What is Funding Interval?
Funding interval is the fixed time between funding payments on a perpetual futures contract — commonly every 8 hours, but also 4h or 1h on many venues. It determines how many funding settlements occur per day and per year, directly scaling the annualized funding rate.
The funding interval is the cadence at which a perpetual (perp) exchange charges or credits funding between long and short traders. The most common interval is 8 hours (three payments per day), but many venues settle every 4 hours, and several — including Hyperliquid, dYdX, Pacifica and Backpack — pay hourly. The interval is a property of each market on each exchange, not a universal constant, and some venues even run different intervals for different contracts.
At each interval boundary, the funding rate quoted for that window is applied to trader position notional: longs pay shorts when the rate is positive, and shorts pay longs when it is negative. A rate of 0.01% quoted per 8-hour window is a per-interval rate — it is not a daily or annual figure. To compare it against a rate from an hourly venue you must normalize both to the same time base, because the same 0.01% means very different economics at 1h versus 8h.
This is why the interval is central to funding-rate arbitrage. Annualized funding APR equals the per-interval rate multiplied by the number of intervals per year. An 8h interval has 1,095 periods per year (3 × 365), while a 1h interval has 8,760. A per-interval rate of 0.01% therefore annualizes to 10.95% APR on an 8h venue but 87.6% APR on a 1h venue — an 8× difference from the same raw number. Misreading the interval is the single most common cause of an APR that is wrong by a factor of 4 or 8.
When you compare the same asset across exchanges to build a delta-neutral carry position, every leg must be converted to a common annualized basis using its own true interval. A screener that hardcodes 8h for an hourly venue will overstate or understate that leg badly, producing phantom spreads. Always verify each market’s interval from the exchange API rather than assuming — orbitperpscreener.com syncs the per-market interval so that APR, spread, and backtest math stay consistent across all 38 venues.
Annualized funding APR from the interval
periods_per_year = (24 / interval_hours) × 365 funding_APR = per_interval_rate × periods_per_year
A positive rate means longs pay shorts; the arbitrage carry is captured by the side receiving the payment. Same per-interval rate, different interval = different APR.
Same 0.01% rate, three intervals (BTC perp)
- •Per-interval funding rate: 0.01% (0.0001)
- •8h interval → periods/yr = 3 × 365 = 1,095 → APR = 0.0001 × 1,095 = 10.95%
- •4h interval → periods/yr = 6 × 365 = 2,190 → APR = 0.0001 × 2,190 = 21.90%
- •1h interval → periods/yr = 24 × 365 = 8,760 → APR = 0.0001 × 8,760 = 87.60%
- •On $50,000 BTC notional at 1h: one payment = $50,000 × 0.0001 = $5.00, collected 8,760× per year ≈ $43,800/yr
Common funding intervals and their annualization factor
| Interval | Payments / day | Periods / year | APR per 0.01% interval rate | Example venues |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 hour | 24 | 8,760 | 87.60% | Hyperliquid, dYdX, Pacifica, Backpack |
| 4 hours | 6 | 2,190 | 21.90% | Some BitMart / mixed venues |
| 8 hours | 3 | 1,095 | 10.95% | Binance, Bybit, OKX (default) |
FAQ
What is the most common funding interval?
Every 8 hours — three settlements per day — is the industry default, used by Binance, Bybit, OKX and most CEX perps. However, many newer DEX and CEX venues settle every 1 or 4 hours, so the interval must be checked per exchange and per market.
Why does the funding interval matter for APR?
APR equals the per-interval rate times the number of intervals per year. A 1h interval has 8,760 periods a year versus 1,095 for an 8h interval, so the same raw rate annualizes to roughly 8× more APR on the hourly venue. Getting the interval wrong is the top cause of APR errors off by a factor of 4 or 8.
How do I compare funding rates across exchanges with different intervals?
Normalize every rate to a common annualized basis: multiply each per-interval rate by that venue’s own periods-per-year. Never compare raw per-interval rates directly, and never assume 8h — pull the true interval from each market’s API so both legs of an arbitrage are measured on the same time base.
Can funding intervals differ within the same exchange?
Yes. Some venues run different intervals for different contracts, and an exchange can change a market’s interval over time. That is why a screener should sync the per-market interval from the API on every ingest rather than hardcoding a single value for the whole venue.
See funding interval live across 49 exchanges.
Open Funding Screener →