Who this guide is for
US adults who already have a Polymarket US balance or a live ticket and now need to tell cash from buying power — what you can withdraw versus what is still tied up in an open position, a resting order, or instant buying power that has not cleared. This is not how to read your Polymarket portfolio, not how to read unrealized P&L, not how to withdraw, not how to cash out, and not how to deposit. Those pages are the whole Portfolio screen, the mark-versus-cost gap, the bank off-ramp, the exchange exit of a live ticket, and the funding rails. This page is the split. Then we link out. Polymarket is the only live outbound here.
Cash, buying power, instant buying power
Official Glossary names all three. Official Check Your Balance is the cash rule. Official Orders & Trading is the spendable row. Do not mash them into one “my money” number. See prediction markets vs sportsbooks if you are looking for a house withdrawable-bonus chip. There isn’t one.
Cash balance — not tied to an open ticket
Official Check Your Balance + Glossary
Official Glossary: cash balance is funds in your account not tied to open positions. Official Check Your Balance: that cash is the money you can trade or withdraw back to the original deposit source. Deposits appear as cash. Sale proceeds and resolved-market proceeds return to cash automatically. Withdrawals come only from that cash row — and only after the funding deposit has fully cleared. The off-ramp itself is a later page.
Buying power — what you can still put on a new ticket
Official Glossary + Orders & Trading
Official Glossary: buying power is cash available to open new positions after margin is applied. Official Orders & Trading: buying power is the cash you have available to open new positions; it falls when you buy contracts and rises when you sell or a market settles in your favor. Official Collateral and Margin: a short can raise the fiat row while buying power still falls, because $1.00 per shorted contract is locked. That spendable figure is not automatically the number you can send to a debit card.
Instant buying power — trade now, withdraw later
Official Glossary + Why can’t I withdraw?
Official Glossary: instant buying power is the part of a deposit that becomes available to trade immediately. Official Fund Your Account and Official Debit Card: debit and ACH may credit that instant slice while the deposit is still processing; the rest becomes available once the deposit fully clears. Official “Why can’t I withdraw my funds?”: that FAQ credits up to $50,000 in instant buying power so you can trade right away — and you cannot withdraw the original deposit or proceeds tied to that buying power until the funds fully clear. Instant is a trade clock. It is not a payout clock.
Official Glossary · cash ≠ buying power ≠ instant buying power · no live number
Where cash / available / buying power lives
Hard rule: if official US help names a field, we name it. If a tab is not on those pages, we describe the action. Official Website vs App splits the international site from the US desk.
US app — open the Portfolio tab, then the cash row
Official Place a Trade + Monitor Your Positions
Official Place a Trade: after you swipe, open the Portfolio tab to track the position and market value. Official Monitor Your Positions: that screen shows cash balance, open positions, and total account value. Official Website vs App: US residents deposit and trade in the Polymarket US app, not on polymarket.com. If the live app labels the same screen Profile, Wallet, or something else, use the live control — we will not invent a second header those pages do not print.
“Available” is a published action — not a confirmed Available column
Official docs do not name an Available tab
Official Check Your Balance teaches available funds and calls cash funds available to trade or withdraw. Official Place a Trade: tap Max to use your available balance. Official Debit Card: the rest of the deposit becomes available once it fully clears. Official Monitor Your Positions, Official Place a Trade, and Official Glossary do not reprint a retail column literally labelled “Available.” We will not invent one. If the live Portfolio already prints Available, use that live word. If it only prints cash next to buying power — or a spendable figure with no name — that split is the action this page is for.
Trader / API docs name buyingPower — that is not a confirmed phone chip
Official Get Account Balances · flagged
Official Get Account Balances names currentBalance as fiat not including security values, buyingPower as unencumbered capital available for trading after security valuations and open orders, and assetAvailable as available collateral on securities. It also names openOrders, unsettledFunds, and marginRequirement. Official Place a Trade and Official Monitor Your Positions do not reprint those strings as a retail Available or Buying Power tab. We will not paste an API field onto the US swipe. If the live row already prints Buying power or Available, follow that live text.
Official Place a Trade · Portfolio tab · no invented Available / Buying Power column
Open tickets are not withdrawable cash
Official Monitor Your Positions is the filled row. Official Withdrawal Rules is the uncleared deposit. Official Can I sell early? is how a live ticket becomes cash on the exchange — not a bank deposit.
An open position is a filled ticket — not cash you can send to the bank
Official Glossary + Monitor Your Positions
Official Glossary: an open position is the contracts you currently hold. Official Monitor Your Positions: those are contracts in active markets, with contracts held, average entry, current market price, and potential payout. Official Check Your Balance: cash is the money not tied to any of those rows. Position value is a mark. Potential payout is what that side pays if it grades yes. None of that is a debit-card credit today. Event contracts can settle at zero.
An open order is reserved size — canceling it is not a withdraw
Official Glossary + Get Account Balances
Official Glossary: an open order is an order waiting on the book to be filled. Official Orders & Trading: unfilled size is still Open or Partially filled — not a position you own. Official Get Account Balances folds open orders into the buyingPower math. Canceling that remainder releases reserved buying power back to the exchange balance. That click path lives on How to cancel or edit a Polymarket order. It does not send money off the desk.
Funds in flight and instant buying power can be traded — not withdrawn
Official Withdrawal Rules
Official Withdrawal Rules: deposits that show as a balance before they fully clear are funds in flight. You can still trade. You cannot withdraw them — or proceeds tied to them — until they fully clear. Official “Why can’t I withdraw?”: in most cases the deposit is still processing; instant buying power is the reason the screen looks funded. That is a deposit-clear fact, not a deposit how-to. Confirm the live wallet. We do not invent your personal clear clock.
Total value, a green mark, and promo credit are different rows
Official Monitor Your Positions + promo FAQ
Official Monitor Your Positions: total value is cash plus positions. Official pages we checked do not print a retail column labelled “P&L.” The gap between average entry and current market is How to read unrealized P&L — a mark, not a bank credit. Official “Why can’t I withdraw my promotional credit?”: promo credits are trading credits, not cash, and cannot be withdrawn. How to read your Polymarket portfolio is the whole screen. This page only splits what you can withdraw from what is still tied up.
Official US docs · open position ≠ cash · instant buying power ≠ withdraw · no live balance
How to tell cash from buying power
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Step 1
Open the US Portfolio tab and find cash — not the international website
Official Place a Trade: open the Portfolio tab to track the position and market value. Official Monitor Your Positions: look for cash balance next to open positions and total value. Official Website vs App: US residents use the Polymarket US app; polymarket.com is a different product. Official What is Polymarket US? is the fiat, CFTC-regulated desk this page belongs to. If a control is labelled differently in-app, use the live screen. If the sports desk is hidden where you live, stop. How to read your Polymarket portfolio is the whole screen. This page is only cash versus buying power on that screen.
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Step 2
Split cash from buying power — treat “Available” as an action if no header prints
Official Check Your Balance: cash is not tied to an open position; you can trade it or withdraw it after the funding deposit has fully cleared. Official Glossary and Official Orders & Trading: buying power is cash available to open new positions after margin. Official Place a Trade names available balance on Max. Official Monitor Your Positions, Official Place a Trade, and Official Glossary do not reprint a retail “Available” column on the swipe we checked. We will not invent one. Read the cash row versus what you can still spend on a new ticket. If the live row already prints Available or Buying power, use that live label. We do not reprint a live figure.
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Step 3
Treat open tickets and resting orders as tied up — not withdrawable cash
Official Glossary: an open position is contracts you hold; an open order is size still waiting on the book. Official Monitor Your Positions: that filled row shows contracts held, average entry, current market, and potential payout — not a Withdraw button. Official Collateral and Margin: a short can lock $1.00 per contract, so buying power can be lower than the fiat row. Official Get Account Balances names unsettledFunds as not yet available to trade — API language, not a confirmed retail chip. A filled Yes/No becomes cash only if you sell while the market is open or Clearing settles it. Unfilled size becomes spendable again only after you cancel.
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Step 4
If you just funded, treat instant buying power as trade-only until the deposit clears
Official Fund Your Account and Official Debit Card: debit and ACH may show instant buying power while the deposit is still processing. Official “Why can’t I withdraw my funds?”: that instant slice can be credited up to $50,000; you cannot withdraw the original deposit or proceeds tied to it until the funds fully clear, typically 3–4 business days (business days exclude weekends and holidays). Official Withdrawal Rules call that uncleared row funds in flight. This is not How to deposit on Polymarket — we do not walk the rails here. Confirm the live wallet. We do not invent your personal clear time.
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Step 5
Stop — selling, cashing out, withdrawing, and depositing are later how-tos
Official “Can I sell early?” is how a live ticket becomes cash on the exchange. Official Place a Trade: you can cash out anytime while the market is open or hold until it resolves. Official Check Your Balance: sending that cash off the desk is a withdraw, and only after the funding deposit has fully cleared. Those click paths live on How to sell a Polymarket ticket early, How to cash out on Polymarket, How to withdraw from Polymarket, and How to deposit on Polymarket. The unmarked gap on a filled row is How to read unrealized P&L. This page does not clone them. Event contracts can settle at zero. Trade only what you can afford to lose. Nothing here is investment advice.
This is not a deposit walkthrough
Official Fund Your Account is how debit, ACH, or wire lands. Official “Why can’t I withdraw my funds?” is why that landing can look spendable before it is withdrawable. We name instant buying power because that FAQ names it. We do not reprint the Profile → Deposit → Pay With path, the published per-rail caps, or the wire memo fields. Those live on How to deposit on Polymarket (US). This page only answers whether the number you are staring at is cash you can withdraw or buying power still tied to a ticket, a resting clip, or an uncleared deposit.
Blocked and contested states
Reported unavailable as of June 2026: Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada and Ohio. That list is not a promise it stays still — litigation around sports event contracts in particular can narrow or shift access. If you are in a listed state, do not treat a cash or buying-power row as money you can withdraw. If you are in Florida or another green-light state, still confirm Portfolio opens before you treat a split as yours.
Age is 18+ with identity verification. That is a different gate from the 21+ / responsible-gambling frame on our DFS pages, because these are traded financial instruments. If you also want NFL DFS, start at the picks hub — those contest-score rules do not carry over. Compare platforms on the prediction-markets hub.
What you will not get from this page
A dollar welcome match, a paste-this promo code, a live cash or buying-power figure,
an invented Available / Buying Power column, a claim that the US app prints the
API buyingPower field, a cloned portfolio / unrealized-P&L /
withdraw / cash-out / deposit walkthrough, or claim buttons for Kalshi, DraftKings,
FanDuel, Underdog, Sleeper, PrizePicks, Hard Rock or BetRivers. We could not verify a
standing official US welcome bonus on Polymarket’s own terms. Other publishers’
partner codes are theirs; we do not copy them. The honest user-facing line is
still US access via CFTC-regulated QCEX — open the Portfolio tab in the
US app, cash is money not tied to an open position, buying power is what you
can still spend after margin, instant buying power can be traded before a
deposit clears but cannot be withdrawn until it does, an open ticket is not
withdrawable cash, “Available” is a published action and not a confirmed
retail header, and anything those US pages do not print is not a label we
invent. Last verified August 8, 2026.
Related reading
US access via CFTC-regulated QCEX — confirm live sign-up terms in-app
CFTC-regulated US exchange (QCEX) · confirm live terms in-app
Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no cost to you. 18+. Trading involves risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between cash and buying power on Polymarket US?
Where do cash, available, and buying power live on Polymarket US?
Are open positions withdrawable cash?
Is instant buying power the same as cash I can withdraw?
Is this a deposit, withdraw, cash-out, portfolio, or unrealized-P&L walkthrough?
Does “Available” mean I can withdraw that number today?
Can I tell cash from buying power on Polymarket in every US state?
Which claim button is actually live on this page?
Is there a Polymarket cash or buying-power bonus or promo code on this page?
Is telling cash from buying power the same as reading an NFL DFS withdrawable-bonus balance?
Advertising disclosure: Polymarket links are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no cost to you, which never affects our ratings. Kalshi, DraftKings, FanDuel, Underdog, Sleeper, PrizePicks, Hard Rock and BetRivers have no live outbound claim on this page. Event contracts are CFTC-regulated financial products, not gambling. Trading involves risk and you can lose money, including your entire stake. Not investment advice. 18+. DFS pages on this site use a separate 21+ / 1-800-GAMBLER frame. Availability and terms can change — confirm current terms on Polymarket. Last verified August 8, 2026.