Solana Staking Rewards & APY Explained
Staking SOL pays a yield in the mid-single digits, but the number drifts over time and the sources behind it are easy to miss. This breaks down where staking rewards actually come from and how APY is calculated.
Where staking rewards come from
Three separate flows make up a Solana staker's yield, and they behave differently:
- Protocol inflation. The dominant component. Each epoch the network mints new SOL and distributes it to stakers in proportion to their share of total active stake. Historically around 95% of the issuance goes to stakers and validators.
- Priority and base fees. Users pay a base fee (fixed at 5,000 lamports, or 0.000005 SOL, per signature) plus an optional priority fee to jump the queue. Of the base fee, 50% is burned and 50% goes to the block-producing validator; 100% of the priority fee goes to that validator. This shapes validator economics more than a delegator's headline APY.
- Jito MEV tips. Validators running the Jito client (over 90% of stake) run an off-chain auction where searchers attach tips to transaction bundles. Those tips are distributed to the validator and its delegators after each epoch, on top of inflation.
For a delegator, inflation is the base and shared MEV is the meaningful top-up. As of 2026, native staking runs roughly 6 to 7.5% APY before commission, and with MEV the total often reaches 7 to 9%. Yields trend down over time as the inflation schedule declines.
The inflation schedule
Solana's issuance is not fixed. It launched near 8% per year, falls by roughly 15% each year, and settles at a long-term floor around 1.5%. That steady decline is why headline yields compress year over year, and why a figure you saw last year is a little lower today. Issuance parameters have been the subject of governance discussion, so the curve could be adjusted.
How rewards are paid out
Rewards arrive once per epoch (about 2 to 3 days), not continuously. The split is not flat across validators: inflation is allocated by stake weight, then scaled by voting performance. Validators earn vote credits for voting correctly and on time, so a node with strong uptime and low vote latency captures close to its full stake-weighted share, while a slow or delinquent one earns less to pass on. The validator deducts its commission, and the remainder lands directly in delegators' stake accounts.
From the validator's seat. That vote-performance scaling is exactly why uptime and skip rate matter to you as a delegator: they decide how much of the theoretical yield the node actually captures before any commission. A cheap but unreliable validator quietly underperforms a well-run one.
How APY is calculated
Each epoch you receive a reward proportional to your stake. APY annualizes that per-epoch reward and accounts for automatic restaking, so it compounds. In simplified terms:
Your epoch reward is roughly
stake x (inflation APY / epochs per year) x (1 - commission), plus any shared MEV. Chain those across a year, compounding each epoch, and you get APY.
Two things trip people up. APR vs APY: APR is the simple annual rate; APY includes compounding and runs a little higher. Why APY beats the inflation rate: only staked SOL captures the new issuance, in effect a transfer from non-stakers to stakers, and compounding lifts the figure further.
Estimate your staking rewards
Plug in your own numbers. The calculator pre-fills the live network APY and compounds per epoch, the same way native staking restakes for you.
What moves your APY
- Total network stake. Inflation is shared across all active stake, so when more SOL is staked the same issuance is split more ways and per-staker APY drifts down.
- The inflation schedule. The declining curve lowers the baseline yield a little each year.
- Validator performance. Missed votes, downtime or a high skip rate cut the rewards there are to share, dragging your effective APY below the theoretical figure.
- Commission. Lower is better, and a validator's MEV commission can differ from its inflation commission.
- MEV volume. MEV tracks on-chain activity, so the MEV portion of your yield varies week to week.
Commission and your take-home
Commission is deducted from rewards before they reach you. Per epoch the gap looks tiny, but it compounds: on a multi-year position the difference between a 0% and a 5-to-10% inflation fee is real money.
Stake.Cake charges a 0% inflation fee, so the full staking reward stays in your stake account and compounds for you, not the validator.
Compounding (and the MEV catch)
Inflation rewards auto-compound: each epoch they land in your stake account and grow the next epoch's reward, with no action from you. MEV is the catch. Depending on the setup, native Jito tips either land in your stake account and compound, or must be claimed and re-delegated; liquid staking tokens such as JitoSOL fold MEV in automatically. Over months and years compounding is the main reason a modest per-epoch rate becomes a noticeably larger balance, so the two levers you control, commission and validator reliability, matter most. Read how to choose a validator to get both right.
Put your rewards to work
Stake your SOL with a 0% inflation-fee validator and keep the full reward compounding.
FAQ
What is the APY for staking Solana?
As of 2026, native staking yields roughly 6 to 7.5% before commission, and with Jito MEV the total often reaches 7 to 9%. The figure trends down over time as inflation declines and more SOL is staked.
How are Solana staking rewards calculated?
Each epoch the protocol mints new SOL and distributes it by stake weight, scaled by voting performance (vote credits). The validator takes its commission and the rest lands in delegators' stake accounts. APY annualizes that per-epoch reward and includes compounding.
How often are rewards paid?
Once per epoch, about every 2 to 3 days. Inflation rewards are added straight to your stake account and compound automatically, with no claiming needed for native staking.
Why is staking APY higher than the inflation rate?
Two reasons: only staked SOL captures the new issuance, so stakers get more than the rate spread over all supply; and rewards compound each epoch, lifting the annual figure.
What is the difference between APR and APY?
APR is the simple annual rate; APY also accounts for compounding and is a little higher. Since Solana restakes automatically, APY is the realistic figure for native staking.
Do MEV rewards compound?
Inflation rewards always auto-compound. MEV varies: in some setups Jito tips land in your stake account and compound, in others they must be claimed; LSTs like JitoSOL fold MEV in automatically.
Does commission affect my APY?
Yes. Commission comes out of rewards before they reach you, and a validator's MEV commission can differ from its inflation commission. A 0% inflation fee leaves you the full reward to compound.