Polymarket Region by Region: What Each Restriction Allows

Why two official pages give two lists

Polymarket keeps one list in its developer documentation and another in its help center. The help center article carries the date August 14, 2026, while the documentation page shows no date, so the order in which they were written cannot be told. The documentation announces no count at all. Its three groups hold 49 entries for 48 distinct places, because North Korea sits in both the fully blocked group and the close-only group.

The vocabulary differs too. The documentation sorts places into three statuses. The help center uses three lists, blocked countries, blocked regions and close-only countries, and its own close-only list overlaps its blocked list, as the cards below show. The three layers of rules around these lists, and the broker matrix, live in the prediction markets overview; this page stays with Polymarket's own wording.

The stricter of the two readings is the sensible working assumption for your own country, because a position you expect to close under close-only may be frozen under a full block, and the pages give no way to tell which description is current. The help center also ties permissions to physical location rather than residency.

The official pages publish lists of restricted places and no list of countries served. A region missing from both lists is therefore unlisted, which is a weaker thing than approved.

Who can access Polymarket: what each status allows

One card per status. Each names the places as each page names them, then lists what the pages leave out.

The United States shows how far the pages blur. The documentation puts it under close-only and the help center under blocked, while a separate help article dated June 25, 2026 says polymarket.com is not accessible to US residents, who cannot deposit or place trades there. The same article calls Polymarket US a separate product with its own accounts and support team, and Polymarket's site describes it as run by QCX LLC, a CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market.

Access and funds in a restricted country

One official passage touches withdrawal, the help center's Germany example. Trading is prohibited there, existing positions must be held until the market resolves so the shares can be redeemed, and after that funds can be withdrawn without restrictions. It speaks for Germany alone, and the two sources describe Germany differently: the documentation lists it as close-only, where positions can be closed, while the help center lists it as blocked and mentions no closing.

Location checks are explained from the Pinnacle side in the page on location checks at registration; the reasoning carries over to any platform that enforces one.

Putting money in: the bridge and its traps

Polymarket's documentation describes a crypto bridge that converts supported assets into pUSD on Polygon. It lists more than a dozen networks and says the list changes over time, so any fixed count you read elsewhere ages fast. The help center's overview calls the collateral USDC where the documentation says pUSD, one more place where the two sources use different words.

The help center says your deposit address is tied to your profile and cannot be changed or regenerated. It also says transactions sent to the wrong chain or address cannot be reversed, and the documentation warns that unsupported tokens may cause irrecoverable loss. A recovery tool exists, yet the help center describes it as an attempt. Its own advice is to test with a small amount first, which costs little next to an error that cannot be undone.

Minimums show how far the sources drift. The documentation lists 2 dollars on most networks, 7 on Ethereum and 9 on Bitcoin and Tron, while the help center gives 20 dollars for Ethereum and 3 for Solana as examples. Say you send the equivalent of 10 dollars over Ethereum: the documentation's figure clears and the help center's example does not. The consequences differ as well. One documentation page says deposits below the minimum will not be processed, another says they may fail, and the help center says they stay pending until the cumulative amount reaches the minimum. An amount above the larger figure clears every version.

If a country moves to close-only while a bridge deposit is still pending, what then?

Who decides the outcome: the UMA oracle

Polymarket resolves markets through the UMA Optimistic Oracle and publishes each market's rules before it opens: the resolution source, the end date and the edge cases. The documentation's advice is to read them before trading, and it is the cheapest step on this page.

A proposer posts a bond, typically 750 pUSD, and a challenge period of 2 hours follows. Left unchallenged, a market resolves about 2 hours after the proposal. A first challenge brings a new proposal. A second escalates to a vote of UMA token holders, after a debate of 24 to 48 hours and a vote of about 48 hours, so a fully disputed market takes 4 to 6 days in total. Those are the documentation's stated estimates and they promise nothing. The possible outcomes are yes, no, or unknown/50-50, where each token redeems for 0.50 dollars; winning tokens pay 1 dollar. The 50-50 case and what it does to a stake are worked through in the settlement comparison with sportsbooks.

Broker access to Polymarket: what is listed and what stays unsaid

Three brokers list Polymarket on their own pages. BetInAsia's help article on its BLACK tool, updated 2026-09-26, lists Polymarket among the exchanges. MadMarket lists it on Edge. Sportmarket shows Polymarket in the Pro account, switched on by default with a setting to turn it off.

Each comes with a weak spot. BetInAsia reviewers describe compliance reviews that ask for the same documents repeatedly and leave balances frozen, some for over 100 days, and the broker says it is not responsible when a third-party book cancels a bet. MadMarket has operated only since 2024 and draws no independent reviews worth reading, so its pages are its own account of itself, and its terms let it refuse or cap any bet. Sportmarket wants each deposit turned over five times before withdrawal or a 2 to 5 percent fee applies, and it can ask for proof of the source of funds even after an identity check has passed.

All three exclude residents of the United States, the United Kingdom and France in the terms on file, BetInAsia's copy dating from 2024, so read the live text. That is a second reason to stop for a reader in those countries, independent of Polymarket's lists.

How a broker account relates to Polymarket's own location rules, to its stance on the tools in the note above, or to a close-only status is left unsaid by all three. That is a limit of the evidence, and it leaves the question open in both directions. The broker-by-broker matrix in the hub shows the same gap. A broker listing is a weak reason to expect Polymarket to treat your account differently, because a listing describes a menu and never a residence rule. For how each broker holds your balance, see the review of broker safety claims.