FEES & SAVINGS
Zero-Fee Trading, Explained
Lighter charges no trading fee on standard perps and spot. Here is exactly what that means, where costs do apply, and how the premium LIT tiers work.
Lighter Cost Quick Reference
Perp Taker
0%
$0 per $10K trade
Perp Maker
0%
$0 per $10K trade
Spot
0%
Standard accounts
All three rates above are quoted per Lighter's official fee schedule (docs.lighter.xyz), checked . Standard accounts pay 0 maker and 0 taker on both perps and spot; premium tiers are opt-in and priced separately.
Deposits & withdrawals: Ethereum network cost only · Premium tiers: optional, LIT-based
Referral: code LIGHTERPEDIA offers a one-week Premium fee rebate, capped at $10M volume · Verify current terms in the Lighter docs
What Does Lighter Charge?
Lighter is zero-fee for standard accounts: makers and takers both pay 0% on its order-book perpetuals and spot markets. A $10,000 trade costs nothing in trading fees, whether you add liquidity or take it. The only unavoidable costs are Ethereum network fees on deposits and withdrawals, and funding payments on perpetual positions. These terms can change as Lighter updates its model, so always verify against the official docs and the app before trading.
Cost Summary
- Perpetuals: 0% maker / 0% taker (standard accounts)
- Spot trading: 0% maker / 0% taker (standard accounts)
- Deposits & withdrawals: normal Ethereum network cost
- Premium tiers: optional, tied to the LIT token
- Referral (code LIGHTERPEDIA): a one-week Premium fee rebate, not a standard-account discount
Verify before you trade: Lighter ships fast and its model can change. Always confirm the current perp, spot, and premium-tier terms in the official Lighter docs and in the app before sizing a position.
How do Lighter's fees compare to other exchanges?
Zero fees put Lighter at the low end of the whole market. On the centralized side, Binance charges regular users 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker on USDⓈ-M futures, per Binance's own fee documentation, and Bybit charges non-VIP accounts 0.02% maker and 0.055% taker on USDT perpetuals, per Bybit's published fee explainer. Both sit above Lighter's 0% and 0%. Among perp DEXes the gap is narrower: Hyperliquid's entry tier is 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker, per the Hyperliquid docs, and Aster publishes 0% maker with 0.04% taker in its own futures documentation. All four schedules were read on . What Lighter adds on top of the rate is custody and proof: funds stay in your own wallet, and fills and liquidations are provable on-chain. For someone placing dozens of trades a day, the difference between 0% and a taker fee compounds quickly.
| Exchange | Perp Maker | Perp Taker | Custody | KYC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lighter | 0% | 0% | Self-custody | None |
| Hyperliquid | 0.015% | 0.045% | Self-custody | None |
| Aster | 0% | 0.04% | Self-custody | None |
| Binance | 0.02% | 0.05% | Custodial | Required |
Base-tier rates. Sources, read : Lighter fee schedule, Hyperliquid docs, Aster docs, Binance fee documentation. Every venue here runs volume tiers and revises its schedule, so check the current numbers before you size a position.
What do you actually pay on Lighter?
Because standard trading is free, the only costs to plan for are network and funding related. Deposits and withdrawals settle on Ethereum, so you pay the prevailing network fee at the time of the transaction. Perpetual positions accrue or pay funding on a fixed cycle, which nets against your P&L. Optional premium tiers, tied to the LIT token, can unlock advanced features but are not required to trade zero-fee.
Premium is the one place a Lighter trading fee exists at all. Per Lighter's fee schedule, read , a Premium account with nothing staked pays 0.0040% maker and 0.0280% taker, and staking LIT discounts that by 2.5% at the entry tier up to 30% at 500,000 LIT, which works out to 0.0028% maker and 0.0196% taker. Even the unstaked Premium taker rate sits below every centralized venue in the table above. What you buy with that fee is lower taker latency, which starts at 200ms and reaches 140ms at the top staking tier.
| Action | Cost on Lighter |
|---|---|
| Open/close a perp (maker or taker) | $0 trading fee |
| Spot trade | $0 trading fee |
| Deposit / withdraw | Ethereum network cost |
| Holding a perp position | Funding (varies, can be + or −) |
| Premium account features | Optional, LIT-based |
Figures are illustrative — verify current terms against the official Lighter docs and the app.
Does the referral code make trading cheaper?
Not on a standard account, because there is no standard trading fee to discount. The program pays in fee rebates rather than points: per Lighter's referral documentation, read , signing up through a referral link such as code LIGHTERPEDIA offers one week of Premium with trading fees rebated on the first $10M of volume, while the referrer earns 10% to 30% of the gross fees their referred users pay. Lighter describes all of those rebates as discretionary. The points program is a separate thing entirely, and Lighter's points documentation does not mention referrals.
What does a real trade cost?
- $10K perp maker trade: $0 in trading fees
- $10K perp taker trade: $0 in trading fees
- $5K spot fill: $0 in trading fees
- Deposit or withdraw: only the Ethereum network cost at that time
Over a month of active trading, zero fees add up fast, especially for high-frequency traders who would otherwise pay taker fees on every fill. What replaces the fee is execution cost: we measured what a zero-fee round trip actually costs across eight Lighter markets and found $0.67 all in on BTC against $62.70 on the Anthropic pre-IPO market, for the same $10,000. For the full mechanics of the schedule itself, see our complete Lighter fees walkthrough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Lighter is zero-fee for standard accounts on its order-book perpetual futures and spot markets — no maker or taker charge. Premium account tiers tied to the LIT token can add advanced features, and deposits and withdrawals still incur normal Ethereum network costs. Verify current terms in the Lighter docs and app before trading.
Yes. Lighter charges 0% maker and 0% taker on standard perps. Binance charges regular users 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker on USDⓈ-M futures, per its own published fee documentation, read 18 August 2026. Lighter is also a non-custodial DEX, so you keep custody of your funds the whole time. Both venues revise their schedules, so check the current rates before trading.
Lighter monetizes through premium account tiers tied to the LIT token, token buybacks, and ecosystem mechanics rather than per-trade fees on standard accounts. That is also why the referral program pays a share of the fees referred users generate rather than a discount on them: on a standard account there is no trading fee left to discount.
Standard order-book perp and spot trades carry no trading fee. You still pay normal Ethereum network costs when you deposit or withdraw, and funding payments on perpetuals can add to or subtract from your P&L. Premium tiers are optional and tied to the LIT token.
Spot trading on Lighter is zero-fee for standard accounts, the same as its perpetual markets. As always, verify the current schedule in the Lighter docs before trading, since terms can change.
No. Because Lighter is already zero-fee, the referral code cannot lower them further. What Lighter documents instead is a one-week Premium trial for referred users, with fees rebated on the first $10M of volume, described by Lighter as discretionary.
On standard accounts, a $10,000 perpetual trade costs $0 in trading fees on Lighter — both maker and taker are zero. You still pay Ethereum network costs on deposits and withdrawals, and any applicable funding. Verify current terms before trading.
Want the full mechanics — including spot, premium tiers, and network costs?
The complete cost walkthrough goes deep on every part of the model: zero-fee perps and spot, Ethereum network costs, funding, and how the LIT premium tiers and points program fit together. It is one of the most detailed pages on this site.
Read the full fee structure guide →Cite this page
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Methodology and reuse
The Lighter rates on this page are the standard-account maker and taker fees for perpetuals and spot, plus the deposit, withdrawal and premium-tier costs that sit around them. They were read from the official Lighter documentation on and re-verified against the live app. Exchanges change their schedules, so treat any figure older than that date as needing a fresh check — the date above is the one to compare against.
You may republish these figures with attribution and a link to https://lighterpedia.com/guides/fees.
Cost Quick Reference
Standard-account rates
Trade Zero-Fee on Lighter
Signing up with code LIGHTERPEDIA applies the code automatically. Lighter’s referral documentation says new sign-ups are offered one week of Premium with trading fees rebated on the first $10M of volume, and that rebates are discretionary. Standard accounts trade at 0% maker and taker either way.
Start Trading on LighterLighter Exchange Fees: Zero-Fee Trading & LIT Premium Tiers
Lighter charges 0% maker and 0% taker on standard accounts. Here's how the zero-fee model works, when the premium LIT-staked tiers make sense, the taker latency trade-off, and the on-chain deposit and withdrawal costs to plan for.
What a Zero-Fee Trade Actually Costs on Lighter
Lighter charges 0% maker and 0% taker. We measured the costs that are not called fees: spread, slippage at three sizes, funding and gas, across eight markets on 18 August 2026.