Who pays funding, longs or shorts?

When the rate is positive, long holders pay short holders; when it is negative, shorts pay longs. The payment moves between traders, not to the exchange, and it is settled at each interval based on your position size at that moment.

Does funding apply if I close before the settlement time?

No. Funding is charged only on positions open at the settlement timestamp. A position opened and closed entirely between two settlements pays no funding at all, which is why very short-horizon strategies can ignore it while multi-day ones cannot.

Can I earn funding instead of paying it?

Yes — holding the side that receives, typically short when funding is positive. The delta-neutral version pairs a short perpetual against spot to collect funding without directional exposure. That trade has real risks of its own: rate reversal, exchange risk, and the margin needed to keep the short from being liquidated during a rally.

The cost that accrues while you wait

Funding Rate Calculator

Perpetual funding converted into cash per interval, per day, per holding period — and annualised.

Updated 2026-08-18

Funding is a periodic payment exchanged between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract to keep its price tethered to spot. A positive rate means longs pay shorts. The number is quoted per interval — usually every 8 hours, three times a day — which makes it look negligible: 0.01% per interval is 0.03% a day, but 10.95% a year. On a $10,000 position held a month that is $30, charged regardless of whether the price moved at all.

Position and rate

Position notional (USDT)

Funding rate per interval (%)

Enter a negative rate to model being paid instead of paying

Intervals per day

Most venues settle every 8 hours (3 per day)

Days held

Runs entirely in your browser. No inputs are transmitted or stored.

Funding cost

Annualised rate: —
Total over the period: —
Cost per day: —
Cost per interval: —
Total as % of notional: —

Funding is charged on notional, not on margin. A 10× leveraged position pays ten times the funding of an unleveraged one holding the same margin — which is why leveraged carry strategies can be net negative before the price does anything.

The formula

Per interval = Notional × Rate %
Per day      = Per interval × Intervals per day
Total        = Per day × Days held
Annualised   = Rate % × Intervals per day × 365

Positive rate: longs pay shorts. Negative rate: shorts pay longs.
Assumes a constant rate; real funding is re-quoted every interval.

1 Enter the notional value of the position — size × price, not the margin behind it.
2 Enter the funding rate for one interval, as a percentage. Use a negative value if you would be receiving.
3 Set intervals per day (usually 3) and how many days you expect to hold.
4 Read the annualised rate and compare it against the return the strategy is designed to produce.

Why the annualised figure is the one to look at

Per-interval rates are small enough to be dismissed and frequent enough to compound into the dominant cost of a slow strategy. Three settlements a day at 0.01% is 10.95% annualised — comparable to the entire expected return of many systematic strategies. Any position intended to be held for weeks has to be evaluated against this number, not against the per-interval quote that appears on the trading screen.

Funding is a signal as well as a cost

Persistently positive funding means the market is paying to stay long, which is crowding information rather than price information. Extended periods of elevated positive funding often precede long-side liquidation cascades, because the same leverage paying the funding is the leverage that gets force-closed. Reading funding only as a fee misses half of what it tells you.

Sources

Perpetual funding fee mechanism — OKX
Fundamentals of Perpetual Futures — Songrun He, Asaf Manela, Omri Ross & Victor von Wachter (arXiv preprint 2212.06888)
Perpetual Futures Pricing — Damien Ackerer, Julien Hugonnier & Urban Jermann (arXiv preprint 2310.11771)

Educational calculator. Outputs describe arithmetic under the assumptions you enter — they are not a forecast, a recommendation, or investment advice. Quantitative trading can lose money.

Frequently asked

Short answers, with the assumptions stated.

Who pays funding, longs or shorts?: When the rate is positive, long holders pay short holders; when it is negative, shorts pay longs. The payment moves between traders, not to the exchange, and it is settled at each interval based on your position size at that moment.
Does funding apply if I close before the settlement time?: No. Funding is charged only on positions open at the settlement timestamp. A position opened and closed entirely between two settlements pays no funding at all, which is why very short-horizon strategies can ignore it while multi-day ones cannot.
Can I earn funding instead of paying it?: Yes — holding the side that receives, typically short when funding is positive. The delta-neutral version pairs a short perpetual against spot to collect funding without directional exposure. That trade has real risks of its own: rate reversal, exchange risk, and the margin needed to keep the short from being liquidated during a rally.

Take the number into a terminal that enforces it

Position caps, drawdown stops, and liquidation distance are limits QANTERION applies while a strategy runs — not figures you re-check by hand.

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