What is priority fee?
The tip a user adds to an Ethereum transaction, on top of the mandatory base fee, to give a block builder a reason to include it sooner.
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The tip a user adds to an Ethereum transaction, on top of the mandatory base fee, to give a block builder a reason to include it sooner.
Base fee is burned; the priority fee is what the proposer keeps. Wallets set a default tip and raise it when the network is busy, and raising it manually is how you rescue a transaction stuck behind a full mempool. During heavy congestion the tip can exceed the base fee. It buys position in the queue, not certainty of inclusion.
The two-part fee arrived with EIP-1559, which split what used to be a single gas price into a protocol-set base fee and a user-set tip (source: EIP-1559). Most wallet interfaces hide the split behind a "slow, normal, fast" selector, which is why many people never realize there are two numbers or that only one of them is negotiable.
How it works
- The protocol computes the base fee for each block from how full the previous one was, raising it when blocks run above target and lowering it when they run below. Users do not set this number and it is burned rather than paid to anyone (source: EIP-1559).
- You set a priority fee, quoted in gwei per unit of gas, as a tip to whoever builds the block.
- You also set a maximum fee, which caps base fee plus tip. If the base fee rises above your cap the transaction waits rather than failing.
- Builders order pending transactions by what they earn, so a higher tip generally means earlier inclusion. It is a queue position, not a guarantee, and a builder can order however it likes. See mev boost.
The tip is paid per unit of gas consumed, so the same tip costs more on a complex contract call than on a simple transfer.
Example
Illustrative figures. A plain transfer uses 21,000 gas. Suppose the base fee is 20 gwei and you set a 2 gwei tip.
| Component | Rate | Gas | Cost in ETH |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base fee (burned) | 20 gwei | 21,000 | 0.00042 |
| Priority fee (to proposer) | 2 gwei | 21,000 | 0.000042 |
| Total | 22 gwei | 21,000 | 0.000462 |
Illustrative rates; the base fee changes every block.
Now the same tip on a contract interaction that consumes 200,000 gas costs 0.0004 ETH rather than 0.000042 ETH, roughly ten times as much, because gas used is the multiplier. If the transaction is stuck, resubmitting the same nonce with a higher tip is what gets it built.
Why it matters when you buy
The tip is the only part of an Ethereum fee you control, and it is the lever that clears a withdrawal stuck between an exchange and your wallet. Understanding the split also explains why quoted network fees swing so much within an hour. Gas fees explained covers the mechanics in full, and the chain pages show what transacting costs on alternatives.
Related terms
base fee — the burned, protocol-set portion; gas — the unit both fees price; gwei — the denomination fees are quoted in; mempool — where pending transactions wait; eip 1559 — the upgrade that split the fee; nonce — what a replacement transaction must reuse.
Questions
Who receives the priority fee?
The block proposer, or the builder that assembled the block under a proposer-builder arrangement. The base fee is destroyed and paid to nobody.
Can I set the tip to zero?
You can, and during quiet periods such transactions do get included eventually. When blocks are full a zero-tip transaction sits in the mempool indefinitely, because builders have no reason to pick it.
My transaction is stuck. What actually fixes it?
Resubmit with the same nonce and a higher priority fee, which most wallets expose as "speed up". Sending a new transaction with a new nonce does not help, because the earlier one still blocks the queue for that account.