Where is Kalshi restricted?
Kalshi is restricted in 54 of the 195 countries we cover: 
Afghanistan, 
Algeria, 
Angola, 
Australia, 
Belarus, 
Belgium, 
Bolivia, 
Bulgaria, 
Burkina Faso, 
Cameroon, 
Canada, the 
Central African Republic, 
China, 
Côte d'Ivoire, 
Cuba, the 
DR Congo, 
Ethiopia, 
France, 
Haiti, 
Hungary, 
India, 
Iran, 
Iraq, 
Ireland, 
Italy, 
Kenya, 
Laos, 
Lebanon, 
Libya, 
Mali, 
Monaco, 
Mozambique, 
Myanmar, 
Namibia, 
New Zealand, 
Nicaragua, 
Niger, 
North Korea, 
Poland, 
Portugal, 
Russia, 
Singapore, 
Somalia, 
South Sudan, 
Sudan, 
Switzerland, 
Syria, 
Thailand, 
Ukraine, the 
United Arab Emirates, the 
United Kingdom, 
Venezuela, 
Yemen and 
Zimbabwe.
All of them come from Kalshi’s own member agreement (version of 1 October 2026), which names 55 Restricted Jurisdictions, Taiwan among them, plus any place under US country-wide or regional sanctions. Since a June 2026 revision the ban applies only to event contracts: people there may still hold a membership. Our previous check counted 40 of these countries; the other 15, from Algeria to Niger, had been on the list since the international launch in October 2025.
Kalshi’s sign-up page adds a second layer. On 16 October 2026 we opened it from every country we could reach, and it answered in one of two ways: a refusal that prints Kalshi’s list of places where trading is prohibited, or a notice that only perpetual futures are available in the visitor’s region. The two groups split the 55 exactly. Perpetual futures are not open to these users, though: Kalshi’s help centre (17 August 2026) says only US-based users who have passed KYC can apply for them, so we record all 54 as restricted.
We reached 17 of the 54 restricted countries, and sign-up refused or redirected every one; none loaded without a message. All 12 perps-only countries showed the notice, and the five refusals we saw came from Bulgaria, China, Hungary, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates. The list is below.
| Category | Countries | Context | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geographic block |
| On Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list, and named on its sign-up page among the places where trading is prohibited. | 17 Oct 2026 |
| Geographic block | On Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list; its sign-up page offers perpetual futures only, which Kalshi opens to US users only. | 17 Oct 2026 | |
| Geographic block | On Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list; its sign-up page offers perpetual futures only, which Kalshi opens to US users only. ADM also listed its site for blocking from 27 July 2026. | 17 Oct 2026 |
Kalshi’s list and national regulators, 2025 to 2026
Nine countries have joined Kalshi’s list since launch, judging by archived copies of the agreement in the Wayback Machine, and several of them followed a regulator. kalshi.com went on the Swiss Gespa blocklist in November 2025, and Switzerland joined Kalshi’s list in January. New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs ruled in February 2026 that Kalshi and Polymarket were unauthorised gambling (Covers), and New Zealand was on the list by March. India’s providers began blocking prediction sites in May, and Kalshi added India on 17 June (Parameter).
Italy’s ADM added Kalshi to its list of unauthorised gambling sites in July 2026 (Punto Informatico), long after Kalshi had listed Italy itself, and in October a Taiwanese court had kalshi.com blocked over election bets (Taipei Times). The three blocks that did not lead to a listing are Spain’s, Czechia’s and Brazil’s, in the next section.
Where is Kalshi limited?
Kalshi is limited in four countries: 
Spain, 
Czechia and 
Brazil, which have ordered its website blocked, and the 
United States, where courts make it geofence some contracts in three states.
None of Spain, Czechia and Brazil is on Kalshi’s list, so Kalshi itself still lets people there trade; the limit comes from the government. Spain’s gambling regulator, the DGOJ, opened a sanction case against Kalshi and Polymarket and ordered both websites blocked nationwide on 26 May 2026 until the case is decided. Brazil’s government blocked 27 prediction market sites on 24 April 2026, with Kalshi and Polymarket among them (Folha de Pernambuco). Czechia’s Ministry of Finance reportedly listed kalshi.com as unauthorised gambling on 30 September 2026, with internet providers given 15 days to block it; we have secondary sources only. In the US the cuts come from state courts, covered in the US section below.
Limited means Kalshi still serves the country but a government blocks it there, or Kalshi closes part of it. Through our VPN servers sign-up loaded in Spain, Czechia and Brazil with no notice; those servers sit in data centres, outside the consumer networks the blocking orders cover. The list is below.
| Category | Countries | Context | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partial service | CFTC-regulated US exchange; state court orders make Kalshi geofence sports and other event contracts in Nevada, Washington and Michigan. | 17 Oct 2026 | |
| Regulatory warning | Not on Kalshi's own list, but the federal government blocked Kalshi with 26 other prediction market sites on 24 April 2026. | 17 Oct 2026 | |
| Regulatory warning | Not on Kalshi's own list, but the gambling regulator DGOJ ordered Kalshi's website blocked nationwide on 26 May 2026, pending a sanction case. | 17 Oct 2026 | |
| Regulatory warning | Not on Kalshi's own restricted list, but the Ministry of Finance reportedly listed kalshi.com as unauthorised gambling on 30 September 2026; ISPs had to block it within 15 days. Secondary sources only. | 19 Oct 2026 |
Where is Kalshi available?
Kalshi is available in the other 137 of the 195 countries we cover, from 
Mexico and 
Nigeria to 
Germany, 
Japan and the 
Netherlands.
None of them is in Kalshi’s member agreement or on the list its sign-up page prints. We checked 46 by name, and the other 91 are available under our coverage rule: no official document from Kalshi or a regulator restricts them, so we record them as available rather than unknown. Kalshi’s help centre says you can trade “from many countries” and points to the agreement for the rules.
Our test backs this up where it reached: sign-up loaded with no notice in all 38 available countries we tested. Available means Kalshi lets you trade there, not that local law allows betting on events; a new national order can move a country to limited, as Spain’s, Czechia’s and Brazil’s did in 2026.
| Category | Countries | Context | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| No restriction |
| Not on Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list. | 19 Oct 2026 |
| No restriction | Not on Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list (section VI of the member agreement, modified 21 September 2026). | 19 Oct 2026 | |
| No restriction | Not on Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list (section VI of the member agreement). | 19 Oct 2026 | |
| No restriction | Not on Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list, and its home page loaded in our geo-access test. | 19 Oct 2026 | |
| No restriction | Not on Kalshi's restricted-jurisdictions list; the site loaded in our test. | 20 Oct 2026 |
Argentina
Austria
Bahrain
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Denmark
El Salvador
Georgia
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Israel
Kazakhstan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Malta
Morocco
Pakistan
Panama
Philippines
Qatar
Romania
Saudi Arabia
Slovakia
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Uruguay
Vietnam
Egypt
Ghana
PeruHow Kalshi compares with Polymarket, country by country
Kalshi and Polymarket are restricted together in 31 countries, but the two lists differ more than their shared fights with regulators suggest.
Kalshi is the more open of the two in eight countries Polymarket restricts, among them Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea, and in eight where Polymarket is limited, mostly by national blocking orders, such as Argentina and Denmark. Polymarket is open in 18 countries on Kalshi’s list, including China, Bulgaria, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates, and only limited in five more, among them Canada, India and Switzerland. Brazil is the one country where Polymarket is restricted and Kalshi limited. The prediction markets inside Coinbase, Gemini and Crypto.com are for US users only, so they do not enter this comparison; they meet Kalshi state by state, in the US section.
Where do Kalshi’s visitors come from?
Kalshi’s audience is American: Semrush puts 85.46% of kalshi.com’s 19.85 million visits in September 2026 in the United States, followed by Brazil at 3.94%, 
Bangladesh, the UK and Canada.
Polymarket draws a wider crowd. For the same month Semrush counts 34.46 million visits to polymarket.com, led by Bangladesh at 20.17%, with the United States second at 17.52%. Similarweb refused our browser on the day we checked, so this section rests on one estimator.
A visit is not a trade. The UK and Canada, both restricted, are in Kalshi’s top five because its pages load everywhere and the restriction applies at sign-up, as our test shows below. Bangladesh near the top of both lists is an estimator pattern we cannot settle; Semrush also ranks it high for other platforms we track.
Kalshi geo-access test: what we saw from 61 countries
In our test kalshi.com loaded in all 61 countries we reached; its sign-up page refused trading in 6 and offered perpetual futures only in 12, and every one of those 18 is on Kalshi’s list.
We ran the test ourselves on 16 October 2026. A browser with a VPN connected to one country at a time and loaded Kalshi’s home and sign-up pages in a fresh private window with no cookies. Cookie banners were hidden but never accepted, and bot checks were waited out, never solved. Each run saved the page text and a screenshot. In six countries the saved text was captured before Kalshi’s pop-up appeared, so we read those results from the screenshot.
All 61 places, 59 of our 195 countries plus Hong Kong and Taiwan, went through VPN servers located in the country. A virtual location in Vietnam, routed through Singapore, got Singapore’s notice, so Kalshi places visitors by the server’s real location and we left virtual locations out.
BlockedHungary · Sign-up page
Hungary, on Kalshi's list since March 2026: sign-up refuses trading and prints Kalshi's own list of prohibited places
“Trading on Kalshi is not available in your country.”
Blocked
Taiwan · Sign-up page
Taiwan, where a court also had Kalshi blocked in October 2026: the same refusal on the sign-up page
“Trading on Kalshi is not available in your country.”
Notice shownUnited Kingdom · Sign-up page
The UK: sign-up offers perpetual futures only, although Kalshi's help centre opens perps to US users only
“Prediction markets are not available.”
Notice shownFrance · Sign-up page
France, on Kalshi's list since launch: the same perps-only notice
“Prediction markets are not available.”
Notice shownCanada · Sign-up page
Canada: perps-only on Kalshi's site; Canadians reach some Kalshi contracts through a local broker instead
“Prediction markets are not available.”
Notice shownAustralia · Sign-up page
Australia, added to the list days after the international launch: perps-only notice at sign-up
“Prediction markets are not available.”
Notice shownSwitzerland · Sign-up page
Switzerland, also on Gespa's blocklist: the same perps-only notice, which Kalshi's sign-up page leaves off its prohibited list
Notice shownPortugal · Sign-up page
Portugal, on Kalshi's list since June 2026: perps-only at sign-up, like the other Western European countries
No barrierSpain · Sign-up page
Spain, where the gambling regulator ordered Kalshi blocked: not on Kalshi's list, and open through our VPN server
No barrierGermany · Sign-up page
Germany, on neither of Kalshi's lists: sign-up open, unlike Polymarket, which restricts Germany
No barrierNetherlands · Sign-up page
The Netherlands, on neither of Kalshi's lists: sign-up open
Notice shownItaly · Sign-up page
Italy: sign-up offers perpetual futures only, with prediction markets switched off
“Prediction markets are not available.”
Notice shownPoland · Sign-up page
Poland, on Kalshi's restricted list: the sign-up page says prediction markets are not available
“Prediction markets are not available.”
No barrier
Turkey · Home page
Turkey: the home page loads with no notice
No barrierBrazil · Home page
The home page loads with no notice, despite the federal block ordered in April 2026
No barrierMexico · Home page
Mexico: the home page loads after a browser check, with no country block
“Prediction Market”
Notice shownBelgium · Sign-up page
Belgium, on Kalshi's restricted list: the sign-up page says prediction markets are not available
“Prediction markets are not available.”
Notice shownIreland · Sign-up page
Ireland: sign-up offers perpetuals only
“In your region, Kalshi is available for Perpetuals trading only. Prediction markets are not available.”
Notice shownNew Zealand · Sign-up page
New Zealand: sign-up says prediction markets are not available
“Prediction markets are not available.”
No barrier
Norway · Sign-up page
Norway: sign-up loads with no notice, ahead of the gambling authority's blocking notice
No barrier
Finland · Sign-up page
Finland: sign-up loads with no notice
No barrier
Greece · Home page
Greece: the home page loads with no notice
BlockedBulgaria · Sign-up page
Bulgaria: sign-up is refused as unavailable in the country
No barrier
Croatia · Home page
Croatia: the home page loads with no notice
No barrier
Latvia · Sign-up page
Latvia: sign-up loads with no notice
No barrier
Estonia · Sign-up page
Estonia: sign-up loads with no notice
No barrier
Lithuania · Home page
Lithuania: the home page loads with no notice
No barrier
Slovenia · Home page
Slovenia: the home page loads with no notice
No barrier
Iceland · Sign-up page
Iceland: sign-up loads with no notice
No barrier
Serbia · Sign-up page
Serbia: sign-up loads with no barrier
CRYPTORESTRICTIONSThe test does not decide a country’s status on its own: official documents come first, and an open sign-up page is not permission under local law. What it shows is how Kalshi enforces its list.
Three patterns stand out. Kalshi tells you why: unlike Polymarket’s silent location check, its sign-up page names the reason, and the refusal prints the whole prohibited list. The perps-only notice goes to the 12 Western countries, Portugal and Switzerland included, while Hungary, Bulgaria and the United Arab Emirates are refused outright. And the government blocks do not show from a data centre: Spain, Czechia and Brazil loaded with no notice, as did the US, where state geofences need a location check that a VPN server outside those states does not trigger.
The 37 restricted countries we did not test, Russia and Iran among them, had no in-country server in our VPN. The full result for every country is below.
All 61 test results, country by country
Kalshi licences and registrations
Kalshi holds two licences, both from the CFTC in the United States; we found none anywhere else.
KalshiEX LLC has been a designated contract market since November 2020, and its clearing house, Kalshi Klear LLC, a registered derivatives clearing organization since August 2024. Perpetual futures run through a third entity: the help centre says most retail users trade them through Kalshi Prime, a registered futures commission merchant that holds their margin in a segregated account. Members abroad trade on the same US exchange under New York law.
United States
- KalshiEX LLC: designated contract market, CFTC, since 4 November 2020.
- Kalshi Klear LLC: derivatives clearing organization, CFTC, since 29 August 2024.
- Kalshi Prime: futures commission merchant for perpetual futures, according to Kalshi’s help centre.
Everywhere else
- No licence found. Spain’s DGOJ treats prediction markets as gambling that needs a Spanish licence, and Switzerland’s Gespa lists kalshi.com among unlicensed games. Kalshi’s contracts also reach users through partners: Coinbase’s US prediction markets are operated by Kalshi, according to Coinbase’s help page.
Is Kalshi available in the US?
Yes, with cuts: Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated US exchange, but court orders make it geofence some contracts in Nevada, Washington and Michigan, so we record the US as limited.
Kalshi argues that federal law puts its event contracts beyond state gambling rules, and the courts have split. The Third Circuit sided with Kalshi against New Jersey in April 2026, and New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to take the case. The Ninth Circuit ruled for Nevada in August, and the Sixth Circuit for Ohio and Tennessee in September; Kalshi has asked the Sixth Circuit to rehear.
Three states have orders that cut contracts, all from state courts:
- Nevada: an injunction of 18 May 2026 bars sports, election and entertainment contracts, and Kalshi agreed to a third-party geofence by 12 August, the Gaming Control Board said.
- Washington: a court order of 13 August 2026 bars sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, tech, science and mentions markets; financial markets stay open.
- Michigan: a preliminary injunction of 1 September 2026 keeps sports contracts geofenced.
Elsewhere the fight is still in court. New York’s attorney general sued Kalshi in July 2026, and in Massachusetts an injunction against sports contracts is stayed while the state’s highest court hears the appeal (SJC-13906). We record a state only once an order in force says what Kalshi must stop.
Kalshi and its US rivals, state by state
Kalshi is not the only US exchange the states are fighting, and its rivals have given up more ground.
Coinbase’s prediction markets are Kalshi’s own contracts, yet Coinbase closes them entirely in Nevada and Michigan, where Kalshi cuts only some. Crypto.com has withdrawn sports contracts from seven states and every prediction market from Arizona, according to CDC Gaming, which leaves it with the most cuts of the five. Gemini stopped sports contracts in Connecticut after a cease-and-desist order, while Polymarket US shares Kalshi’s Nevada injunction and its Michigan sports cut. State sports-contract orders in Connecticut and Missouri also reach Kalshi and Polymarket US, and Connecticut’s reaches Coinbase and Crypto.com too, with Missouri’s covering Crypto.com. Washington’s order, the broadest, applies to Kalshi alone.
Kalshi and the CFTC: timeline
Kalshi’s federal fight came first. The CFTC refused its contracts on control of Congress in September 2023 as gaming; a federal court set that decision aside in September 2024, election contracts launched weeks later, and the CFTC dropped its appeal in May 2025. We found no CFTC penalty against Kalshi. Since then the CFTC has backed Kalshi: in August 2026 it used emergency powers to keep Kalshi operating during New York’s suit, and in June it proposed rules on which event contracts count as gaming.
Kalshi KYC and identity verification
Every Kalshi member is identified before trading: name and date of birth must match a government photo ID, and members abroad first confirm their country of residence.
Kalshi’s help centre asks for a driver’s licence or passport photographed live in the app, and may ask for proof of address, employment information or the source of funds; a selfie is needed only in some cases. US members can be asked for a Social Security number later, for tax forms and interest. The member agreement cites the USA PATRIOT Act and lets Kalshi run a criminal background check or review your credit report. Kalshi publishes no verification tiers.
The minimum age is 18, and the agreement adds the age of majority where you live. One account per person is allowed.
Kalshi identity checks: history
The checks have moved from who you are to where you are. The CFTC’s February 2026 advisory cited two Kalshi disciplinary cases against insiders, and the House Oversight Committee asked in May how Kalshi verifies identities and enforces geographic limits. The state orders then required location checks by a third-party provider, starting with Nevada’s 12 August deadline.
What if Kalshi is restricted where you live?
It depends on the country: of the 21 other platforms we track, 20 are available in Kenya and 17 in New Zealand, but none in Ukraine and only one in Cuba, Iran and North Korea.
Getting around the block is not an option. The member agreement bars trading from a restricted jurisdiction whether you live there or are only located there, so a VPN does not change your eligibility. What is left is a platform that is allowed to serve you where you live.
Among prediction markets, Polymarket is available in 18 of Kalshi’s restricted countries and limited in five, while the markets inside Coinbase, Gemini and Crypto.com are for US users only. Most remaining options are crypto exchanges and DeFi protocols rather than prediction markets. For the full picture in one country, start from its country page, linked in the lists above.
