What is a Special Settlement?
A special settlement is a one-time, scheduled cash adjustment applied to holders of a contract — separate from the regular funding rate payment. It is used to pass through corporate actions on the underlying, such as dividends or distributions, to the traders holding the perpetual future. Unlike funding rate payments, which are derived from the difference between the mark price and the underlying, a special settlement is a fixed, pre-announced amount per contract.Who is credited and who is debited
Each special settlement carries a single non-negative amount, the long-holder extra funding amount, quoted per contract:- Long holders are credited this amount per contract held.
- Short holders are debited the same amount per contract held.
When it applies
Every special settlement has a settlement time. For US equity and ETF dividends, that time is 4:00 PM ET on the last business day the underlying trades with the dividend rights attached — that is, one business day before the underlying’s ex-dividend date. Positions are measured by a single snapshot taken at exactly that instant. There is no rolling window, no time-weighting, and no averaging over the day:- If you hold the position at 4:00 PM ET on the snapshot date, you are part of that settlement, regardless of when you opened it — including if you opened it minutes earlier.
- If you close before the snapshot, you are not part of it, even if you held the position for weeks beforehand.
Worked timing example — METAMETA common stock goes ex-dividend on Monday, 9/21. It therefore trades with the
dividend rights through Friday, 9/18, and without them from 9/21 onward.Architect snapshots positions in
META-PERP at 4:00 PM ET on Friday, 9/18 and applies the
dividend funding at that time: long holders credited, short holders debited.How this lines up with the underlying
The perpetual future references the underlying instrument’s own price, so no separate adjustment to an index is required — the underlying reprices itself. On the ex-dividend date the underlying opens without the dividend rights and, all else equal, trades lower by approximately the dividend amount. The special settlement is timed to the final close before that repricing, so a long holder receives the cash credit at the last moment the underlying still carries the dividend, and then absorbs the ex-dividend price move. The two offset one another; a short holder sees the mirror image. Holding a perp through a dividend is therefore economically similar to holding the underlying through it, rather than a windfall or a penalty for either side.Which corporate actions are covered
The mechanism is general-purpose and is intended for corporate actions on the underlying. Other non-dividend corporate actions would follow a similar process — a pre-announced per-contract amount, applied at a scheduled snapshot time — and would be published in advance through the same channels described below.ETF and index-linked contracts
Contracts on ETFs are handled exactly the same way as single-name equities, because the reference instrument is the ETF itself.SPY-PERP is based on SPY, the ETF — the SPX index is not involved in the contract at any
point. SPY’s own distributions are therefore passed through as special settlements on the same
schedule: a snapshot at 4:00 PM ET on the business day before SPY’s ex-dividend date.
Estimated amounts and true-ups
Some ETF distributions, SPY included, are not finalized until after 4:00 PM ET on the business day preceding the ex-dividend date. When the final amount is not yet known at snapshot time:1
Estimate applied at the normal settlement time
At 4:00 PM ET on the scheduled date, Architect applies an estimated per-contract amount —
crediting longs and debiting shorts as usual. The snapshot time is not delayed.
2
True-up applied once the final amount is published
When the issuer publishes the final distribution, Architect applies a second, separate
true-up adjustment for the difference between the final and estimated amounts. If the
final amount is larger, longs are credited and shorts debited the difference; if it is
smaller, the direction reverses.
How it is delivered
A special settlement is applied through the same funding ledger as regular funding payments. Once executed, it appears in your funding transactions history alongside ordinary funding payments.Viewing upcoming special settlements
Scheduled special settlements are published ahead of time. When any are scheduled within the next 7 days, a dismissible banner appears at the top of the trading app listing each one — its symbol, the per-contract amount, and the date. The banner refreshes periodically; if the scheduled settlements change, it reappears so you do not miss an update. You can also query them directly. Use the Get upcoming special settlements endpoint to see what is coming and when. The endpoint accepts an optionaldays parameter to
control how far ahead to look (defaults to 7 days, up to a maximum of 365). For each upcoming
settlement it returns the symbol, the settlement time, and the per-contract long-holder amount.
Example
A perpetual future on an equity pays a 2.00 USD per-contract dividend, scheduled as a special settlement.- Alice is long 100 contracts at the settlement time → credited 200 USD (100 × 2.00).
- Bob is short 100 contracts at the settlement time → debited 200 USD (100 × 2.00).