Fasting glucose and insulin are intermediate traits for type 2 diabetes. Here we explore the role of coding variation on these traits by analysis of variants on the HumanExome BeadChip in 60,564 non-diabetic individuals and in 16,491 T2D cases and 81,877 controls. We identify a novel association of a low-frequency nonsynonymous SNV in GLP1R (A316T
rs10305492
MAF=1.4%) with lower FG (?=-0.09�0.01 mmol l<
sup>
-1<
/sup>
, P=3.4 � 10<
sup>
-12<
/sup>
), T2D risk (OR[95%CI]=0.86[0.76?0.96], P=0.010), early insulin secretion (?=-0.07�0.035 pmol<
sub>
insulin<
/sub>
mmol<
sub>
glucose<
/sub>
<
sup>
-1<
/sup>
, P=0.048), but higher 2-h glucose (?=0.16�0.05 mmol l<
sup>
-1<
/sup>
, P=4.3 � 10<
sup>
-4<
/sup>
). We identify a gene-based association with FG at G6PC2 (p<
sub>
SKAT<
/sub>
=6.8 � 10<
sup>
-6<
/sup>
) driven by four rare protein-coding SNVs (H177Y, Y207S, R283X and S324P). We identify rs651007 (MAF=20%) in the first intron of ABO at the putative promoter of an antisense lncRNA, associating with higher FG (?=0.02�0.004 mmol l<
sup>
-1<
/sup>
, P=1.3 � 10<
sup>
-8<
/sup>
). Our approach identifies novel coding variant associations and extends the allelic spectrum of variation underlying diabetes-related quantitative traits and T2D susceptibility.