Kraken fees explained (UK): app, Kraken Pro, deposits and withdrawals

Esta análise ainda não foi traduzida — exibindo o original em inglês.

The short answer

Kraken has two price lists. The Kraken app and the simple Buy button on kraken.com charge 1% per instant buy, plus a spread hidden in the price. Kraken Pro, the order-book platform on the same account, charges 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker for a new UK user, according to Kraken’s fee schedule as of October 2026. Funding by Faster Payments is free; withdrawing pounds by Faster Payments costs £1.95.

Kraken Pro is still the cheaper way to buy. But the gap is smaller than it used to be. A July 2026 change raised the entry-level Pro rates, so the old “0.16% / 0.26%” figure that many comparison sites still quote no longer applies to a small account. The rest of this guide sets out each charge for UK users, checked against Kraken’s own fee and support pages on 23 October 2026.

Every Kraken fee for UK users in one table

Sources: Kraken’s UK fee schedule, its support articles on cash deposits (updated 20 October 2026), cash withdrawals and crypto withdrawals, and the July 2026 fee tier change.

How much does the Kraken app charge for an instant buy?

Kraken’s fee schedule is direct about it: “Kraken charges a 1% trading fee on instant and recurring trades and a 1.5% fee on custom orders.” That covers Buy, Sell and Convert in the Kraken app and on kraken.com, including recurring purchases.

On top of the 1% there is a spread. The schedule explains that the price you see “includes a spread, the difference between the market rate and the rate you receive”, that Kraken “may retain any excess spread”, and that its size varies with volatility, the asset, order size, VIP status and account activity. Kraken does not publish a figure. The only way to see it is to compare the app quote with the Kraken Pro order book at the same moment.

Two smaller charges are worth knowing. The “Convert Small Balances” feature takes a flat 3% on amounts below the minimum order size. And volume you trade through instant buy does not count towards the 30-day volume that lowers Pro fees.

Kraken also sells a subscription, Kraken+, which its FAQ prices at 4.99 a month or 49.99 a year in each major currency, GBP included. It waives the 1% trading fee on up to $10,000 a month of app and web trades. Kraken is explicit that spreads and card processing fees still apply, and that it does not cover Kraken Pro. At £5 a month it only pays for itself if you instant-buy more than about £500 a month.

What are Kraken Pro’s maker and taker fees?

On 9 July 2026 Kraken moved to what it calls cross-platform fee tiers. Your tier is now the best of three measures: 30-day spot volume, 30-day futures volume, or the current value of your assets on the platform (AoP). Kraken’s support article says accounts were moved to the new tiers automatically.

The spot rates for the lower tiers, from Kraken’s UK fee schedule:

A maker order is a limit order that sits on the book and adds liquidity; a taker order, such as a market order, fills against an existing one. On Kraken Pro, placing a limit order slightly below the current price and waiting halves the cost at every tier from 1 to 2.

Volume is measured in dollars. At the GBP prices shown on Kraken’s UK buy page today (one USDC at about £0.75), the $2,500 step to tier 2 is roughly £1,875 of trading in 30 days. Someone buying £500 a month stays at tier 1. The AoP route is new and useful for holders: keeping about £15,000 of assets on Kraken puts you in tier 3 without trading at all.

Stablecoin and FX pairs such as USDT/USD use a separate schedule, from 0.20% maker and taker.

How much does it cost to deposit pounds into Kraken?

Bank transfer is free; cards are not. Kraken’s cash deposit table for GBP, updated 20 October 2026:

Kraken notes that first-time Faster Payments deposits may take one to three business days. The Plaid route is the open banking option: you approve the payment in your banking app.

For Apple Pay and Google Pay, Kraken’s fee schedule says “additional fees may apply”, but the GBP deposit table does not list a rate for them. Kraken’s card-purchase article says the total fee is shown on the final confirmation screen before you pay. We would not assume it is cheaper than the card rate. Card, PayPal and digital wallet purchases can also trigger a 72-hour withdrawal hold on equivalent funds.

How much does Kraken charge to withdraw GBP?

£1.95 is small on a large withdrawal and noticeable on a small one: it is 0.39% of £500. If you cash out regularly, withdrawing less often in bigger amounts saves money.

What are Kraken’s crypto withdrawal fees?

Kraken charges a flat fee per withdrawal that depends on the coin and the network, not the amount. Its crypto withdrawal table lists, among others:

At the £60,713 Bitcoin price shown on Kraken’s UK buy page on 23 October 2026, the on-chain BTC fee is about £0.91. Kraken warns that these fees change and that the fee shown at confirmation is the one you pay. Most crypto deposits are free.

What does buying £500 of Bitcoin actually cost?

Here is the comparison most UK readers want. A new account at tier 1, buying £500 of BTC, funded either by Faster Payments or by debit card, and then withdrawing the coins to a hardware wallet.

Three things stand out.

The card is the expensive part. Funding by debit card costs £19, almost four times the trading fee. Whichever interface you use, paying by Faster Payments first is the biggest saving.

On fees alone, Pro taker beats the app by only £1. At the new tier 1 rates, a £500 market order on Kraken Pro costs £4, against £5 in the app. The real difference is the spread. Kraken does not publish it, so we cannot put a number on it, but every 0.5% of spread on £500 costs another £2.50. On a liquid pair like BTC/GBP the Pro order-book spread is usually far tighter than that.

A limit order is the cheapest way in. A maker order on Kraken Pro costs £2, and you choose the price. Over a year of £500 monthly buys, that is about £24 in trading fees, against £60 plus spread in the app.

How much does Kraken take from staking rewards?

Staking itself has no transaction fee; Kraken takes a cut of the rewards. Its fee schedule says flexible staking on assets with an unbonding period is subject to a 20% commission. Kraken’s staking support article, updated 19 August 2026, gives different and more detailed figures: 30% on flexible staking and Auto Earn, and 25% on bonded staking for balances under $1 million, falling to 20%, 10%, 5% and 0% at higher balances. The two Kraken pages disagree, and the support article is the more specific, so plan on 25–30% for a normal UK account.

Kraken’s UK restrictions page lists Opt-in Rewards and DeFi Earn as unavailable in the UK; staking is not on that list. The APYs Kraken shows are before its commission.

Can UK customers use margin or futures on Kraken, and what does it cost?

Futures and perpetuals: no, for retail. Kraken’s regulatory page states that “retail clients living in the United Kingdom cannot trade derivatives”, reflecting the FCA’s ban on selling crypto derivatives to retail consumers. Only clients categorised as elective professionals, which means meeting at least two of the FCA’s experience, portfolio and employment tests, can apply.

Spot margin: partly. Kraken’s article on margin for UK clients, updated 19 October 2026, says margin on crypto-to-crypto pairs such as BTC/ETH is not restricted. Borrowing fiat or fiat-backed stablecoins, which is what a long BTC/GBP position needs, requires you to declare that you are a high-net-worth borrower (net income over £150,000 or net assets over £500,000, backed by an accountant’s statement) or that you use margin for business.

For those who qualify, Kraken charges the normal trading fee on opening and closing, plus an opening fee and a rollover fee every four hours. Its fee schedule lists 0.01–0.02% for BTC and 0.02–0.04% for most other assets, GBP included, each time. Six rollovers a day means 0.06–0.24% a day, before trading fees. A forced liquidation costs 2%.

Verdict

For a UK user the rule is simple: fund by Faster Payments, buy on Kraken Pro with a limit order, and withdraw in larger amounts. Doing that, a £500 Bitcoin buy costs £2 in fees. Using a debit card in the app, the same buy costs £23.81 plus a spread Kraken does not disclose.

The July 2026 tier change has made Kraken Pro dearer for small accounts. At 0.80% taker, the entry tier is now well above the old 0.26%, and frequent small traders have more reason to compare it with Binance or other options in our best crypto exchanges list. What Kraken’s fees buy is covered in our Kraken review, and the licences and protections, including why crypto on Kraken is not FSCS-covered, are in Is Kraken safe?.

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