Solana Staking Rewards & APY Explained
Solana staking pays roughly 5.5% APY from protocol inflation, about 5.6% with MEV on top — paid every epoch (about 2 days) and compounding automatically.
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. All of it goes to validators and their delegators — there is no protocol treasury or foundation cut taken first. What the network actually mints comes in a little under the headline schedule, because rewards a validator fails to earn through missed votes are simply not paid out to anyone.
- 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.
- MEV tips. Validators running the Jito client (97% of stake when we measured it in August 2026, so in practice nearly all of it) 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 adds a little on top. As of 2026, native staking runs about 5.5% APY before commission, and with MEV the total is about 5.6%. Yields trend down over time as the inflation schedule declines. All three flows are visible on chain — the Solana validator revenue chart tracks issuance commission, MEV and fees day by day.
The inflation schedule
Solana's issuance is not fixed. It launched near 8% per year, falls by roughly 15% each year (the disinflation rate), and settles at a long-term terminal rate 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. The curve is not untouchable, and it is being argued over right now. SIMD-0228 proposed replacing it with market-based emissions; it went to the largest governance vote crypto has held and failed in March 2025, with 43.6% in favour against a two-thirds bar. The question came back. As of August 2026, SIMD-0550 would double the disinflation rate, from −15% to −30% a year: by its own estimate that reaches the 1.5% floor in about 2.8 years instead of 5.7, and issues roughly 18.9 million fewer SOL over six years. A companion proposal, SIMD-0553, would rebuild transaction fees around a burned resource component. Neither is decided. The parameters are documented in the official Solana staking docs.
What SIMD-0550 would actually do to your yield
Worth working out, because the proposal is written in units of issuance and you are paid in yield. Two premises first: the figures below hold the staked share of supply at today's 69%, and they cover the inflation part only — MEV sits on top and this proposal does not touch it. Activation changes nothing retroactively and produces no step, because the schedule is re-anchored so the rate at the moment of activation is identical either way. Only the slope after it differs.
| Years after activation | Current schedule | Under SIMD-0550 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| At activation | 5.4% | 5.4% | — |
| 1 year | 4.6% | 3.8% | 0.8 pts |
| 2 years | 3.9% | 2.6% | 1.3 pts |
| 3 years | 3.3% | 2.2% | 1.1 pts |
| 5 years | 2.4% | 2.2% | 0.2 pts |
| 6 years | 2.2% | 2.2% | — |
The last row is the part worth carrying away. Both schedules end in the same place — about 2.2% from inflation, plus MEV — because the 1.5% floor is unchanged. SIMD-0550 does not lower where Solana staking lands; it arrives there in roughly two and a half years instead of five and a half. What a holder gives up is the transition, and that gap is widest in year two before closing to nothing by year six. On a 1,000 SOL position held throughout, the two paths differ by about 48 SOL over six years.
There is a second-order effect that matters more than the first if you are choosing where to delegate. As the inflation component shrinks toward the floor, the parts that do not shrink — MEV and fees — become a larger share of what reaches you. A validator's MEV pass-through is worth more every year under either schedule, and sooner under this one. That is the argument for reading the validator checklist now rather than after the vote.
| Inflation parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Initial rate | 8% per year |
| Disinflation rate | −15% per year |
| Terminal rate (floor) | 1.5% per year |
| Share going to stakers | All of it — no treasury cut |
How rewards are paid out
Rewards arrive once per epoch (about 2 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
The nominal rate is 5.6%, but that is not what lands in your account. Because every epoch's reward is restaked automatically, compounding lifts the figure you actually receive to about 5.76%. On a validator charging no inflation fee, that works out as:
| Stake | Rewards after 1 year | After 5 years |
|---|---|---|
| 100 SOL | 5.76 SOL | 32.31 SOL |
| 1,000 SOL | 57.59 SOL | 323.07 SOL |
| 10,000 SOL | 575.89 SOL | 3,230.73 SOL |
Nothing is claimed or re-delegated to reach those numbers — inflation rewards land in the stake account and grow the next epoch's reward on their own. Plug in your own stake, commission and horizon below.
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. Take 1,000 SOL at the current 5.6%, and compare a validator taking nothing against one taking 7%:
| Inflation fee | Effective APY | Rewards, 1 year | Rewards, 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 5.76% | 57.59 SOL | 323.07 SOL |
| 7% | 5.35% | 53.45 SOL | 297.40 SOL |
Over one year the fee costs about 4.1 SOL on that position; over five it costs about 25.7 SOL, because the commission is taken before the reward can compound. The larger the stake and the longer the horizon, the wider that gap grows.
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 reliable validator for staking to get both right.
Put your rewards to work
Stake your SOL with a 0% fee validator and keep the full reward compounding.
FAQ
What is the APY for staking Solana?
As of 2026, native staking yields about 5.5% before commission, and with MEV the total is about 5.6%. 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 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.
What is Solana's inflation rate?
Solana's inflation launched near 8% per year and declines by about 15% annually (the disinflation rate) toward a long-term floor of 1.5%. Staking APY runs higher than the inflation rate because only staked SOL shares the new issuance, and rewards compound each epoch.