⚠︎ Risk warning: leveraged derivatives on unregulated platforms — you can lose everything you deposit. Not investment advice.
GMX Fees (2026): Position, Borrowing & Price Impact
Every figure on this page was re-read from GMX's official docs on 2026-09-18. Three things changed since the July version: price impact is now charged only when you close or decrease a position (the docs call it "net price impact"), with per-market caps and a rebate for anything beyond the cap; funding is "adaptive", with a keeper on Arbitrum setting each market's ceiling from six reference venues within published bounds; and the TradFi markets' reduced on-hours position fees are now spelled out. See the GMX review for the exchange overview.
GMX does not run on a maker/taker spread. Its costs come from four mechanisms: a per-event position fee, a borrowing charge that accrues every second while a position is open, a net price impact settled on close, and two-way funding. That is a different shape from an order-book venue, not just a different number: what you pay depends on which side of the market's imbalance you are on and how long you hold. Every trade also carries a network fee for the keeper that executes it.
At a glance
| Cost | Amount | When |
|---|---|---|
| Position fee | 0.04% if the trade reduces the long/short imbalance, 0.06% if it increases it; TradFi exceptions below | Open, close, increase, partial decrease |
| Borrow fee | Larger-OI side only; typical kink model 45 to 55%/yr at or below 75% utilisation, 100 to 130%/yr at 100%; many markets linear 45 to 65%/yr at full utilisation | Every second while open |
| Net price impact | Positive up to 40 bps; negative capped 50 bps on majors, up to 1000 bps on the thinnest markets; excess beyond the cap rebated after 5 days | Only on close or decrease |
| Funding | Adaptive, per second, either sign; Arbitrum ceilings set from reference venues within 15% to 300% APR | While open; positive funding is claimable |
| Swap fee | 0.05% / 0.07% standard; 0.005% / 0.02% Arbitrum stablecoin pairs, 0.01% Avalanche; 3.75% atomic | On the swap input |
| Network fee | Gas for the keeper's execution transaction, overestimated then refunded down to actual | Every request |
| Referral discount | 5% (tier 1) or 10% (tiers 2 and 3) off position fees only | Deducted at execution |
Position fees
"The position fee is 0.04% or 0.06% of the position size. It applies when opening, closing, increasing, or partially decreasing a position." The rate is 0.04% when "your trade reduces the absolute difference between long and short open interest" and 0.06% when it increases it. The docs' example: with more long than short open interest, opening a short qualifies for 0.04%; opening another long pays 0.06%. Trading the less crowded side is cheaper. "Most markets use these rates"; the TradFi markets have reduced rates during the underlying market's hours:
| Market | On-hours (reduces / increases imbalance) | Off-hours |
|---|---|---|
| Most markets (crypto) | 0.04% / 0.06% | same |
| GOLD, SILVER, WTIOIL, BRENTOIL | 0.01% / 0.02% | 0.04% / 0.06% |
| NATGAS | 0.02% / 0.04% | 0.04% / 0.08% |
| SPCX | 0.05% / 0.06% | 0.06% / 0.08% |
| QQQ, SPY | 0.01% / 0.02% | 0.04% / 0.06% |
Single-token pools, where the long and short token are the same (the docs name BTC/USD [WBTC.e-WBTC.e] and ETH/USD [WETH-WETH]), "have no swap fees on any position operation" and have their price-impact factors set to zero, "meaning no price impact of any kind on these markets".
Borrow fees
"Only the side with the larger open interest pays the borrow fee. If longs exceed shorts, longs pay; if shorts exceed longs, shorts pay." It "accrues continuously per second and is settled when you modify or close a position", and the interface shows it as a percentage per hour of position size. Three rate models exist, configured per market and side:
- Kink model. Linear up to an optimal utilisation, steeper above it. The docs' typical configuration: optimal utilisation 75%, "45–55% per year" at or below it, "100–130% per year" at 100%.
- No-kink linear model. "Many markets" use it: the rate "rises linearly from zero with utilization" and reaches a configured tier of 45%, 50%, 55% or 65% per year at 100% utilisation.
- Power model. The default base configuration "targets approximately 15.77% per year at 100% utilization".
Of the borrow fee collected, "63% goes to the pool (accruing to liquidity providers) and 37% goes to the protocol fee receiver". A trader on the smaller side of a market pays no borrow fee at all.
Net price impact, and why entry is not where you pay it
This is the part most fee explainers get wrong, and the July version of this page did too. Per the docs: "opening a position incurs no price impact at entry. The entry price is determined by the oracle price". Price impact is calculated from the change in long/short imbalance caused by both the open and the close, "but it is only applied (charged or credited) when you close or decrease a position". It can be positive, a better outcome, when your trades reduce the imbalance, or negative when they increase it, and it adjusts the collateral you receive rather than the displayed mark price. The formula is priceImpact = (initialImbalance ^ exponent × factor) − (finalImbalance ^ exponent × factor) with per-market factors, and a virtual inventory tracks impact across correlated markets so opposing positions in different markets cannot cancel it.
Caps are asymmetric: "the max positive price impact is 40 bps (0.4%) for most markets", while the negative cap depends on the market's liquidity depth. "If a decrease order has a negative net price impact exceeding the market's cap, the excess becomes claimable as a rebate after a five-day delay." Capped negative impact is factored into the liquidation price; positive impact is not. The caps as published on 2026-09-18 (the docs say the GMX Risk Oracle can update them, and the Monitor page shows the live values):
| Negative cap | Markets |
|---|---|
| 50 bps | BCH, BNB, BTC, ETH, PEPE, SOL, XAUT |
| 75 bps | BONK, LTC |
| 100 bps | ASTER, AVAX, CRO, CRV, DOGE, ENA, FLOKI, HYPE, LINK, NEAR, SHIB, TRX, XPL, ZEC |
| 150 bps | 0G, AAVE, ADA, APE, APT, ARB, ATOM, FARTCOIN, INJ, OP, PENGU, PUMP, QQQ, SPY, TON, TRUMP, UNI, WLD, XLM |
| 200 to 300 bps | AR, DASH, DYDX, EIGEN, FIL, ICP, ONDO, SUI, VIRTUAL, XMR, XRP (200); DOT, HBAR, IP, KTA, LDO, MOODENG, ORDI, S, SEI, TAO, TIA (250); AERO, AIXBT, ANIME, AVNT, BERA, BOME, CAKE, FET, JUP, KAS, LINEA, OM, PENDLE, POL, SPCX, SYRUP, WIF, ZORA (300) |
| 400 to 1000 bps | WLFI (400); ALGO, BRETT, CHZ, CVX, DOLO, GMX, JTO, LIT, MEME, MEW, MNT, MON, OKB, PI, RENDER, SKY, SPX6900, STX, ZRO (500); SATS (700); CC, MELANIA, MET, MORPHO, VVV (1000) |
Slippage is a separate setting: it protects only against the oracle price moving between your request and the keeper's execution (default 1%, maximum 5%, market orders only). On GMX, 1% slippage does not have to cover price impact, unlike on an aggregator. For orders around $1,000,000 or more with negative impact above 0.2%, the docs suggest TWAP.
Funding
Funding "may be a cost or a credit while a position is open", accrues "using per-second arithmetic", and settles whenever a transaction touches the market. It is adaptive: the rate drifts up while the long/short imbalance is above a stable-funding threshold, holds between two thresholds, and drifts down toward the market's floor when the imbalance is small; if the imbalance flips sides, the rate starts moving the other way immediately. Which side pays is a signed on-chain variable, positive meaning longs pay shorts. Positive funding you have earned is claimed from the Trade page in batches of up to 20 entries.
On Arbitrum a keeper sets each market's funding ceiling from external reference venues, "Hyperliquid, Coinbase, Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Trade.xyz" by default (commodity markets use Binance only), then clamps the result within published bounds effective from 23 April 2026: a floor of 15% APR, a cap of 300% APR, and buffers of 10% APR absolute or 25% relative above the reference. On other chains the settings are contract-configured. The rate the interface shows is the paying side's; the receiving side's is scaled by the ratio of paying to receiving open interest so inflow equals outflow. For the concept, see the funding rates guide; for live rates across venues, the funding screener.
Swap fees
GMX's pools also serve spot swaps, priced by the same balance logic: "0.05% if the swap decreases the USD imbalance between the long and short token pools" and "0.07% if the swap increases that imbalance", on the input amount. Stablecoin swap markets are cheaper: on Arbitrum 0.005% when balance improves and 0.02% when it does not (USDC/USDC.e, USDC/USDT); on Avalanche 0.01% either way. Atomic swaps, which execute in a single transaction, "use a separate fee of 3.75% on standard markets": a niche tool, not a default route.
The network fee
"Every trade on GMX involves two transactions: your request and the keeper's execution." The network fee covers the gas of the second. Because gas can spike in between, the interface charges a maximum that overestimates the cost; "only the gas actually consumed is paid to the keeper — the remainder is refunded to your account automatically". Take-profit and stop-loss orders placed with a position carry their own network fees, refunded in full if they are cancelled untriggered. Express Trading adds a 10% buffer on top of your configured one. A third-party front-end can also add a UI fee on top of the protocol fee through a configurable factor, so an interface that is not app.gmx.io may cost more than the schedule here.
What a trade actually costs
Two traders can pay very different totals on the same market. A short hold on the less crowded side pays the 0.04% position fee in and out, no borrow fee, and is likely to receive a positive net price impact on close. A multi-day hold on the crowded side pays 0.06% each way, accrues borrow every second, pays funding, and is the one likely to take a negative net impact on close, capped for its market and rebated beyond the cap. Position size and leverage held equal, which side of the imbalance you are on and how long you hold matter more to total cost on GMX than they would on an order book.
Referral discount
Trading with a referral code discounts the position fees "for leverage trading": 5% at tier 1, 10% at tiers 2 and 3, "deducted from the position fee at trade execution". "Rewards and discounts don't apply to borrow fees or funding fees." Details and this site's code are on the GMX referral page.
Where the fees go
Per the tokenomics docs, "27% of fees from leverage trading, liquidations, borrowing fees, and swaps are used to buy back GMX on the open market", a mechanism approved by DAO vote; the docs add that "distribution of bought-back GMX is currently suspended". Liquidity providers receive the pool share of borrow fees described above. Whether that makes GMX or its pools a good hold is a question this site does not take up.
GMX vs order-book venues
Because GMX bills per event plus time held, and order-book exchanges bill maker/taker on execution, there is no single number that translates between the two. A short balancing-side trade can end up cheaper on GMX than an equivalent taker fee elsewhere; a multi-day crowded-side hold can cost more once borrowing compounds. See Hyperliquid vs GMX for the two fee shapes side by side, and the fee comparison for where GMX's per-event model sits against the order-book venues.
FAQ
Why did my fee differ between two similar trades?
The position fee depends on whether your trade reduced or increased the long/short open-interest imbalance at that moment, not on size or market alone. The same trade can cost 0.04% one day and 0.06% another if the balance has shifted. On TradFi markets it also depends on whether the underlying market is open.
Do I pay price impact when I open?
No. Per the docs the entry price is the oracle price; the net price impact of the open and the close together is charged or credited when you close or decrease, capped per market, with the excess beyond the cap claimable as a rebate after five days.
Do borrow fees ever stop?
Only when you close, or when your side stops being the larger one. They accrue per second for as long as the position is open on the larger-OI side.
Does the referral discount cover borrow fees or funding?
No. Per the docs, it applies only to the open and close position fees.
What is the network fee refund?
The interface charges a maximum gas estimate for the keeper's execution transaction and refunds the difference between that and the gas actually used, automatically, to your account.
This page contains an affiliate link: if you open an account through it, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That does not affect the figures here, which are quoted from GMX's official docs; see our methodology.