Every market runs on a clock. Knowing when it stops trading, when the result is confirmed, and what happens if the event slips tells you exactly when your money is locked and when it comes back.
A market resolution date is the point at which a market is settled and each contract is paid according to the outcome. It sits at the end of a short sequence of moments that people often blur together. Trading stops at the close, also called expiry. The result is then confirmed by a named source, a step some venues call determination. Settlement follows, when the venue applies the rule and pays out. All of this is written into the contract terms before you ever place a trade. The dates matter because they decide how long your money is committed, how liquidity behaves near the end, and what happens if the underlying event is delayed.
Illustrative sequence common to event contracts. The gap between close and settlement varies by venue and by market, and is set in the contract terms.
A resolution date is the moment a market is decided and paid. Up to that point the contract trades at a price that reads as the market implied probability of the outcome. A contract changing hands at 62 cents is the market saying, in money, that it puts the chance of yes near 62 percent. On the resolution date, once the result is confirmed, that same contract becomes worth its full value or nothing, and the market is closed for good. The price stops being an opinion about the future and becomes a fact about the past.
Thinking of it as the end of a clock helps. A market opens, runs for a defined period, stops accepting trades, waits for the result to be confirmed, and then pays. Knowing where you stand on that clock tells you two practical things. It tells you how much time is left for the picture to change, which matters because new information moves prices. And it tells you how soon your committed funds will either be freed or lost. Neither of those is a detail you want to discover after you have placed money.
The single most useful habit is to separate three moments that beginners treat as one. There is the close, when trading stops. There is determination, when the named source confirms what happened. And there is settlement, when the venue applies the rule and money moves. They are usually different times, sometimes by a wide margin, and the difference is where most surprises live.
These two are routinely confused, and the difference matters for your money. The close time, which many venues call expiry, is the moment trading stops. After it you can no longer buy or sell, so your position is locked in whatever shape it was. The settlement time is later, when the named source reports the outcome and the venue applies the resolution rule to pay. Between the two, your money is in the market and you cannot move it.
Kalshi makes the structure explicit in its own rules. Each market has what Kalshi calls a latest possible closure date, the latest time trading will end, and a latest possible determination date, the latest time the result will be resolved, per the Kalshi help center as of June 2026. After the close the market expires and members can no longer trade with each other. Kalshi then determines the outcome from the source named in the contract terms. By its published guidance, determination can take from about one hour to more than twelve hours after closure, usually dictated by when Kalshi receives the data from the source agency, and most markets settle within a few hours of the result being known, paying $1 for each correct contract held at expiration.
Bars are schematic, not to scale. Figures as of June 2026 from the Kalshi help center and Polymarket documentation. Actual times vary by market.
Decentralized venues confirm results a different way, and the wait can be longer when there is disagreement. Polymarket settles through the UMA optimistic oracle. Someone proposes the outcome and posts a bond, then a challenge window opens during which anyone can dispute by posting an equal bond. Per Polymarket documentation as of June 2026, the proposer bond is 750 USDC.e and the challenge window is about two hours, so an undisputed result resolves in roughly two hours. If the proposal is disputed and the dispute escalates, the question goes to a vote of UMA token holders, and a disputed result can take about four to six days in total. The word optimistic captures the design. A proposal is assumed correct unless someone challenges it, which keeps the common case fast and cheap while leaving a slower path for contested cases.
The table below sets the common patterns next to each other. It is a guide to how the clock tends to run, not a promise about any single market. The contract terms always win over a general pattern.
| Venue type | When trading stops | How the result is confirmed | Typical time to payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| CFTC regulated exchange (example: Kalshi) | At the close stated in the filed contract terms | Venue reads the named source agency and applies the rule | Determination about 1 to 12 plus hours, then settlement within a few hours |
| Decentralized, oracle settled (example: Polymarket) | At the market end time set in the terms | Proposal plus challenge window through the UMA oracle, vote if disputed | About 2 hours if undisputed, about 4 to 6 days if it goes to a vote |
| Recurring or rolling series | Each period is its own market with its own close | Per the terms of that period, same source pattern each time | As for the underlying venue type, repeated on a schedule |
Method: compiled from the Kalshi help center and Polymarket documentation, as of June 2026. Figures are typical patterns, not guarantees. Always confirm the close, source, and resolution rule in the terms of the specific market. See the cross platform data in our comparisons hub.
The resolution timing lives in the contract terms for the specific market, sitting next to the source of truth and the resolution criteria. On exchanges registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission these terms are not improvised on the day. They are filed with the regulator as part of listing the contract. Under CFTC Part 40, a designated contract market that lists a product by self certification must file its submission so the Commission receives it at least one business day before the contract first trades, per the CFTC listing procedures as of June 2026. The practical effect for a reader is reassuring. The close, the source, and the rule were set down in advance and are on record, rather than decided once the result is already in view.
The same framework draws some hard lines about what can be listed at all. CFTC Regulation 40.11 prohibits event contracts that reference terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or activity that is unlawful under state or federal law, and where a contract may involve one of those areas the Commission can begin a review before the contract proceeds. The scope of that rule, especially around sports, has been an active and contested area of regulation. We mark it as evolving rather than settled, and the dated detail you can rely on is simply that the terms of any listed contract were filed in advance.
Do not rely on the title or the rough description of a market. Two markets that sound alike can close on different days or settle on different sources, and a single different cutoff can decide who gets paid. Reading the terms is the only reliable way to know exactly when a market resolves and on what. If you want a deeper view of how the chosen source shapes the outcome, see how settlement sources are chosen and how event contracts settle.
First, the resolution date defines how long your funds are tied up. Money in an open position cannot be used elsewhere until the market closes and settles, so a distant resolution date is a real commitment, not a footnote. A contract that resolves next week and one that resolves next year can sit at the same price and still be very different propositions, because one frees your capital far sooner than the other. If you are weighing several markets, the time your money is locked is part of the cost.
Second, liquidity often thins as a market approaches its close. Fewer participants are willing to trade once the outcome feels close to settled, which can widen the spread and make it harder to exit at a fair price near the end. If your plan depends on selling out before resolution rather than holding to settlement, the close is exactly when that plan is most likely to be expensive. Our guide to liquidity and why it matters goes further on this.
Third, the way uncertainty resolves over time shapes the price path. As the resolution date nears and information arrives, prices can move sharply, and a position that looked comfortable can swing hard in a short window. None of this is a reason to panic. It is a reason to know the timeline you signed up for, so that a normal move near the close does not feel like an emergency and push you into a poor decision.
Picture a market on whether a monthly economic figure will come in above a set level. The example is illustrative, not a live market, but the shape is typical. The market opens weeks ahead and trades freely as forecasts shift. Its terms name the close as the moment the official figure is released, name the statistical agency as the source, and name the exact threshold that counts as yes. On release day the agency publishes. Trading has already stopped at the close, so nobody can react to the number by trading the contract. The venue reads the published figure, applies the threshold rule, and settles.
Notice what each holder experiences. From the close to the moment of settlement, their money is committed and frozen, even though the outcome may already be obvious from the published number. That window is usually short for this kind of market, but it is real, and it is defined by the terms rather than by how quickly the holder would like to be paid. If the agency had delayed the release, the close and the settlement would both have waited, because both are tied to the release rather than to the calendar date. This is exactly why reading the source and the cutoff matters more than reading the date in the title.
The same example shows how a small wording difference changes everything. A market that resolves on the first published figure and a market that resolves on a later revised figure can disagree, because economic data is often revised after first release. Two markets that look identical in their titles can settle on different numbers for the same month. The reader who checked the terms knows which figure binds. The reader who trusted the headline finds out only at settlement.
There are two ways to leave a position. You can hold it to settlement and accept the full result, your contract worth its face value or nothing. Or you can sell before the close and take whatever the market will pay at that moment. Both are valid, and the resolution date shapes which is sensible. If you intend to hold to settlement, the time to payout and the clarity of the resolution rule are what matter, because you are committing to the whole window. If you intend to exit early, the liquidity near the close matters more, because that is when selling tends to get expensive.
A common mistake is to assume you can always sell out just before settlement at a price close to the obvious outcome. Near the close, willing buyers can thin out, the spread can widen, and the price you can actually get may sit well away from where the last trade printed. Planning the exit in advance, and treating the close as a deadline rather than a soft suggestion, keeps you from being forced into a poor fill at the worst time. For more on this, see our notes on slippage and on managing risk in event trading.
Events in the real world get postponed, and good contract terms anticipate it. Depending on the market, a delay might push the resolution back, extend the close, settle on a defined fallback, or void the market and return stakes. The right answer is whatever the rulebook says, which is precisely why the terms matter more than your assumption about what feels fair. A game moved by a day, an official report published late, a result subject to a recount: each of these has a defined handling somewhere in the rules, or it should.
Ambiguity is the real danger. If a market does not clearly state what happens when the event slips or fails to occur as defined, that uncertainty is itself a risk you are carrying, on top of the risk of being wrong about the outcome. On oracle settled venues, an unclear question is also what tends to trigger a dispute, which is the slow and contested path rather than the fast one. When you cannot find a clear rule for the messy case, treat the market with extra caution rather than hoping it resolves your way. Where disputes do arise, our explainer on resolution disputes and how they work walks through the process.
Some questions repeat on a schedule, for example markets tied to events that occur every week, month, or quarter. These are usually run as a series of separate markets, each with its own close and its own resolution date, rather than one endless market. That matters for how you think about the clock. A weekly series is really many short markets back to back, so the relevant resolution date is always the one for the specific period you are trading, not some vague rolling horizon. Recurring guides on this site are durable references to those patterns, refreshed over time, and we never build a page for a single expiring market, because it would be out of date the moment it settled.
Planning around resolution dates is simply good practice. Before you commit money to a market, it helps to confirm a few things in the terms rather than in the headline.
Know when a market closes, know when it settles, and do not commit money you will need before then. Treat the timeline as part of the trade rather than a surprise at the end. This page is general information, not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and the risk of loss applies throughout the life of any market.
Understanding how these markets work does not make trading safe. Prediction markets can lose you money, and a confident price can still be wrong. Stake only what you can afford to lose, never to chase a loss, and never on borrowed money. If it stops feeling like a free choice, step back. In the United States you can call or text the helpline on 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org.
A market resolution date is the point at which a market is decided and contracts are paid according to the outcome. Until then the contract trades at a price that reads as an implied probability. Once the result is confirmed, each contract becomes worth its full value or nothing.
No. The close time, sometimes called expiry, is when trading stops and your position is locked. Settlement is later, when the named source confirms the result and the venue pays out. On Kalshi the gap between closure and determination can run from about one hour to more than twelve hours, per the Kalshi help center as of June 2026.
In the contract terms for the specific market, alongside the source of truth and the resolution criteria. On exchanges registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission those terms are filed with the regulator at least one business day before the contract lists, under CFTC Part 40, so they are set in advance.
It depends on the venue. On Kalshi most markets settle within a few hours of the outcome being known and pay $1 for each correct contract. On Polymarket an undisputed result resolves in roughly two hours through the UMA oracle, while a disputed result that goes to a token holder vote can take about four to six days, per Polymarket documentation as of June 2026.
It depends on the contract terms. A delay might push resolution back, extend the close, settle on a defined fallback source, or void the market and return stakes. If a market does not clearly state what happens, treat that ambiguity as a real risk before you commit money.
It defines how long your funds are committed, since money in an open position is tied up until close and settlement. Liquidity can also thin near the close, widening the spread and making it harder to exit at a fair price.
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