Funding is the line that catches people. On a gold perpetual such as XAUUSDT, Binance's public futures API lists a funding interval of 4 hours, which means six settlements a day, and caps each period's rate at ±0.5%. The trading fee comes off a page of its own, the TradFi Futures Trading Fee Rate table: a Regular User pays 0.0000% as maker and 0.0400% as taker, VIP 2 pays 0.0320% taker and VIP 3 pays 0.0256%. Binance's Chinese-language USDⓈ-M fee page describes these TradFi rates as a promotion and shows no end date (our paraphrase, checked October 2026). Those are the rates we read in October 2026; check the live page before you size a position, because they can change.
Put together, a gold perp trade from open to close costs:
notional at open × your rate + notional at close × your rate + one funding payment per 4-hour settlement you hold through
The first two depend on whether each fill was maker or taker. The third piles up with time, and it can run in your favour as easily as against you.
1. The trading fee table
The TradFi table is short. Three of its rows, as shown on the English page:
| Tier | 30D trade volume (USD) | Maker | Taker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular User | < 5,000,000 | 0.0000% | 0.0400% |
| VIP 2 | see live page | 0.0000% | 0.0320% |
| VIP 3 | see live page | 0.0000% | 0.0256% |
From Binance's TradFi Futures Trading Fee Rate page (English version), checked October 2026. Rates change; the live page prevails.
Two details on that page are easy to miss. The first is a footnote: “Trade volume includes all Futures volumes from USDⓈ-M and COIN-M Futures.” Your gold fills and your crypto futures fills count toward the same tier. The second is what the table leaves out. There are only two rate columns, Maker and Taker, and no BNB discount column at all. Whether BNB can pay for TradFi futures fees is not stated anywhere on the page.
A zero maker rate is the big one. If you can wait for a resting order to fill, the trading-fee side of the trade costs nothing at today's promotional rates; why that gap exists at all is covered in maker vs taker: the gap and how to post. Silver (XAGUSDT) sits on the same table and uses the same funding settings, so everything below works for it with a different price.
2. Funding: four hours, ±0.5% a period
Funding is a payment between longs and shorts rather than a fee Binance keeps; the mechanics are in what the funding rate really costs a position. What changes on gold is the settings. Here is what the fundingInfo endpoint returned in October 2026:
| Contract | fundingIntervalHours | Settlements a day | Cap / floor per period |
|---|---|---|---|
| XAUUSDT (gold) | 4 | 6 | 0.005 / −0.005, i.e. ±0.5% |
| XAGUSDT (silver) | 4 | 6 | ±0.5% |
| BTCUSDT (for comparison) | 8 | 3 | 0.003 / −0.003, i.e. ±0.3% |
Raw values of adjustedFundingRateCap, adjustedFundingRateFloor and fundingIntervalHours, checked October 2026; settings can change. Settlements a day = 24 ÷ interval.
The settlement history agrees. The last four XAUUSDT funding records we pulled, from 19–20 October 2026 (UTC), are exactly 14,400,000 milliseconds apart, which is four hours. Their rates were 0.006014%, 0.007068%, 0% and 0.001603%, with mark prices between 4,132.93 and 4,153.68 USDT. Ordinary periods sit nowhere near the cap.
3. One hypothetical ticket, start to finish
This is an example; size and price are our assumptions, with the price set near the October 2026 mark prices above. A Regular User opens 0.1 XAUUSDT long at 4,140 USDT, a notional of 414 USDT, holds through those four settlements, and closes at the same price.
| Example | Sum | USDT |
|---|---|---|
| Taker fee on open | 414 × 0.04% | 0.1656 |
| Taker fee on close | 414 × 0.04% | 0.1656 |
| Four funding periods (mark price × 0.1 × that period's rate) | 0.0250 + 0.0293 + 0 + 0.0066 | about 0.061 |
| Same trade, both fills as maker | 414 × 0% × 2 | 0 |
Example only, not a quote. Fees use the October 2026 Regular User rates; funding uses the four real rates from the same month. Whether you pay or receive funding depends on the sign of the rate and your side, so the table shows sizes only.
About 0.33 USDT in taker fees and six cents of funding. Now run the cap: 414 × 0.5% = 2.07 USDT per period, 12.42 USDT across six periods, about 37.5 times the round-trip taker fee. That figure is an extreme bound worked out from the API cap, not a typical day.
To read the sign on each funding line in your history, see the funding row in your history: which way it went. Expect twice as many rows as on a BTC perp.
4. Checking your own fill
- From your futures trade history, note the price, quantity, fee charged and whether the fill was maker or taker. Notional = price × quantity.
- A taker fill should cost roughly notional × your tier's taker rate (0.04% for Regular Users). A maker fill should show zero at the October 2026 rates. Check open and close separately.
- Find the funding entries: at most one per four hours. Each is roughly mark price at settlement × position size × that period's rate.
- Fees plus funding is what the trade cost you, or paid you, on top of profit and loss.
If a maker fill was charged, confirm the contract really is a TradFi perpetual: the API labels these TRADIFI_PERPETUAL, margined in USDT. Then look at the live fee page in case the rates have moved. Fewer funding lines than expected usually means the position was not open at one of the settlement times.
Two more figures from the same API: XAUUSDT has a minimum order notional of 5 USDT and a minimum quantity of 0.001, and its liquidationFee field reads 0.015. The fee page does not explain what base that applies to, and we leave it there.
Options are another Binance contract that is not charged like spot, with a different base and a cap; see crypto options fees, worked out.
Three quick answers
- How often is funding charged on gold perpetuals?
- Every 4 hours. Binance's public futures API lists a funding interval of 4 hours for XAUUSDT, so six settlements a day, with the per-period rate capped at +0.5% and floored at -0.5%. BTCUSDT shows 8 hours and ±0.3% in the same API. These are the October 2026 values and can change.
- Is there a maker fee on gold perpetuals?
- Not on the table we read in October 2026: every row from Regular User to VIP 3 shows 0.0000% maker. Check the live TradFi fee page before relying on it, since the rates can change.
- Can BNB pay for gold perpetual fees at a discount?
- The TradFi fee table has only Maker and Taker columns and no BNB discount column, and the page does not say either way. We are not guessing; your trade history shows what was actually deducted and in which asset.