Solana Staking: Live APY, Rewards and the Best Place to Stake SOL

What is Solana staking and how does it work?

Solana has no miners. Instead, validators check transactions and add new blocks. A validator's vote counts in proportion to the SOL staked with it, so stake is what gives it a say.

When you stake, you lend that weight to a validator you pick. In return, you share in the rewards it earns.

• Your SOL stays yours. It sits in a stake account that only your wallet controls.
• The validator can't touch it. It can only vote with its weight.
• Rewards arrive every epoch, which lasts about 26 hours, and are added to your stake.
• Unstaking follows the same clock. Your SOL is free to move after the current epoch ends.

Most rewards come from new SOL the network issues to stakers. The rest comes from tips traders pay to get their transactions in first. Our explainer covers where each part of the reward comes from, what commission takes, and why epochs matter.

How to stake Solana

Staking SOL from your own wallet takes a few minutes. Your stake starts earning at the next epoch boundary, never more than about 26 hours away.

1. Put SOL in a wallet you control, such as Phantom or Solflare. Keep a little unstaked to pay fees.
2. Open the wallet's staking screen and choose an amount. The minimum is 1 SOL.
3. Pick a validator. Search for Solana Compass by name, or paste our vote account.
4. Sign the transaction. This creates a stake account and points it at the validator.
5. Wait for the epoch to end. From then on, rewards are added to your stake each epoch.

The form below does steps 2 to 4 in one go. Every wallet's screens differ, so we also keep a walkthrough for each popular wallet and for Ledger. Once you have stake accounts, you can merge or split them, or withdraw part of a stake account while the rest keeps earning.

Solana staking today: where the yield comes from

Most staking yield on Solana comes from inflation. The protocol issues new SOL every epoch and pays it only to staked SOL. So the more SOL is staked, the smaller each staker's slice.

MEV tips add a little more on top. Traders pay them to have their transactions placed first.

Inflation falls by 15% each year toward a long-term floor of 1.5%. That is why the staking APY drifts lower over time, even when nothing else changes. In August 2026 validators voted to make it fall twice as fast; that change is not live yet. The charts below update every epoch.

Solana staking rewards and APY: how much interest does staked SOL earn?

Staking SOL pays about 5.1% a year before commission, with inflation rewards making up most of it. Commission is the share of rewards a validator keeps. A validator charging 10% passes on the other nine tenths.

Rewards are added to your stake every epoch and then earn rewards of their own, so they compound. A validator that goes offline or misses votes earns less, and so do the people staked with it.

At the live network inflation APY of 4.98%. MEV tips add a little on top, depending on the validator.

MEV tips arrive in your stake account as unstaked SOL and earn nothing until you stake them again. You can collect and re-stake MEV tips in one step. To work out your own numbers, use our staking rewards calculator guide.

Native, liquid or exchange staking?

There are three ways to stake SOL. They differ in who holds your SOL and how fast you can get out.

• Native staking keeps SOL in a stake account you own, with no smart contract involved. It suits holders who want the fewest moving parts and won't need their SOL at short notice.
• Liquid staking swaps SOL for a liquid staking token (LST) that stands for staked SOL. You can sell it at any time or use it in DeFi. The trade-off is smart contract risk and a possible discount when many holders sell at once.
• Exchange staking is the easiest route. The exchange holds your SOL and keeps part of the rewards, so it usually pays the least.

Liquid staking tokens hold about 13% of all staked SOL. Read how liquid staking tokens work. If you are weighing one token against another, our stake pools page lists every pool we track, with its yield, fees and size.

US spot Solana ETFs that stake on their holders' behalf exist too. The fund's fee comes out of the yield.

Where is the best place to stake Solana? Choosing a validator

The best place to stake Solana is a validator with low commission and a long record of staying online. It should never have raised its commission, and it shouldn't be one of the biggest.

That mix earns you close to the full network rate. It also spreads stake more widely, which makes Solana harder to halt. Right now 18 validators hold a third of all stake. Our view is simple: staking with smaller, well-run validators is better for Solana.

A validator's past matters more than today's rate, because a fee can change later. Start with our checklist for choosing a validator. Then see commission, uptime and stake share for every validator.

Curious about the other side? Read what validators earn and spend, or why Solana can't be mined, and what running a validator involves.

Is Solana staking safe? Slashing, commission changes and other risks

Native Solana staking is low risk to the SOL you stake. The validator never controls it. Solana doesn't slash stake yet, so a validator's mistakes cost you rewards, not SOL. The real risks are smaller, and staking won't protect you if SOL's price falls.

Commission rises

A validator can raise its commission, as far as 100%. You then earn less until you move. Check its record before you stake. Moving takes one epoch to unstake and one more to stake with someone new.

Downtime

If a validator goes offline, you earn nothing for that time. Your SOL is safe.

Slashing

Slashing means burning part of a validator's stake, and its stakers' stake, as a penalty for clear cheating. Solana has no slashing penalty today.

Alpenglow, Solana's new way of reaching agreement on blocks, went live in October 2026. It treats voting twice as a provable offence, but sets no penalty for it. Read what Alpenglow changes for validators.

Liquid staking tokens

A liquid staking token can trade below the SOL it stands for when more people sell than buy. Cashing out through the pool avoids the gap but waits for the epoch to end. Each token also relies on its smart contract.

Exchanges and tax

Staking through an exchange adds the risk of the exchange itself. Tax rules on rewards differ by country.

How often staking pays out, and how long unstaking SOL takes

Solana pays staking rewards once per epoch. An epoch is 432,000 slots and lasts about 26 hours at the recent pace. Rewards are added to your stake account for you.

Unstaking runs on the same clock:

1. Deactivate the stake.
2. Wait for the epoch to end.
3. Withdraw the SOL to your wallet.

To leave sooner, swap a liquid staking token for SOL, or sell your stake account for a small fee with our instant unstake tool. Our guide to unstaking and withdrawing SOL compares the routes.

Is staking SOL worth it?

Solana Compass's view: staking is worth it for SOL you won't need for at least a few days. New SOL is paid only to staked SOL, so an unstaked balance's share of total supply shrinks by about 3.4% a year while staked balances keep pace.

SOL you trade or spend every day is better left unstaked, or held as a liquid staking token so it stays usable. Staking earns you more SOL; it doesn't protect the value of that SOL if the price falls.