The Quick Answer
The Quick Answer: Kalshi says no deal this year. As of 6:55 a.m. ET Thursday, September 10, "US-Iran nuclear deal before January 1, 2027" costs 8.3 cents to buy on Kalshi, with 7.4 cents bid, and every rung between now and then is priced in single digits. The money that expects a deal soon has given up; the price that still pays for one is out at 2028 (23 to 26 cents) and at the end of the Trump administration, January 20, 2029 (29 to 32). Three months ago Polymarket paid out "yes" on the same document that Kalshi ruled did not count. Why the two venues split, what the ladder says about each deadline, and the 94,000-contract print that hit at 2:33 p.m. Wednesday are below.
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On June 14 the United States and Iran announced they had an agreement. Three days later the presidents signed it, Trump at a Versailles dinner and Pezeshkian in Tehran, and the headline writers called it a deal. One prediction market paid its "nuclear deal" contracts at a dollar that week. The other one, the one this page is about, published a clarification the day of the signing saying the document did not qualify, and kept trading. Everything the Kalshi ladder has done since flows from that ruling: a market that will not pay on a handshake, a framework, or a promise to keep talking has to price the thing the two governments have never produced, a written text with a limit in it you could check. That is why this board has a shape most political ladders do not, near-zero for every date this year and a real bid for 2028 and beyond, and why one trader spent about $87,000 on Wednesday afternoon to say so. The rule comes first, because nothing on the board makes sense without it.
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The Board
Every price is Kalshi's, pulled at 6:55 a.m. ET Thursday, September 10. "Cost to buy" is the ask on the Yes side; the bid is what you would get selling it. Volume is contracts traded in the trailing 24 hours; open interest is contracts still held.
| Deal Signed... | Bid / cost to buy | Last trade | Last trade 24h earlier | 24h volume | Open interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before Aug 1, 2026 | settled No | 0 | 1,102,051 at settlement | ||
| Before Sep 1, 2026 | settled No | 0 | 1,047,532 at settlement | ||
| Before Oct 1, 2026 | 1 / 2 | 2 | 2 | 42,068 | 335,467 |
| Before Nov 1, 2026 | 2 / 3 | 3 | 4 | 18,746 | 169,016 |
| Before Dec 1, 2026 | 5 / 6 | 6 | 6 | 8,401 | 79,840 |
| Before Jan 1, 2027 | 7.4 / 8.3 | 8.3 | 8.6 | 99,505 | 471,443 |
| Before Feb 1, 2027 | 7 / 11 | 10 | 9 | 271 | 8,338 |
| Before Mar 1, 2027 | 9 / 11 | 9 | 9 | 709 | 23,890 |
| Before Jan 1, 2028 | 23 / 26 | 22 | 26 | 1,946 | 35,127 |
| Before Jan 20, 2029 | 29 / 32 | 29 | 34 | 175 | 33,209 |
The row to read first is the one that already paid. "Before August 1" settled No with 1.1 million contracts open, and "before September 1" settled No with a little over a million. That is more than two million contracts that were still held on the day each deadline passed, on a question whose headline answer, for anyone reading the news in June, was yes. The people holding No on those rungs were not betting against diplomacy. They were betting that Kalshi's referee would read the June document the way it said it would, and they were paid for it.
These are market prices, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state).
The Deal Polymarket Paid And Kalshi Didn't
The document is the Islamabad Memorandum, a 14-point memorandum of understanding announced June 14, announced as digitally signed by representatives on June 15, and signed by Trump and Pezeshkian on June 17. It ended the war that began February 28, had Iran arrange passage without charge for commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days, provided for the naval blockade's removal within 30 days and for oil waivers, and committed both sides to negotiate a final deal within 60 days, extendable by consent. Its nuclear language is point 8: Iran reaffirms it will not acquire nuclear weapons, and the two sides agree to resolve the disposition of Iran's enriched uranium "through a mutual mechanism," with the "minimum methodology to be downblending on site under the supervision of the IAEA." Point 9 froze the status quo, Iran's program included, until a final deal.
Polymarket's contracts asked whether "an official agreement over Iranian nuclear research and/or nuclear weapon development, defined as a publicly announced mutual agreement," had been reached. By that standard June 14 was enough. Its "US-Iran nuclear deal by June 30?" market, with about $11.3 million traded, closed on June 15 and resolved Yes, and its "before 2027" market resolved Yes the same day. A memorandum in which Iran promises not to build a bomb is, on a plain reading, an agreement about nuclear weapon development.
| What Resolves "Yes" | Polymarket (paid June 15) | Kalshi (still trading) |
|---|---|---|
| Form Of The Deal | "A publicly announced mutual agreement" between the US and Iran | "A formal written agreement signed by authorized representatives of both" governments, or both publicly and officially agreeing to its terms |
| Nuclear Test | Any "official agreement over Iranian nuclear research and/or nuclear weapon development" | "Verifiable restrictions on Iran's nuclear program," meaning a defined limit, prohibition, quantity or monitoring provision |
| Sanctions Test | None | "Lifting, suspension, or modification of at least one US economic sanction" in exchange for the nuclear commitments |
| The June Memorandum | Qualified | Did not qualify: it "defers its substantive nuclear commitments to a subsequent agreement" |
| Deadlines Paid SO Far | "By June 30" and "before 2027," both Yes | "Before August 1" and "before September 1," both No |
The table's last row is the whole story. The same document, read under two rulebooks, paid a dollar on one exchange and zero on the other, twice.
Kalshi's rule asks for two other things. Quoted from the contract: a qualifying deal is "a formal written agreement signed by authorized representatives of both the United States and Iran that (1) imposes verifiable restrictions on Iran's nuclear program, including limits on uranium enrichment, centrifuge numbers, or nuclear facility operations, AND (2) provides for the lifting, suspension, or modification of at least one US economic sanction on Iran in exchange for Iran's nuclear commitments." On the second test it was never in doubt: it put a schedule for terminating sanctions and immediate oil waivers in writing, and Kalshi's ruling never disputed that half. It failed the first, and Kalshi said so on the day of the signing. Its June 17 clarification, verbatim: "the U.S.–Iran memorandum of understanding reportedly now in effect does not satisfy criterion (1)... The memorandum provides for the existing state of Iran's nuclear program to be maintained pending a subsequent agreement, and defers the disposition of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium to a mechanism to be mutually agreed in that subsequent agreement." The down-blending line "specifies no quantity, enrichment level, or completion deadline," and "an instrument that provides for maintaining Iran's nuclear program at an unspecified status quo, or that defers its substantive nuclear commitments to a subsequent agreement, does not by itself establish the concrete, objectively ascertainable standard that a 'verifiable' restriction requires."
That ruling had a warm-up. On June 2, before the memorandum existed, Kalshi had already added that "a bare pledge not to develop or pursue nuclear weapons, unaccompanied by any concrete limit on Iran's nuclear materials, activities, or facilities, does not on its own satisfy criterion (1)," while a commitment to "completely 'stop' or 'suspend'" enrichment would, because zero is a number. So the test for this board is not whether Washington and Tehran shake hands. It is whether a signed text contains a limit you could check: a stockpile figure, a centrifuge count, an enrichment cap, a facility that stays closed. The memorandum had none, which is why a contract that reads "US-Iran nuclear deal?" on the front page went on trading at pennies through the one week in 2026 when the deal was on every front page.
What Happened After The Signing
The 60-day window ran to August 17, and it expired without an extension, but its implementation had collapsed weeks earlier. By July 8, after Iranian missile launches at commercial vessels and a US strike on more than 80 targets, Trump declared the memorandum "over" and Iran suspended its side citing US breaches. The paper deadline still ran about six more weeks, and on the Sunday before it lapsed Iran's foreign minister was saying "We have not yet made a decision to restart negotiations with the United States," with Qatar and Pakistan carrying messages between the two sides instead. Neither side invoked the extension clause, and Monday, August 17 passed with the nuclear file, on the outside read of the one July round in Doha, never reached in depth.
The two governments then said, a day apart, where they stand. On September 1, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Pezeshkian offered the memorandum back: "I am stating clearly that if the US returns to its commitments under the Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately reciprocate." On September 2, asked about exactly that, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News by phone: "Well look, that ship, in many ways, has sailed." He went on: "At the core issue here is that they're never going to have a nuclear weapon. As long as they continue to endeavor, or claim to want one, they're going to pay a price for it." Four days later Energy Secretary Chris Wright went further on ABC's This Week: "There may not be a nuclear agreement. It may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it." And, on when one might come: "An agreement may await a next administration in Iran. We simply don't know that."
Read those three quotes against the rulebook and the ladder's shape explains itself. Iran's offer is a return to the document Kalshi already ruled out. Washington's answer is that the document is dead and the replacement is a nuclear condition, which is the one thing the memorandum never specified. And the Cabinet's public floor for the outcome is no agreement at all. The mediators are still working: Iran International, citing an Al Arabiya report on September 4, said Pakistan, Qatar and Oman "remain in contact with Iran and the United States in an effort to de-escalate tensions,". But de-escalation is not a text, and the week since has run the other way. On Saturday, September 5, after the Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles at a US carrier and destroyer, US forces disabled two Iranian crude carriers and destroyed a third. Three days later, on Tuesday, September 8, Iran's security council secretary announced a "maritime exclusion zone" across the Gulf, and CENTCOM hit tankers near Kharg Island and Jask again that afternoon. Our Strait of Hormuz odds page has that week rung by rung; the short version is that the reopening ladder and this one moved the same way, nothing near, something far.
Wednesday added the referee to the record. The IAEA's 35-nation board voted 23 to 3, with eight abstentions, to report Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in two decades, over "continued non-compliance" with an investigation into uranium traces at undeclared sites; Russia, China and Niger voted no. Inspectors have not been inside the sites struck in June 2025, and the agency's last verified count of Iran's 60 percent uranium, about 440 kilograms, predates those strikes. That matters for this market more than it might seem: criterion (1) requires a restriction that could "in principle be confirmed," and the June 2 clarification names a stockpile transfer or cap "confirmable by the receiving state or an oversight body" as a qualifying restriction. A deal that caps a stockpile nobody has counted since June 2025 needs the IAEA back in the buildings before the cap means anything, and the IAEA board spent Wednesday voting to hand the file to the Security Council instead.
The Tape: One Minute On Wednesday Afternoon
Wednesday was a big day on this ladder: about 172,000 contracts across the rungs in the 24 hours to 6:55 a.m. Thursday, 99,505 of them on the January rung, whose full Wednesday session came to 103,055 on a rung that usually trades a few hundred to a few thousand a day. In the 35 sessions we pulled, its next-biggest day was 23,915 contracts on Sunday, August 16, the day before the memorandum's window lapsed. The trade log shows where most of Wednesday's total came from. At 2:33:44 p.m. ET on Wednesday, September 9, a single print of 94,262 contracts went through on "before January 1, 2027," with the taker on the No side at a Yes price of 7.4 cents, meaning the aggressor bought No at 92.6 cents and the resting Yes bid at 7.4 absorbed it. Twenty seconds later, at 2:34:04, the same side, by every sign the tape gives, hit October: 34,338 No contracts across 26 fills in that one second, 31,951 of them at a Yes price of one cent and 2,387 at two. At 2:35:35 it took November, 10,863 No across 20 fills, all but 33 of them at two cents. About 139,500 contracts in 111 seconds, all one direction, on the January rung and the two nearest live deadlines, and not on December, which traded Yes 20 minutes later. None of the fills was flagged as a block trade.
| Time (ET, Wed Sep 9) | Rung | Contracts | Taker side | Yes price | What the taker paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2:33:44 P.m. | Before Jan 1, 2027 | 94,262 | No | 7.4 | 92.6 cents per contract |
| 2:34:04 P.m. | Before Oct 1, 2026 | 34,338 in 26 fills | No | 1 (31,951) and 2 (2,387) | 99 and 98 cents |
| 2:35:35 P.m. | Before Nov 1, 2026 | 10,863 in 20 fills | No | 2 (10,830) and 3 (33) | 98 and 97 cents |
The read: one side, three rungs, two minutes, and a quote that barely moved. That is a trader taking size at the price already on the screen, not a repricing on news.
What that trader paid tells you what they think. Buying No at 92.6 on the January rung risks about $87,000 to make about $7,000 if no qualifying deal is signed by New Year's, a return of eight percent for less than four months, or roughly what the market thinks the chance of a deal is, inverted. The October and November legs were the same trade at its extreme, 99 and 98 cents laid to collect one and two. The tape cannot say who did it, or whether the IAEA vote that day was the trigger. What it can say is that the print did not move the price. A 2,000-contract No fill at 12:51 p.m. went through at the same 7.4 cents, the 94,262 printed at 7.4, and the next No fill after it, at 2:54 p.m., printed at 7.4 again; over the full 24 hours the January quote went from 7.5 bid and 8.5 offered to 7.4 and 8.3, and October was 1 to 2 both times. A 94,000-lot that leaves the quote where it found it means the other side was already there, and it still is: the book Thursday morning shows about 146,000 contracts bid at 7.4 cents on the Yes side of the January rung. Someone is willing to pay 7.4 cents, in size, for a deal by New Year's, and someone else sold it to them at that price, taking the No side at 92.6. Both are working off the same rulebook; one thinks the contract is worth about eight cents and the other thinks it is worth nothing.
The rest of the day was small by comparison but not one-sided. On December, 5,000 Yes contracts bought at six cents between 2:53 and 3:22 p.m. offset 2,686 No bought at 9:10 that morning. On the 2028 rung a 1,000-lot bought Yes at 25 cents at 4:45 p.m. On November, 7,508 Yes bought at three cents across five fills at 11:08 p.m. Those are traders paying single digits for the chance October or November produces a text, which is the cheapest thing on the board to be right about and the most expensive to be early on.
Later, Not Never
The shape of the ladder is the argument. Every 2026 rung is under a dime and the curve is nearly flat through March 2027, 7 to 11 cents in February and 9 to 11 in March, then it jumps: 23 to 26 cents for a deal before January 1, 2028, and 29 to 32 for one before January 20, 2029, the last day of the current administration. Those two rungs together hold about 68,000 contracts of open interest against 471,000 on the January 2027 rung, so the far end of the board is thinner and its spreads are wider, three cents on both. On our Hormuz page's Tuesday-evening pull the 2028 rung was 21 to 25 and the 2029 rung was 32 to 34; by Thursday morning 2028 had firmed a couple of cents and 2029 had a last trade at 29 against 34 a day earlier, on 175 contracts, which is a thin book drifting rather than an opinion changing.
Read the two far rungs as one question: does the market think this administration signs a verifiable deal before it leaves? A price around one-in-three says no more often than yes, but it is a real number, roughly four times what the same market gives a deal by New Year's. The gap between 8 cents now and 32 in 28 months is what a trader pays for time, and time on this board buys specific things: a Security Council referral sent Wednesday, the November midterms, an IAEA re-entry that has to happen before any stockpile cap can be checked, and, on Wright's telling, possibly a different government in Tehran, a question Kalshi prices on its own board and we cover on our Reza Pahlavi odds page. The market that paid No on August 1 and September 1 is pricing January 1 the same way, and reserving its optimism for a calendar page the mediators have not reached.
Kalshi's referee also lets a deal pay without a signing ceremony. An April 19 clarification says "both governments publicly and officially agreeing to the terms of what will be a qualifying written agreement is sufficient to resolve the market to Yes, even if the formal signing has not yet taken place." So the June sequence, announcement on the 14th and signatures on the 17th, would have paid on the 14th if the text had carried a number. The board is not waiting on a pen. It is waiting on a paragraph.
What Would Move This Ladder
A text with a limit in it, agreed to by both governments. A draft that names an enrichment cap, a centrifuge number, a stockpile quantity to be shipped or down-blended, or a facility to be closed, paired with a named sanction to be lifted, is the only kind of document that resolves a rung Yes, and only once both governments have publicly and officially agreed to it. A leak moves the price; the agreement settles the contract. Watch the wording: "verifiable" in the rules means a standard you could check, and the June 2 clarification says "reduce" without a metric does not count.
A return to the memorandum. If Washington took Pezeshkian's September 1 offer, the near rungs would not resolve; the June 17 ruling already covers that document. They would reprice, because a restored 60-day window is the only path back to a real negotiation, but the reopening of talks and the signing of a deal are different events, this board only pays for the second, and the market has been paid twice for keeping them apart.
The IAEA getting back in. The Security Council referral is a pressure lever, not a settlement event. The event that matters for criterion (1) is inspectors returning to the sites struck in June 2025, because a cap on 60 percent uranium that nobody has counted since June 2025 is not "confirmable" until someone counts it.
The strait. The only sanctions relief anyone has put on paper in this war arrived in the same document that reopened the strait, and the reopening ladder on our Hormuz page had "normal traffic before January 1, 2027" at 17 to 19 cents Tuesday evening. That is the other half of any final deal, and it is priced more than twice as likely as the nuclear half by the same deadline; the oil side of the same story is on our WTI 2026 high board.
If you want a sense of how these settlement rules turn news into a payout, our guide to how Kalshi settlement works walks through metric-settled contracts, and the beginner's guide to Kalshi covers the mechanics of bids, asks and cost to buy. For the rest of what our experts are watching this week, the free expert picks page is the one place we send everyone.
Settlement Timeline
- October 1, 2026, 10 A.m. ET. "Before October 1" closes; it is 1 to 2 cents.
- November 1, 2026. "Before November 1" closes; the US midterm election is two days later.
- December 1, 2026. "Before December 1" closes.
- January 1, 2027, 10 A.m. ET. "Before January 1, 2027" closes, the rung with 471,000 contracts open and Wednesday's 94,000-lot. Kalshi also lists January 1, 2027 as the expected expiration on every contract in the series, including the 2028 and 2029 rungs, whose close dates are their own deadlines; a qualifying deal on any date pays every rung whose deadline it beats.
- February 1 And March 1, 2027. The two thin early-2027 rungs close.
- January 1, 2028 and January 20, 2029. The two rungs that hold the board's only real optimism.
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The Bottom Line
This is a board about a definition. The June memorandum was an agreement between the United States and Iran about nuclear weapons, and one exchange paid a dollar on it; it was not a written limit on Iran's nuclear program, and the other exchange paid nothing, then paid No twice more as the summer deadlines passed. Every price on the Kalshi ladder is a bet on the strict reading, because that is the reading the referee has now applied three times. Eight cents for a deal by New Year's is the market saying that the governments who could not agree on a number while the guns were quiet will not agree on one while they are trading tanker strikes, and the 94,000 contracts sold at 92.6 on Wednesday afternoon were one trader putting $87,000 behind that sentence.
The optimism is real but it is dated. A third of a dollar says this administration signs something verifiable before it leaves office, and a quarter says it happens before 2028. Between here and there sit a referral the IAEA board sent to the Security Council on Wednesday, an inspectorate locked out of the sites it would have to verify, and a Secretary of State who has said the last deal's ship has sailed. When a draft with a number in it leaks, the 2027 rungs will move first and fastest; until then, the cheapest thing on this board is the one the front pages keep announcing.
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