KuCoin Trading Fees | Just How Competitive Are They?
Mike Harry
Feb 2024
4 min read
Fact checked
This breakdown offers a detailed examination of Kucoin's Trading Fees. By the end of this article, you will have a complete understanding of all the associated fees charged by Kucoin. Keep reading and discover Kucoin's spot, future and margin fees in addition to deposit and withdrawal fees!
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The platform offers spot trading, margin trading, futures, staking, and lending services with support for over 800 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos and many others.
The platform has amassed an impressive user base of over 20 million users and its app has been downloaded over 5 million times. Kucoin is renowned for its user friendly interface, extensive range of altcoins and competitive trading fees.
But how competitive are there overall fee structure? Let's continue by going through each one of the fees charged by Kucoin!
Kucoin Trading Fees
Like many other exchanges, Kucoin users a maker/taker fee model to determine its trading fees.
This model differentiates between two types of orders, those that provide liquidity to the market (makers) and those that take liquidity from the market (takers).
If you place an order that is immediately executed against an existing order, you are classified as a taker. As a taker, you remove liquidity from the market and are charged a taker fee for this transaction.
On the other hand, if you place an order that doesn't immediately match an existing one, your order adds liquidity to the market. In this case, you are considered a maker and you pay a maker fee.
Put simply, trading fees are the cost of using the services the platform is providing as there are no subscription costs to exchange.
As such, trading fees are also one of the key deciding factors considered by traders looking for the right exchange!
Kucoin Pricing
Kucoin supports over 800 cryptocurrencies and offers more than 1,500 spot markets in total.
These cryptocurrencies are categorised into three classes, Class A, Class B, and Class C. This classification is based on various factors which among other things takes trading volumes into consideration.
In addition to this, Kucoin has a tiered fee structure that benefits users who either have a high monthly transaction volume or hold a significant amount of Kucoin's native token, KCS.
Kucoin Spot Fees
For Class A cryptocurrencies, the spot trading fee on Kucoin is 0.1% of the trade for both makers and takers.
Class A fees are applied to more well known large market cap cryptocurrencies with deep liquidity and high trading volumes.
And as mentioned previously, these spot fees can be further reduced for users who hold more than 1000 KSC tokens or whose trading volumes exceed 50 BTC during a 30-day window.
Kucoin Spot Fees
When it comes to Class B cryptocurrencies, the spot fees begin at 0.2% for both makers and takers while following the same tier schedule as Class A cryptos.
Kucoin Class B Spot Fees
And finally we have Class C cryptocurrencies who spot trading fees begin at 0.3% for makers and takers, or 0.24% for makers and takers assuming they trade with KCS coins.
Kucoin Class C Spot Fees
In essence, Kucoin's fee structure is designed to reward active traders and those who contribute to the platform's liquidity.
Kucoin Futures Fees
For those that wish to trade futures and perps on Kucoin, there is only one tier available with maker fees starting at 0.02% and taker fees at 0.06%.
Kucoin Futures Fees
For users with trading volumes above 50 BTC per month or KSC holdings above 1000, the futures maker fee decreases to 0.015%.
Overall, Kucoin's Class A tier for both spot and futures trading is quite competitive and in-line with the best exchange in the market.
Kucoin Margin Fees
Trading on the spot market using margin on Kucoin involves a slightly different fee calculation.
The interest on your borrowed funds is determined based on three factors: the principal amount you've borrowed, the daily interest rate, and the actual duration of the loan.
The interest begins to accrue as soon as you successfully borrow funds. This accrued interest is updated every hour and is settled when you repay your borrowed funds.
If you choose to repay a portion of your loans, the system prioritizes the repayment of the interest. Until all loans are fully repaid, the remaining amount will continue to accrue interest.
The platform charges a fee of 5% of your accrued interest and allocates an additional 10% to an insurance fund.
Kucoin Leveraged Token Fees
Kucoin also provides its users with an innovative trading product known as leveraged tokens.
With this product users can trade their preferred cryptocurrencies using leverage but without the risk of their position being liquidated.
Leveraged tokens carry a 3x multiplier which means that any price movement, whether upward or downward, is magnified threefold.
The fees associated with leveraged tokens are the basic spot fees for buying and selling (0.1%-0.3% depending on Class), 0.1% subscription fee, 0.1% redemption fee and a 1% daily management fee.
Kucoin Trading Bot Fees
Kucoin also offers its users the ability to use a trading bot in order to automate their trading. The trading bot fees are basically identical to the regular spot fees charged by Kucoin, 0.1%-0.3% depending on the Class of the coin that you are trading.
Kucoin Deposit Fees
Kucoin like most exchanges does not charge any deposit fees when users deposing cryptocurrencies.
There are however depositing fees when depositing fiat currencies depending on which fiat currency you deposit and which method is being used.
For users that are interested to learn more about Kucoin's withdrawal fees, we have cover that in a separate breakdown.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
