How much are Monero transaction fees?

Transaction fees paid (last 100 transactions)

The table above shows live data on the transaction fees paid via Monero vs Bitcoin. Note that the “lowest” Bitcoin fee figures can be misleading, because some payments occur off-chain (for example, inside custodial systems) and do not reflect an on-chain fee.

Why Monero fees vary

Monero transaction fees are primarily based on transaction weight (how much data your transaction adds to the blockchain) and the network’s current fee rules. Monero’s block capacity is adaptive (often described as an “adaptive block size/weight”), which helps reduce fee spikes during normal usage. For background on adaptive block capacity, see the Monero technical specs on dynamic block size / block weight.

Most wallets also let you choose a fee priority (sometimes shown as low/normal/high or a numeric tier). A higher priority pays a higher fee so your transaction is more competitive for inclusion in the next blocks when the mempool is busy. The “priority” concept exists at the wallet layer (and is reflected in wallet APIs); see the Monero Docs Wallet RPC documentation for fee priority-related methods.

Fees can also increase when you spend funds that arrived as many small incoming payments. Monero uses a “spent output” model where a payment may be composed of multiple inputs; more inputs generally means more transaction data, which increases transaction weight and therefore the fee. A practical implication: if you receive many tiny payments (or mine to an address that produces many small outputs), you may see slightly higher fees when you later consolidate and spend them.

Adaptive capacity vs “fee bidding”

Monero’s fee model is designed to work alongside its adaptive block capacity: the network can expand block weight when demand rises, but does so with incentives that discourage sustained abuse. If you want a deeper (but still readable) explanation of the fee model and its relationship to block dynamics, see Monero’s “A note on fees”.

In practice, many everyday Monero payments can use the default/automatic fee setting. Increasing priority is mainly useful when you need faster inclusion during periods of higher network activity.

Protocol upgrades that reduced typical fees

Monero has repeatedly reduced typical transaction weight through protocol upgrades. Historically, the introduction of Bulletproofs reduced transaction sizes, and later upgrades introduced Bulletproofs+, which further improved typical transaction size and verification efficiency. The July/August 2022 network upgrade announcement summarizes these improvements and their practical impact on transactions: Monero network upgrade (2022) overview.

Note: Monero does not currently have a widely adopted second-layer payment-channel network comparable to Bitcoin’s Lightning. Most Monero payments are made on-chain, so understanding transaction weight and fee priority remains the most useful way to reason about fees.