To unstake SOL, you deactivate your stake account in your wallet, wait for the current epoch to end, then withdraw the SOL back to your wallet. An epoch is the network's reward period, and it has lasted about a day since October 2026. So a normal unstake takes anywhere from a few minutes to about a day, depending on when you start. If you can't wait, instant unstake sells your staked position into a liquidity pool and pays you SOL straight away, for a small fee. SOL staked on an exchange follows that exchange's own rules instead.
The current epoch is 22% through, so stake you deactivate now should be ready to withdraw in about 20 hours.
How long does it take to unstake Solana?
Unstaking Solana takes until the end of the current epoch, which is about a day at most. Your stake becomes free at the next epoch boundary, whenever in the epoch you ask. Start just before the boundary and you wait minutes. Start just after it and you wait close to a full epoch. Then you need one more step, a withdrawal, to move the SOL back into your wallet.
Many guides still say unstaking takes two to three days. That was true for most of Solana's history, when an epoch lasted about two days. Then SIMD-0525 cut Solana's block times in a series of steps, and each step made epochs shorter. Solana Compass measured epochs halving in length between August and October 2026.
By our measure, the last full epoch lasted 26 hours.
Solana's epochs shrank from about 51 hours in early August 2026 to about 26 hours by mid-October, as slot times stepped down from 400ms to 200ms.
View on Solana Compass →There is one case where unstaking takes longer. The network lets at most 9% of all staked SOL switch off in a single epoch, under the rule set out in SIMD-0391. If more than that tries to leave at once, the rest waits for later epochs. Solana Compass's stake data shows no epoch close to that cap since December 2025. Even the busiest, in March 2026, saw only about 2% of staked SOL unstake.
How to unstake SOL in Phantom, Solflare or Ledger: the normal delayed unstake
A normal unstake on Solana takes two steps: deactivate the stake account, then withdraw it once the epoch ends. You need the wallet that controls the stake account and a little SOL for network fees. Here are the steps in most wallets, including Phantom CASH$0.999+0.0% and Solflare:
- Open the staking or "staked SOL" screen and pick the stake account.
- Choose Unstake. Some wallets call it Deactivate.
- Approve the transaction. The account now shows as deactivating.
- After the epoch ends, open the account again and choose Withdraw.
- Approve once more. The SOL lands in your main wallet balance.
The wallet screens differ a little, and our step-by-step guide for each wallet shows them, from staking through to getting out.
Unstaking works on a whole stake account. To take out only part of it, the account must first be split in two, so one half keeps earning while the other unstakes. Our partial unstake tool does the split and the unstake together.
A fully withdrawn stake account also returns its rent deposit, the small amount of SOL every account on Solana holds to exist.
When can I withdraw my destaked SOL?
You can withdraw your destaked SOL as soon as the epoch you unstaked in has ended. At that point the stake account changes from deactivating to deactivated, sometimes shown as inactive. There is no deadline after that. The SOL stays in the stake account until you withdraw it, but it no longer earns anything.
Anza's staking docs describe the same order: you first deactivate the stake, then "wait for cooldown", and the SOL becomes withdrawable once it has cooled down. Your wallet does not withdraw for you. If your balance looks the same a day after unstaking, the withdraw step is usually what is missing.
Two things can block a withdrawal. A stake account with a lockup, which is common for SOL from token sales and vesting plans, can't be withdrawn until the lockup ends. And only the account's withdraw authority, normally your own wallet, can move the SOL out.
Do I still earn rewards when I unstake my SOL?
Yes. You keep earning staking rewards for the rest of the epoch you unstaked in. The network pays rewards for each epoch at the start of the next one. The Anza docs put it plainly: "As the stake cools down, it continues to earn rewards." Once the account is deactivated, it stops earning.
So the wait costs you less than it looks. The SOL is locked, but it is still paid for most of that time. Unstaking late in an epoch gets you the shortest wait, and you lose nothing by unstaking early in one either.
How much that epoch's reward comes to depends on your validator and the network rate. Our guide to how Solana pays staking rewards explains where the SOL comes from and when it lands.
How to instantly unstake SOL: liquid unstaking and instant unstake tools
The fastest way to get SOL out of staking is to sell the staked position for SOL instead of waiting for the epoch to end. A liquidity pool pays you now and takes on the wait itself. You pay for that with a small fee, plus any price gap in the pool. How you do it depends on what you hold.
If you hold a liquid staking token such as JitoSOL or mSOL, you can swap it to SOL at any time. Jito JTO$0.346+4.0% and Marinade MNDE$0.022-1.8% each run their own instant unstake, and Jupiter JUP$0.245+1.8% routes the swap across every pool. If you hold a native stake account, Sanctum CLOUD$0.044+0.2% runs unstake.it, a pool that buys stake accounts from any validator for SOL.
The Solana Compass instant unstake tool handles both. It prices each position two ways: a direct redemption from the token's own stake pool, and a swap through Jupiter. Then it runs whichever pays you more SOL. Native stake accounts go through unstake.it. It is non-custodial, so you sign every transaction in your own wallet, and it shows the SOL you will receive before you sign.
The tool's service fee is not kept by Solana Compass. It is paid into the compassSOL stake pool, which raises the value of every compassSOL token.
| Way out | When you get SOL | What it costs | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal unstake | At the end of the epoch, about a day at most | Network fees only | You can wait a day |
| Instant unstake | Now | A small fee plus any pool price gap | You need SOL right away |
| Swap a liquid staking token | Now | Swap fee and any price gap | You already hold JitoSOL, mSOL or similar |
Instant unstake carries one risk a normal unstake does not. In a sell-off, pools can run thin and liquid staking tokens can trade below their value, so you get less SOL. Checking the amount before you sign is the protection.
Instant unstake vs normal unstake: which costs less?
For most people, waiting costs less, because a normal unstake now takes a day at most and keeps earning while you wait. Instant unstake is worth it when you need the SOL now, for a trade or a payment. It is a fee for time, so it makes less sense the shorter the wait gets.
Here is an example. Say you unstake 100 SOL and an instant route charges 0.3%. That costs 0.3 SOL. At a staking rate of around 5% a year, 100 SOL earns that much in about three weeks. Waiting costs only the network fees and a day without access to your SOL.
The fee you see is the real comparison, so weigh it against the size of your stake. On a large balance, a fraction of a percent adds up, and waiting a day is often the better deal.
How to switch Solana validators without unstaking
Solana has no direct way to move your stake from one validator to another. To switch, you unstake, wait for the epoch to end, then stake with the new validator. New stake takes another epoch to start earning. So a switch costs you about one epoch of rewards.
You can skip that gap by turning the stake account into a liquid staking token. Many stake pools take a stake account as a deposit, and your SOL stays staked the whole time. Our explainer on liquid staking tokens and how they work compares the main ones.
If your stake is with the Solana Compass validator, the Switch to compassSOL mode in our instant unstake tool moves it into the compassSOL pool in one step. Your SOL never stops earning.
If your validator raised its fee or went offline, our guide to choosing a new validator covers what to check first.
Unstaking risks: stake account scams and exchange delays
The main risk when unstaking SOL is a scam, not the network. Nobody legitimate needs to buy your stake account or take control of it. A "buyer" who asks for its withdraw authority can drain it, and offers like this in Discord servers and private messages are a known scam. The safe routes out are a normal unstake, a deposit into a stake pool, or an instant unstake you sign yourself.
Stake held on an exchange works differently. The exchange controls the stake account, so it sets its own unstaking time and fees, which can be longer than the network's. Check the exchange's help pages for its current wait.
Once your SOL is back in your wallet, you can restake it at any time. The Solana Compass staking page sets out the ways to do that, including our own validator.
