Solana Priority Fees vs Base Fees

Every Solana transaction includes two distinct fee components: the base fee and the optional priority fee. Understanding the difference between them is essential for building cost-efficient applications on Solana.

Base Fee: Currently fixed at 5,000 lamports per signature. This is mandatory and cannot be waived. The base fee is split 50% to the block-producing validator and 50% burned (permanently removed from circulating supply). Base fees do not affect your transaction priority in the scheduler queue.

Priority Fee: Entirely optional and set by the transaction sender. Unlike the base fee, 100% of the priority fee goes to the validator (per SIMD-0096), with nothing burned. This gives validators a direct financial incentive to include transactions with higher priority fees in their blocks.

Validator reward per transaction = (Base Fee / 2) + Full Priority Fee

One important nuance: fees are charged whether your transaction succeeds or fails. This means if your transaction reverts due to a program error or slippage, you still pay both the base fee and any priority fee you set.