Recession by Year-End 2026

US recession by year-end 2026 — the market-weighted probability

The probability of an NBER-declared US recession by year-end 2026 is the defining macro prediction market contract of the year. Kalshi lists a clean binary plus a Categorical on which quarter the next recession starts; Polymarket and Manifold list complementary binaries with slightly different resolution language. Watch them together and you have a live, trading-calibrated recession probability that doesn't depend on a single forecaster's model.

Settlement: NBER declaration by December 31, 2026.

Settlement source: NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee.

Copy this workspace to your own account to keep it tracking as the story develops.

Cross-exchange recession binary

Kalshi, Polymarket, and Manifold on the same question, with slightly different resolution language.

Timing — when does the next recession start

Kalshi's NBER Categorical on the start quarter of the next US recession. Useful as a leading indicator for the binary.

What to watch

• Cross-exchange spread. Kalshi's NBER-specific binary, Polymarket's broader US-recession binary, and Manifold's community forecast rarely agree to the decimal. The spread is the single cleanest read on resolution-language risk versus underlying-economy risk.
• Kalshi Categorical on quarter-of-start. This is the timing view. Even when the overall binary is flat, drift between Q3 and Q4 buckets is informative.
• Macro prints. NFP, CPI, GDP releases tend to move the binaries by a point or two if the surprise is large. Watch the history chart below around release mornings.
• NBER committee statements. These are rare, but they directly move the Kalshi binary because the settlement language requires an NBER declaration specifically.
• The countdown targets the end of 2026. Recession binaries tend to compress as the year closes and remaining uncertainty shrinks.