Which exchange has the lowest trading fee?

On published spot taker rates read on 2026-07-11, MEXC at 0.05% — $5 on a 10,000 dollar market buy against $35 at OKX. On derivatives the answer is different: MEXC publishes 0.02%. "Lowest" is only meaningful once you say which desk and which side of the order book.

What is the difference between a maker and a taker fee?

A maker order sits on the order book and waits for someone to trade against it, adding liquidity. A taker order matches against what is already there and removes it. Venues charge the taker more because the maker is doing them a service. A limit order that fills later is usually maker; a market order is always taker.

Are these the fees I will actually pay?

These are the base published rates, the tier every account starts on. Volume tiers, token discounts and promotional rates move them down from here, never up. Where a venue documents a discount we quote it beside the rate. Verified against each venue's own fee schedule on 2026-07-11.

Why are derivatives fees so much lower than spot fees?

They are charged on notional value rather than on the money you put up, and the desks compete hard for high-frequency volume. A percentage that looks tiny is applied to a much larger number once leverage is involved, so a lower rate does not automatically mean a smaller bill.

ChainCostsguideen-US

Crypto exchange fees by type

Spot maker, spot taker and derivatives rates for 8 exchanges side by side, plus what each costs on a 10,000 dollar market buy. Read 2026-07-11.

Verified: Jul 11, 2026
Sources: Official sources cited
Market: en-US

Every exchange quotes the fee that flatters it, and each one is telling the truth about a different thing. A spot maker fee and a spot taker fee are the same venue charging you for two different actions: resting an order on the book, or crossing the spread to fill now. Add the derivatives desk and there are four published rates per venue, which is why comparing "fees" across exchanges by their headline number tells you almost nothing. This table holds all four for the 8 venues whose schedules we have read and cited, plus what each taker rate costs on a 10,000 dollar market buy. On the same trade that ranges from $5 at MEXC to $35 at OKX. Figures were read from each venue's own fee schedule on 2026-07-11.

Base tier rates as published by each venue, read on 2026-07-11. The cost column applies the spot taker rate to a 10,000 dollar market buy, which is the trade most people are actually making when they ask what an exchange charges. A cell reading "Not recorded" means we have not harvested and cited that rate — it is a gap in this dataset, not a claim that the venue charges nothing or offers no such desk.

Spot and derivatives fee rates for 8 exchanges, base tier, read 2026-07-11.
Exchange	Spot maker	Spot taker	Cost on a $10,000 market buy	Futures maker	Futures taker
MEXC	0%	0.05%	$5	0%	0.02%
Binance	0.1%	0.1%	$10	Not recorded	Not recorded
Bitunix	0.08%	0.1%	$10	0.02%	0.06%
Bybit	0.1%	0.1%	$10	0.02%	0.055%
KuCoin	0.1%	0.1%	$10	0.02%	0.06%
CoinEx	0.2%	0.2%	$20	0.03%	0.05%
OKX	0.2%	0.35%	$35	Not recorded	Not recorded
BloFin	Not recorded	Not recorded	Not recorded	0.02%	0.06%

Reading the table

Maker or taker: the order type decides the rate
A maker order adds liquidity and waits; a taker order removes it and fills immediately. Most venues charge less for the first, and some charge nothing at all — MEXC publishes 0% on the maker side. If you place limit orders and let them fill, you are on the maker rate and the taker column is not your bill. If you press buy at market, it is.
Spot and derivatives are priced as different businesses
MEXC charges 0.05% to take on spot and 0.02% to take on derivatives — the same venue, the same account, two different prices for crossing a spread. Derivatives desks compete harder on fee because volume there is fee-sensitive, so a venue that looks expensive on spot can be the cheapest place to trade a perpetual. Read the futures columns as their own comparison, not as a discount on the spot row.
The discount that moves the headline
Binance: 25% off with BNB balance. CoinEx: CET token can be used to pay trading fees directly (all coins). A rebate paid in the venue's own token is a real reduction only if you hold that token and accept its price risk, so it belongs beside the published rate rather than instead of it.
Trading fee is not the only fee
Getting money in and out is priced separately from trading it, and the spread there is far wider than anything in this table — on the same coin and the same network the withdrawal bill differs by two orders of magnitude between venues. That comparison has its own pages, because withdrawal fees are published per network and change often enough to need re-reading.

Which exchange has the lowest trading fee?: On published spot taker rates read on 2026-07-11, MEXC at 0.05% — $5 on a 10,000 dollar market buy against $35 at OKX. On derivatives the answer is different: MEXC publishes 0.02%. "Lowest" is only meaningful once you say which desk and which side of the order book.
What is the difference between a maker and a taker fee?: A maker order sits on the order book and waits for someone to trade against it, adding liquidity. A taker order matches against what is already there and removes it. Venues charge the taker more because the maker is doing them a service. A limit order that fills later is usually maker; a market order is always taker.
Are these the fees I will actually pay?: These are the base published rates, the tier every account starts on. Volume tiers, token discounts and promotional rates move them down from here, never up. Where a venue documents a discount we quote it beside the rate. Verified against each venue's own fee schedule on 2026-07-11.
Why are derivatives fees so much lower than spot fees?: They are charged on notional value rather than on the money you put up, and the desks compete hard for high-frequency volume. A percentage that looks tiny is applied to a much larger number once leverage is involved, so a lower rate does not automatically mean a smaller bill.

Market: en-US
Verified: Jul 11, 2026
Data completeness: Only figures backed by the cited sources are shown; anything we could not verify is left out.

Sources

MEXC fee schedule
Binance fee schedule
Bitunix fee schedule
Bybit fee schedule
KuCoin fee schedule
CoinEx fee schedule
OKX fee schedule
BloFin fee schedule

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