for users that have high monthly transaction volume, or that hold a lot of KCS tokens. Based on this, users are split into 12 tiers (13 including the base level).

When it comes to Class A cryptocurrencies, the base KuCoin spot trading fee is equal for market makers and market takers, and comes up to 0.1% of the trade. However, as you move up the tier list, both the maker and taker fees reduce, with the last five tiers even paying market makers to provide liquidity.

Example of Spot Market Class A Fee Levels

Moving to Class B and Class C cryptocurrencies, the base KuCoin spot trading fee comes to 0.16% and 0.24% for both market makers and takers, respectively.

Example of Spot Market Class B Fee Levels

When moving up the tiers, the trading fees drastically reduce, and the highest tier users even get paid for providing liquidity to the markets.

Example of Spot Market Class C Fee Levels

For the exact fee structure, visit our VIP level page, where we provide all the information regarding trading fees across asset classes and user tiers. The above tables show 4 key levels:

The base level (the one you start at).
Level 5, where the maker fee becomes 0%.
Level 8, where KuCoin starts paying market makers.
Level 12, the highest VIP level.

An additional thing to note is that, when using KCS tokens to pay for trading fees, all users will receive a 20% discount.

Margin Trading Fees on KuCoin

If you want to use KuCoin to trade on the spot market using margin, the calculation is slightly different. Interest is calculated based on your principal, daily interest rate, and actual borrowing time.

KuCoin Futures Trading Fees

When it comes to futures trading, KuCoin has all trading pairs under the Class A roof. The only difference in trading fees is caused by whether you are a market maker or market taker, and by your VIP level.

Example of Futures Market Fee Levels

The above table shows 4 key levels out of the 12 possible VIP levels:

The base level (the one you start at).
Level 5, where the maker fee becomes 0%.
Level 8, where KuCoin starts paying market makers.
Level 12, the highest VIP level.

Funding Rates on KuCoin

When attempting to long or short a cryptocurrency on the futures market, you may have noticed the term “funding rate” pop up. Since perpetual contracts never settle, funding rates are there so the exchanges could make sure the futures price and the index prices converge.

Funding rates are, in simple terms, a tax that users that place longs or shorts have to pay to the other side. If the funding rates are positive, long positions have to pay short positions. If the funding rates are negative, short positions have to pay long positions.

If you want to use KuCoin for futures trading, visit the funding history page to find out the current funding rate, as well as the previous funding rates for that trading pair. Additionally, you can find current funding rates on your futures trading dashboard at all times.

Charges on Leveraged Token Trading

KuCoin offers its users a way to trade their favorite tokens using leverage, but without any risk of liquidation. Dubbed Leveraged Tokens, these digital assets are tradable in the spot market, but have a 3x multiplier. This means that any move to the upside or downside will be exaggerated by 3 times. Users don’t need to pay any margin maintenance fees, which is another advantage of the product.

However, Leveraged Tokens don’t come without fees. The fees involved with KuCoin Leveraged Tokens include:

Leveraged Token Fee Structure

KuCoin Trading Bot Fee

KuCoin offers its users the ability to use a trading bot in order to automate their trades.

When incorporating the KuCoin Trading Bot into your strategy, keep in mind that bots that trade on the spot market can enjoy trading discounts when paying for spot trading fees with KCS tokens. The spot trading fee will always be calculated at the VIP level 0 when using a trading bot.

This fee structure applies to Spot Grid, Infinity Grid, Smart Rebalance, DCA, and all Spot strategies in the future.

For bots that trade on the futures market, all trades have a fixed fee of 0.06%.

KuCoin Deposit and Withdrawal Fees

When it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies and choosing the exchange that suits your needs, having a grasp of deposit and withdrawal fees is crucial.

KuCoin charges no deposit fees, making it as convenient as possible to start your crypto journey.

Withdrawal fees, on the other hand, differ from cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency. You can check the withdrawal fees by visiting our Fee Rate page. The reason behind different cryptocurrencies having different withdrawal fees is the network fee required to send a transaction to the desired address.

Blockchains like Ethereum have been historically more expensive due to their low throughput and high popularity. On the other hand, faster blockchains with more throughput usually have much lower withdrawal fees.

How to Pay Lower Trading Fees on KuCoin

If you are a trader that wants to maximize their efficiency, lowering your trading fees is a must. KuCoin offers two main ways of reducing trading fees, namely becoming a KuCoin VIP user, and using KCS tokens for paying for trading fees.

Become a KuCoin VIP User

KuCoin offers its users a VIP program to reduce their trading fees. This 12-tiered system ranks users based on the amount of KCS tokens they hold, as well as their monthly trading volume.

Those that ascend the ranks enjoy lower trading fees, and may reach levels where KuCoin pays them (up to 0.005% for spot markets and 0.015% for futures markets maker orders) in order to provide liquidity to the market.

As an example, those that pass the 2.000 BTC mark in volume, or hold over 40,000 KCS tokens, can access VIP level 5. This level reduces maker trading fees to 0%. The calculation is quite simple: the larger the VIP level, the bigger the discount on the fees!

Hold and Use KCS For Paying Trading Fees

Another great way of reducing your trading fees on KuCoin is by holding and paying trading fees with KCS tokens. This benefits traders & investors in two ways:

When holding KCS tokens, they take part in the revenue share that every KCS token holder is entitled to. This way, even when your funds sit idle, they earn!
When trading cryptocurrencies, using KCS tokens to pay for trading fees will bring a discount of 20% on all your spot market trading fees!

Start Your Crypto Trading Journey With KuCoin

By providing a competitive fee structure across all trading products at KuCoin, we aim to create an effortless cryptocurrency trading experience for beginners, frequent traders, and institutional investors alike.

Head over to KuCoin, access the lowest fees in the industry, and start your trading journey now!