Etsy’s take rate reached 25.9% in Q2 2026, up 130 basis points year over year. Before a single ad click, currency conversion, or refund is factored in, Etsy now keeps roughly a quarter of every dollar that moves through the marketplace.
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Etsy publishes a lot of numbers every quarter, and most sellers never see them because they’re buried in SEC filings and investor call transcripts. This report pulls the ones that actually matter for a working shop: how many sellers and buyers are active right now, what fees actually cost on a real sale, how much of the marketplace runs through the app, and what it takes to hold a Star Seller badge.
Every stat below is sourced. Where a number comes from an independent estimate rather than an Etsy filing, that’s flagged directly in the finding.
Table of Contents
- Key Findings
- Methodology
- Marketplace Scale and Growth
- Fees and Take Rate
- Buyer Behavior and Spending
- Seller Performance and Requirements
- Business Strategy and Competitive Landscape
- What This Data Means for Etsy Sellers
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The Bottom Line
Key Findings
- Active sellers grew 5.9% year over year to 5.7 million in Q2 2026, the strongest seller growth Etsy has reported in several quarters. (Etsy Q2 2026 results)
- Etsy’s overall take rate hit 25.9% in Q2 2026, up 130 basis points from a year earlier. (Etsy Q2 2026 results)
- The standard transaction fee is 6.5% of the total sale price, including shipping and gift wrap the buyer pays for. (Etsy Help Center)
- Offsite Ads fees run 12% to 15% per attributed sale, and become mandatory once a shop crosses $10,000 in sales over any 365-day period. (Etsy Help Center)
- The Etsy app drove about 47% of marketplace GMS in Q1 2026, up roughly 240 basis points year over year, after finishing 2025 at 45%, up from 42% in 2024. (Etsy Q1 2026 Shareholder Letter)
- GMS per active buyer rose to $124 in Q2 2026, the first sustained year-over-year increase since 2022. (Etsy Q2 2026 results)
- An estimated 5.5% of active sellers hold the Star Seller badge, based on independent seller-analytics research rather than an Etsy-published figure. (Koalanda Star Seller Report)
Methodology
This is a curated report, not original survey data. The financial and marketplace figures come directly from Etsy, Inc.’s own SEC filings and investor press releases: the Q4/full-year 2025 results and 10-K (filed February 2026), the Q1 2026 results (filed April/May 2026), and the Q2 2026 results (filed August 2026). Fee mechanics and Star Seller requirements are pulled from Etsy’s official Help Center and Seller Handbook, which Etsy updates directly rather than through a filing.
One figure, the share of active sellers holding a Star Seller badge, is not something Etsy publishes as an official metric. It is cited here as an independent analyst estimate and marked as such rather than presented as an Etsy-confirmed number.
Time period covered: figures span full-year 2025 through Q2 2026 (the quarter ended June 30, 2026, reported in August 2026). Where a stat is a snapshot rather than a trend, the specific quarter is named directly in the finding so it isn’t mistaken for a full-year figure.
Marketplace Scale and Growth
Active Sellers Grew to 5.7 Million in Q2 2026
Etsy reported 5.7 million active sellers in Q2 2026, up 5.9% year over year.
That’s the fastest seller growth Etsy has posted in some time, and it follows a stretch where active-seller counts were flat or slightly declining. More sellers on the same marketplace means more competition inside every category, which raises the floor on what “good enough” SEO and photography look like.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
Active Buyers Reached 87 Million
Etsy counted 87 million active buyers in Q2 2026, up 350,000 sequentially from Q1, though the year-over-year change was close to flat.
Sequential growth after two years of buyer declines is the more meaningful signal here. It suggests the platform stopped bleeding buyers before it started growing them again.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
Marketplace GMS Hit $2.6 Billion in Q2 2026
Etsy Marketplace gross merchandise sales reached $2.6 billion in Q2 2026, up 7.5% year over year and the third consecutive quarter of GMS growth.
That’s a meaningful reversal. Full-year 2025 core marketplace GMS actually declined roughly 4%, from $10.90 billion in 2024 to $10.42 billion in 2025. The growth sellers are seeing in 2026 (5.5% in Q1, 7.5% in Q2) follows a down year, not a straight upward line.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
Full-Year 2025 Consolidated GMS Was $11.9 Billion
Total consolidated GMS across Etsy’s properties was $11,916.9 million in 2025. Of that, the core Etsy marketplace generated $10,460.7 million (87.8% of the total) and Depop generated $1,074.9 million (9.0%).
This is the last full-year figure that includes Depop as part of Etsy, Inc. The company agreed to sell Depop in February 2026, covered further down in this report.
Source: Etsy FY2025 10-K, SEC filing
Marketplace Revenue Grew 9.3% in Q2 2026
Etsy Marketplace standalone revenue grew 9.3% year over year in Q2 2026, with total company revenue of $668 million for the quarter.
Revenue growing faster than GMS is a direct result of the take-rate increase covered in the next section. Etsy is extracting more from the same volume of sales, largely through Etsy Ads.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
Fees and Take Rate
Etsy’s fee structure has three mandatory pieces on nearly every sale, plus two conditional fees that only apply in specific situations. For a full line-item walkthrough with worked examples, see our Etsy Fee Calculator and 2026 fee breakdown.
Fee rates and dollar thresholds shown here are set by Etsy and subject to change without notice. Confirm current rates in your shop’s Fees & Payments settings before making pricing decisions based on this article.
The Transaction Fee Is 6.5% of the Full Sale
Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee on the total amount the buyer pays, not just the item price. Shipping charges and gift wrapping fees the buyer covers are included in that 6.5% calculation.
This is the fee sellers most often underestimate, because they price against the item cost alone and forget shipping gets taxed the same way.
Source: Etsy Fee Basics, Etsy Help Center
Payment Processing Adds 3% Plus $0.25 in the US
US-based sellers pay a payment processing fee of 3% of the total sale plus a flat $0.25 on every order paid through Etsy Payments. Rates vary by country for non-US sellers.
Stack this on top of the transaction fee and a $100 US sale already loses roughly $9.95 before the listing fee, Offsite Ads, or any refund is factored in.
Source: Seller Fees for Etsy Payments, Etsy Help Center
The Listing Fee Is $0.20 Per Item
Every listing costs $0.20, whether it sells or not, and it renews automatically every four months or immediately when the item sells, whichever comes first.
A shop running 200 active listings is paying at least $40 every four months just to keep the storefront stocked, before a single sale happens.
Source: Etsy Fee Basics, Etsy Help Center
Offsite Ads Fees Run 12% to 15% and Become Mandatory at $10,000
Shops under $10,000 in trailing 12-month sales can opt in to Offsite Ads at a 15% fee per attributed sale, or opt out entirely. Shops that cross $10,000 are automatically enrolled at a 12% fee and can no longer opt out. The fee is capped at $100 per order regardless of order size, and only applies when a shopper clicks an offsite ad and buys within 30 days.
That threshold makes Offsite Ads one of the few Etsy costs that gets structurally cheaper as a shop grows, even as it stops being optional. For the full opt-out mechanics, see our Offsite Ads breakdown.
Source: How Etsy’s Offsite Ads Work, Etsy Help Center
Etsy’s Overall Take Rate Is 25.9%
Etsy’s blended take rate across all fee types reached 25.9% in Q2 2026, up 130 basis points year over year. Etsy attributes the increase largely to machine-learning-driven improvements in Etsy Ads targeting and the divestiture of Reverb.
Take rate is the single best number for tracking Etsy’s direction over time, because it captures every fee type at once rather than one line item in isolation.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
Currency Conversion Adds 2.5% on International Sales
Etsy charges a 2.5% currency conversion fee when a sale settles in a currency different from the seller’s payment account currency.
For a US seller with a meaningful international buyer base, and roughly a quarter of Etsy’s marketplace GMS now comes from outside the US, this fee compounds with the transaction and processing fees on every affected order.
Source: Seller Fees for Etsy Payments, Etsy Help Center
Buyer Behavior and Spending
GMS Per Active Buyer Rose to $124
Trailing GMS per active buyer reached $124 in Q2 2026, up 2.8% year over year. Etsy has pointed to this as the first sustained year-over-year increase in average buyer spend since 2022.
Etsy frames this as a shift toward higher-quality, higher-priced items rather than more frequent low-dollar purchases. For sellers, it’s a signal that undercutting on price isn’t the only lever worth pulling.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
The Etsy App Drives Roughly 47% of GMS
App-based GMS reached approximately 47% of total marketplace GMS in Q1 2026, up roughly 240 basis points from a year earlier, and full-year 2025 app share was 45%, up from 42% in 2024.
Listing photos and titles that read fine on desktop can fail on a phone screen. With nearly half of all sales now flowing through the app, a listing that isn’t legible at mobile thumbnail size is losing sales that never show up as a bounce a seller can see.
Source: Etsy Q1 2026 Shareholder Letter, SEC 8-K filing and Etsy FY2025 10-K
US Buyers Generated 74% of Marketplace GMS in 2025
US buyers accounted for 74% of Etsy marketplace GMS in full-year 2025, with the remaining 26% coming from buyers outside the US.
That’s a meaningfully international marketplace. Sellers who write listing copy and set shipping policies with only a US buyer in mind are leaving roughly a quarter of the addressable market underserved.
Source: Etsy FY2025 10-K, SEC filing
Ads and Seller Services Revenue Grew 10.5% in Q1 2026
Revenue from Etsy Ads and other seller services climbed to $198.5 million in Q1 2026, up 10.5% year over year.
This is the clearest evidence that Etsy’s own on-platform advertising product, not just marketplace transaction fees, is becoming a bigger share of what the company earns from each seller. It also tracks with the take-rate increase covered above.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports First Quarter 2026 Results
Seller Performance and Requirements
An Estimated 5.5% of Active Sellers Hold Star Seller Status
Independent seller-analytics research estimates that roughly 5.5% of Etsy’s active sellers currently hold the Star Seller badge. Etsy does not publish this adoption rate itself, so treat this figure as a third-party estimate rather than a confirmed platform statistic.
Whatever the exact share, the badge is clearly a minority status, which is consistent with requirements strict enough that many active shops don’t consistently clear them. For the full badge mechanics and whether chasing it is worth the operational changes, see our Star Seller breakdown.
Source: Etsy Star Seller Report, Koalanda
Star Seller Requires 95% Response Rate, 95% On-Time Shipping, and a 4.8+ Rating
To qualify for Star Seller, a shop must reply to at least 95% of first messages within 24 hours, ship 95% or more of orders on time with tracking, and maintain a 4.8 or higher average review rating, all measured over a rolling three-month period. A shop also needs a minimum of 5 orders and $300 in sales during that window, and becomes eligible starting 90 days after its first sale. Etsy reviews eligibility on the first of every month.
These are operational thresholds, not creative ones. A shop with excellent products can still miss Star Seller status purely on response time or shipping consistency.
Source: What is the Star Seller Badge?, Etsy Help Center
Business Strategy and Competitive Landscape
Adjusted EBITDA Margin Reached 29.2% in Q2 2026
Etsy reported Adjusted EBITDA of $195 million in Q2 2026, a 29.2% margin.
For a marketplace business, a margin near 30% signals the company has real room to fund seller-facing investments (search improvements, buyer acquisition, app development) without needing further fee increases to stay profitable, whether or not it chooses to use that room that way.
Source: Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
Etsy Agreed to Sell Depop to eBay for $1.2 Billion
On February 15, 2026, Etsy, Inc. and eBay Inc. signed a Sale and Purchase Agreement for eBay to acquire Depop for $1.2 billion in cash, with the deal expected to close in Q2 2026 subject to regulatory approval.
For Etsy sellers specifically, the practical impact is narrow: Depop operates as a separate resale marketplace and the sale doesn’t change core Etsy marketplace mechanics. It does mean future consolidated GMS and revenue figures from Etsy, Inc. will no longer include Depop once the deal closes, which is worth remembering when comparing 2026 numbers against 2025’s consolidated totals.
Source: Etsy FY2025 10-K, SEC filing
Core Marketplace GMS Declined 4% in 2025 Before Returning to Growth in 2026
Etsy marketplace GMS fell from $10.90 billion in 2024 to $10.42 billion in 2025, a decline of roughly 4%, before turning to year-over-year growth of 5.5% in Q1 2026 and 7.5% in Q2 2026.
Read in isolation, either the 2025 decline or the 2026 growth tells an incomplete story. Together, they describe a marketplace that contracted through a difficult year and is now recovering, not one on an uninterrupted upward trend.
Source: Etsy FY2025 10-K, SEC filing and Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results
What This Data Means for Etsy Sellers
Fees are trending toward a quarter of revenue, so price for it now. With take rate at 25.9% and still climbing, a shop pricing as if Etsy only takes the 6.5% transaction fee is quietly eroding its own margin every month. Build the realistic total, transaction fee, payment processing, and a reasonable Offsite Ads allowance, into the price from the start. Our pricing strategies guide walks through the math.
Mobile-first listing photos are no longer optional. With roughly 47% of GMS running through the app, a hero image that only reads well at desktop size is losing sales in the search grid before a buyer ever taps into the listing.
Growth returning in 2026 doesn’t erase 2025’s decline. Sellers who saw traffic and sales soften through 2025 weren’t imagining a platform-wide contraction, GMS was genuinely down. The 2026 recovery is real but recent, and it’s worth watching whether it holds for another two quarters before treating it as the new normal.
Star Seller is an operations problem, not a marketing one. The 95% response and shipping thresholds catch shops on logistics, not product quality. If Star Seller status matters to a shop’s strategy, the fastest path is usually tightening response templates and shipping workflows, not redesigning listings. See our SEO guide for what actually moves search ranking instead.
International buyers are worth building for. At 26% of marketplace GMS, non-US buyers aren’t a rounding error. Shipping policies, size charts, and even listing language that only account for a US buyer are leaving real revenue on the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does this data come from?
The financial figures come directly from Etsy, Inc.’s SEC filings and official investor press releases, specifically the FY2025 10-K and the Q1 and Q2 2026 quarterly results. Fee mechanics and Star Seller requirements come from Etsy’s own Help Center. The one estimated figure, Star Seller adoption rate, is clearly marked as a third-party estimate rather than an Etsy-confirmed number.
How often is this data updated?
Etsy reports quarterly results roughly six weeks after each quarter closes, so a meaningful update to the active seller, active buyer, and GMS figures becomes available four times a year. Fee rates change less predictably and are updated directly by Etsy when they change.
What’s the single most surprising finding here?
That full-year 2025 core marketplace GMS actually declined about 4% year over year, even while Etsy’s take rate kept climbing. Etsy grew revenue in a year its underlying sales volume shrank, almost entirely through fee and Ads-mix changes rather than seller growth.
How do these 2026 numbers compare to 2025?
Active seller growth (5.9% year over year in Q2 2026) and GMS growth (7.5% year over year in Q2 2026) both represent a reversal from 2025, when full-year marketplace GMS declined and active sellers were roughly flat. Take rate, by contrast, has climbed in both years.
Which stat is most actionable for a working shop?
The fee stack: 6.5% transaction fee, 3% + $0.25 payment processing, and a 12-15% Offsite Ads fee that becomes mandatory at $10,000 in sales. Together they set the real floor a listing price needs to clear to stay profitable, and most pricing mistakes trace back to underestimating this stack rather than any marketing failure.
Are there limitations to this data?
Yes. Etsy doesn’t publish every number a seller might want, such as exact category-by-category sales or the precise Star Seller adoption rate, so a couple of figures in this report rely on independent research rather than an Etsy filing. Those are flagged individually wherever they appear.
Why did Etsy’s take rate go up while GMS growth was inconsistent?
Etsy has attributed the take-rate increase mainly to machine-learning-driven improvements in Etsy Ads targeting (meaning more ad spend converts, which increases Ads revenue relative to GMS) and to the divestiture of lower-margin Reverb. Take rate and GMS growth are related but distinct metrics, and one can rise while the other slows.
Does the Depop sale affect Etsy sellers directly?
Not operationally. Depop runs as a separate resale marketplace with its own sellers and mechanics. The main practical effect for Etsy marketplace sellers is that once the sale to eBay closes, Etsy, Inc.’s consolidated financial reports will no longer include Depop’s GMS and revenue, which matters when comparing future totals against 2025’s consolidated figures.
What does the $124 GMS-per-buyer figure actually measure?
It’s trailing twelve-month gross merchandise sales divided by the number of active buyers, a proxy for how much the average buyer spends on Etsy in a year. Etsy reported this rose 2.8% year over year in Q2 2026, its first sustained increase since 2022, which it attributes to buyers favoring higher-priced items.
Is Etsy’s fee structure the same in every country?
No. Payment processing fees vary by country, and the transaction fee, listing fee, and currency conversion fee mechanics described in this report reflect standard US seller terms. Sellers outside the US should confirm their exact rates in their own shop’s Fees & Payments settings.
The Bottom Line
Etsy in 2026 is a marketplace in recovery, not free-fall and not a straight line up. Active sellers and GMS are both growing again after a soft 2025, but the take rate keeps climbing right alongside that growth, so more of every sale still goes to Etsy than it did a year ago. Sellers who price around the real fee stack, rather than the 6.5% headline number, and who treat the app as the primary storefront rather than an afterthought, are the ones positioned to keep the gains from this recovery rather than hand them straight back in fees.
Calculate your real Etsy costs with our fee calculator to see exactly where your own numbers land against these benchmarks.
Related Articles
- Etsy Fee Increases in 2026: The Full Seller Breakdown: a complete line-item walkthrough of every current Etsy fee.
- Etsy vs Shopify for Handmade Sellers: Fees Compared: how Etsy’s take rate stacks up against running an independent store.
- 9 Proven Etsy SEO Techniques for 2026: tactics to apply now that nearly half of GMS runs through the app.
About This Research
Nadia Cole has spent the better part of a decade elbow-deep in marketplace algorithms, first optimizing Etsy shops for other sellers, then writing about what actually works instead of what sounds good in a blog post. She writes and edits Marketplace Hackers’ guides on Etsy category strategy, fees, and store growth.
This report compiles figures from Etsy, Inc.’s SEC filings and investor press releases (FY2025 10-K, Q1 2026 and Q2 2026 quarterly results) alongside Etsy’s official Help Center for fee mechanics and Star Seller requirements. One figure, Star Seller badge adoption, comes from independent seller-analytics research rather than an Etsy-published number and is marked as such above.
Content reviewed and updated: 2026-08-30
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