Steam Market Fees, Trade Holds and Restrictions Explained

Summary: Steam adds a 5% Steam Transaction Fee (minimum $0.01) to every Market sale, and Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 add a 10% game fee. To sell at all, an account needs a successful purchase older than 7 days but not older than a year and Steam Guard enabled for 15 days. Without the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator for the last 7 days, listings can be held for up to 15 days. The Steam Wallet is capped at $2000 and a single listing at about $1800. Every fact here comes from Steam's support FAQs, listed under Sources.

Before you bulk sell anything on the Steam Community Market, it helps to know what Steam takes, how long your listings can be held, and which account events lock you out for a while. Everything on this page comes from Steam's own support FAQs, which are linked in each section. Steam can change its rules, so if something here doesn't match what Steam shows you, go with Steam.

Sources:

• Steam Community Market FAQ
• Trading and Market Restrictions FAQ
• Trade and Market Holds FAQ
• Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator FAQ
• Trade Protected Items FAQ

Who can sell at all

Per the Market FAQ, you need:

• a purchase on the account that is older than 7 days but not older than a year, and
• Steam Guard enabled for 15 days.

Redeeming a gift doesn't count. The Restrictions FAQ adds that Steam Wallet funds, games, DLC and software count as purchases, while retail CD keys and gifts don't. A chargeback resets the requirement. Our selling requirements checklist puts it all in one place.

Steam Market fees

The Market FAQ lists two kinds of fee:

The FAQ says the buyer pays the transaction fee, and that the fees are shown on the confirmation page. Games that aren't in that list, such as Rust, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS or PAYDAY 2, don't have a game fee listed in the FAQ. Either way, the sell page shows the exact split before you confirm, so check it there.

The $0.01 minimum

The minimum fee matters for cheap items. 5% of $0.20 is exactly $0.01, so for anything priced under about $0.20, the $0.01 minimum is more than 5%:

(The game fee for CS2, TF2, Dota 2 and Artifact comes on top of this. Steam's sell page shows the real numbers.) That's why it often makes sense to price penny items together in one Multisell batch, or not to list them at all.

What you actually receive

Because the fees are calculated on the item cost and added on top for the buyer, the seller's share of the buyer's price is roughly:

• about 95% (1 ÷ 1.05) for games with only the Steam Transaction Fee, and
• about 87% (1 ÷ 1.15) for Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2 and Artifact items, where the 10% game fee is added too.

These are approximations from the published percentages. The $0.01 minimum and rounding make cheap items worse, so trust the numbers on Steam's sell page. If you want to estimate what a whole inventory would bring in after fees, see how to check your Steam inventory value.

Trade holds and market holds

Steam uses two kinds of hold, and the Holds FAQ defines both:

• A trade hold is "a period of time after a trade is accepted by both parties where the items traded are held by Steam before they are delivered". Trade holds last up to 15 days.
• A market hold is the delay between creating a sell listing and the items becoming available on the Community Market.

Both exist for the same reason: if someone hijacks your account, the hold gives you time to notice and cancel the transaction before your items are gone.

How long is a Steam trade hold?

Up to 15 days, according to the Holds FAQ. It isn't a wait everyone gets. Whether it applies depends on how long your account has had the Mobile Authenticator. The FAQ says the hold gives you time to "discover any transactions on hold that you didn't make", change your password and cancel them.

When a trade hold applies

The rule is the same for both holds: if your account hasn't been protected by a Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator for at least the last 7 days, items leaving your account can be held for up to 15 days. Once the authenticator has been active for 7 days, items are no longer held, because you confirm each trade or listing on your phone.

Adding an authenticator doesn't remove the hold straight away. The Restrictions FAQ says trades created in the first 7 days after you add it "will still have up to a 15 day trade hold".

Cancelling a held trade

If you cancel a trade while it's on hold, Steam assumes you've caught a hijacker. The Holds FAQ says you'll get a 7-day trading cooldown, which "cannot be removed by Steam Support". Only cancel a held trade if you really didn't make it, and change your password first.

CS2 items: Trade Protection instead of trade holds

Counter-Strike 2 works differently. According to the Trade Protected Items FAQ, CS2 items "are not subject to trade holds or trade escrow" and are traded between accounts immediately. Instead:

• For 7 days after a trade, CS2 items received are Trade Protected. You can equip and play with them, but they can't be consumed, modified or transferred, which includes moving them into a Storage Unit.
• Within those 7 days, the account owner can reverse trades from their Trade History page. Reversing undoes all Trade Protected trades from the last 7 days, not just one.
• The account that reverses gets a 30-day restriction on trading and the Community Market, which Steam Support can't lift. The trade partners aren't restricted.
• Trade Protected items can't be mixed with items from games without Trade Protection in the same trade. CS2 is currently the only game with the feature.

So if you've just received CS2 cases in a trade and want to Multisell them, wait until the 7 days are up.

Market holds

The market hold is the one that affects listings. Listings can be held for up to 15 days if you haven't had the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator active for at least 7 days. Once you've had the authenticator for 7 days, the Restrictions FAQ says "you'll confirm trades and Market listings from the mobile app" instead.

If you plan to sell a lot, set up the authenticator first (Mobile Authenticator FAQ) and wait the 7 days.

How to remove trade holds

The Holds FAQ's answer to "How can I remove the need for a trade or market hold?" is the authenticator: holds "are no longer necessary when you protect your account with a Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator", and items "will no longer be held after you have had the authenticator enabled for 7 days". It doesn't speed up holds that already exist. The Mobile Authenticator FAQ puts it exactly:

"Any trades or Market listings created before a Mobile Authenticator is added, or during the first 7 days after it is added, will be held for 15 days. Trades or Market listings created more than 7 days after a Mobile Authenticator is added will not be held by Steam. Adding a Mobile Authenticator will not reduce the length of existing item holds."

In practice:

1. Add the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator in the Steam Mobile App.
2. Wait 7 days before creating the trades or listings you care about.
3. Leave existing holds alone. They run their course. Cancelling a held trade gives you a 7-day cooldown on top.
4. Keep the device trusted. The Restrictions FAQ says signing in on a new device, which can include clearing cookies or using a new browser, blocks trading and the Market for 7 days, unless you've had the authenticator for at least 7 days.

Trade hold vs market hold vs trade cooldown vs Trade Protection

These four sound alike but work differently:

If you're seeing one of these and aren't sure which, our can't-sell troubleshooting guide matches symptoms to causes.

Restrictions that block selling for a while

From the Restrictions FAQ:

Items bought in-game or on the Market also aren't tradable or marketable until the date shown on the item.

The Steam Wallet cap and listing limits

• Your Steam Wallet balance is capped at $2000 (or a similar amount in other currencies). You can't create a listing if your balance plus the sale price would exceed it, and balances across multiple accounts are aggregated.
• The maximum price for a single listing is about $1800. Some currencies also have a minimum sale price.
• Market funds go to your Steam Wallet and "cannot be withdrawn or transferred". All Market purchases are final.
• Your Market history is on the Community Market home page and your Account Details page, and Steam emails you a receipt for each transaction.

If you're clearing out a big inventory, check your balance before each batch so a Multisell run doesn't stop halfway.

How buy orders decide who sells

Commodity items (the ones Multisell handles) trade through buy orders. The Market FAQ says buy orders let you "see what other users are willing to pay for an item, and you can choose if you want to do a lower price to sell immediately; or go for a higher price and wait".

• When a buyer places an order, Steam looks for the cheapest listings, then picks the oldest one among them.
• If several buy orders match your listing, the oldest buy order wins.
• A buyer's active buy orders can total up to 10× their wallet balance.

So to sell fast, price at or below the top buy order. If you match the lowest listing price exactly, you're at the back of the queue for that price.

Which games are on the Market

Developers decide whether their game participates in the Market. Some items in participating games can't be sold either. For example, Dota 2 timed drops are permanently unmarketable, and newly purchased Dota 2 treasures are locked for a set time. Our games with marketable commodities page lists the games we've seen commodity items for.

Putting it into practice

1. Meet the account requirements and set up the Mobile Authenticator.
2. Check your wallet balance against the $2000 cap.
3. Load your inventory in the Steam Bulk Sell builder, pick the commodities and open the Multisell link.
4. Price against the current buy orders, then check the amounts on Steam's confirmation page before submitting.

For the full walkthrough, see the Steam Multisell guide.