Getting your Binance spot trades into a journal is easy: create a read-only API key and paste it in. Futures are harder. Binance keeps futures trades and funding payments behind a separate permission, and the CSV export that avoids the permission has no funding in it at all. A journal built from either of those reads every futures trade you held through a funding time as cheaper than it was.
This post covers USD-M futures, the USDT and USDC margined contracts most people trade. COIN-M contracts settle in the coin itself, which changes the PnL arithmetic; see inverse contract PnL for that.
What a Binance futures trade costs
Two things sit between the price move and what you keep.
A fee on every fill. A regular account on USD-M futures pays 0.05% of the fill's value as a taker and 0.02% as a maker. Your VIP level and paying fees in BNB both lower that, so the only reliable number is the one each fill actually paid.
Funding. Most USD-M perpetuals settle funding every 8 hours, at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC, and some contracts settle more often. You pay or receive funding only if your position is open at that moment. Each payment is your position value times the rate. When the rate is positive, longs pay shorts; when it is negative, shorts pay longs.
A worked example
You go long 0.5 BTC on BTCUSDT at $100,000, a position worth $50,000. You hold it for three days, through nine funding times, and close at $101,000. Both fills are taker fills at the regular rate.
Say funding sits at 0.01% at every one of the nine. That is the baseline rate Binance charges when the perp trades close to the index price.
| Line | How it is worked out | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Price move | 0.5 × ($101,000 − $100,000) | $500.00 |
| Entry fee | $50,000 × 0.05% | −$25.00 |
| Exit fee | $50,500 × 0.05% | −$25.25 |
| Funding | 9 × ($50,000 × 0.01%), so 9 × $5.00 | −$45.00 |
| Net PnL | $404.75 |
A journal that reads only the two prices records $500. The account made $404.75, about 19% less. A journal that has the fees but not the funding records $449.75, which is still $45 too high. To keep the arithmetic simple, funding here is worked out on the $50,000 entry value; in reality each payment uses the position value at that funding time.
When longs crowd in, the rate can sit at 0.05% or more for days. At 0.05% the same nine payments cost $225, and the trade nets $224.75.
You can run your own numbers in the free funding fee calculator: enter the position value, the rate, 8 hours as the funding interval and how long you plan to hold.
Why a read-only key misses your futures
A new Binance API key has only Enable Reading ticked. That is enough for spot trades, but Binance does not share futures trades or funding payments with it. For those, the key needs Enable Futures, and Binance only lets you switch that on after you restrict the key to trusted IP addresses.
Enable Futures also allows futures trading with the key. A journal never places an order, but if you would rather keep the key strictly read-only, you can leave futures off and bring your futures trades in from a file instead.
What the CSV export leaves out
On binance.com, the USD-M futures order page has an Export button that sends you to the Data Download Center, where you choose a time range and generate a CSV of your trades. The file has every fill with its fee. It has no funding payments, so a journal built from it cannot count them.
For a short-term trader who closes positions between funding times, the CSV is complete. For anyone who holds through funding, only the API with Enable Futures gives the full picture.
What Viktury does with it
When you add a Binance account in Viktury, a read-only key syncs your spot trades every day. If the key also has Enable Futures, your USD-M and COIN-M futures trades sync with the funding they paid, and the Add account screen shows the IP addresses to put on the key. Each trade's net PnL includes its fees, and with a futures key its funding as well.
If you leave futures off, upload the USD-M futures CSV and those trades come in with their fees and without funding. The Binance setup guide walks through both routes. Viktury does not import Binance margin or options trades yet.
Open a free Viktury account and add your Binance key.