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Onboarding a retail trader onto your platform is the KYC process. You collect the trader’s required information and submit it; Polymarket US performs the identity verification and makes the decision. When KYC is approved, a Participant (their trading identity) and an Account (their balances and positions) are created automatically — there is no separate “create user” or “create account” step. This section has three parts that fit together:

KYC Verification

The process. Collect and submit identity information; Polymarket US verifies and decides.

Participants

The identity created. The trading identity you act on behalf of after approval.

Accounts

The account created. The container for the participant’s balances and positions.

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How they fit together

KYC verification is asynchronous: you submit the participant’s information, and Polymarket US notifies your platform of the decision via a webhook. On approval, the Participant and Account already exist and are ready for funding and trading.
  1. You collect each trader’s required details and present the appropriate participant agreement.
  2. You submit the information through the KYC endpoints.
  3. Polymarket US verifies the identity asynchronously and makes the decision — you do not perform the verification yourself.
  4. You’re notified by webhook when the outcome is terminal. On approval, the kyc.approved event carries the participant’s provisioned_account and provisioned_participant once the trading account is provisioned (provisioning is asynchronous, so this can arrive shortly after the initial response).
  5. On approval, the trader’s Participant identity and Account are already provisioned. Once their account is funded (coming soon), they can trade.
Prefer the webhook over polling. Register a KYC webhook so your platform is informed the moment a decision is made. An ACCEPT decision means the Participant and Account are provisioned for you with no separate setup call, but provisioning is asynchronous: their identifiers arrive on the kyc.approved event (which can follow shortly after the initial response), so don’t assume they’re on the first response. You can still fall back to GET /v1/kyc/status for one-off checks.
One process, two results. Think of KYC as the onboarding action and the Participant and Account as its outputs. You never create them directly — a successful KYC produces both.

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Where to go next

Start with KYC

The verification workflow, prefill, and document verification.

Set up status webhooks

Receive the async KYC decision instead of polling.

Act on participants

Resolve who you can act for and use the x-participant-id header.

Funding

How an approved participant’s account is funded (coming soon).