Perp DEX With the Best Funding Rates (2026)

What funding rates are and why they matter more than fees

A trading fee is paid once, on open and on close. Funding is paid continuously, every hour (or every eight hours on some venues), for the entire duration a position is open. On a popular long-biased market during a bull run, funding on a BTC long can run 0.01-0.05% per hour. Eight hours at 0.03% on a $10,000 position costs $24 in funding — more than a full round-trip taker fee at any venue in PerpFinder's tracked set.

The table above ranks by liquidity score rather than by a point-in-time funding rate. The reason: funding rates change hourly and any snapshot is stale within minutes. Liquidity score is a better proxy for persistent funding rate quality — venues with deeper liquidity see tighter funding spreads because there is more capital available to arbitrage long/short imbalances back toward zero.

Hyperliquid scores 9.5/10 on liquidity. Its funding mechanism targets the gap between Hyperliquid's mark price and oracle reference prices. With the deepest order book in the on-chain perp space, the mark-oracle gap stays tighter than on any other DEX, which translates to more moderate funding in most market conditions. dYdX at 9.0/10 uses a similar approach on its Cosmos chain. GMX at 8.5/10 uses borrow fees rather than traditional funding — the cost model is different but achieves a similar liquidity-providing incentive.

GMX's borrow fee model vs traditional funding

GMX V2 charges a borrow fee based on pool utilization rather than a long/short imbalance. If 70% of available BTC liquidity in the GM pool is used by open longs, the borrow rate rises. If utilization drops to 30%, the rate falls. This differs from Hyperliquid's mechanism, which compares the Hyperliquid price to the oracle price.

The practical difference: GMX's borrow fee is paid by whoever is on the utilization-heavy side, regardless of long/short split. On Hyperliquid, funding is paid from the majority side to the minority side. In a strongly one-sided market, Hyperliquid funding can peak higher than GMX borrow rates. In a balanced market, GMX's utilization-based cost can be higher.

PerpFinder tracks live funding rates for all venues at /tools/funding-rates. Checking that tool before sizing a position that you plan to hold for multiple days is more useful than this ranking alone.

Worked funding cost example

A $50,000 BTC long, held for 7 days, at different funding scenarios:

- Neutral market (0.005%/hr): $50,000 × 0.005% × 168 hours = $420 - Bullish market (0.02%/hr): $50,000 × 0.02% × 168 hours = $1,680 - Peak bull (0.05%/hr): $50,000 × 0.05% × 168 hours = $4,200

At peak bull funding, a week-long hold costs more in funding than a full year of taker fees at 4.5 bps. This is why funding rate management matters more than fee optimization for position traders. A venue with 0 bps taker fees but consistently high funding is more expensive to use than a venue with 5 bps taker fees and tight funding.

Pick high-liquidity venues if...

You hold positions for more than 24 hours. Taker fees are fixed and paid once. Funding accumulates as long as the position is open. The deeper the venue's liquidity, the more arbitrage capital exists to keep funding near zero. Hyperliquid and dYdX are the best choices for multi-day position holders based on this logic.

You want to be on the receiving side of funding. If market sentiment is heavily one-sided and you want to take the minority position, high-liquidity venues pay more reliable funding income because the imbalance is real and the counterparty flow is genuinely there.

Skip this page if...

You scalp or day-trade. Funding on a 30-minute position is economically irrelevant — a single tick of price movement dwarfs the hourly funding cost. Optimize for taker fees and execution quality instead. The low-fees page and full perp listing are better starting points.