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Gas fees are what a blockchain charges to include your transaction in a block. Fees fluctuate with network congestion, transaction complexity, and the priority you set. Your wallet needs enough of the blockchain’s native asset to cover the fees on every transaction it sends.
Learn about gas fees, how to estimate them for a transfer using the API, and how to send USDC using the estimates.

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Set the fee on a transaction

You have two ways to control what you pay when you create a transfer: fee levels (the simple path) or explicit gas limits (the advanced path).

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Fee levels

Set the feeLevel parameter and Circle picks the fee for you based on the level you choose. Actual wait times vary by blockchain. See expected confirmation times.
  • LOW: slower than average, lower fees.
  • MEDIUM: average speed, average fees.
  • HIGH: faster than average, higher fees.

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Custom gas limits

Set your own fee parameters instead of picking a level. All values are in wei.
  • gasLimit: the base amount of gas required to process the transaction.
  • priorityFee: an additional tip paid to validators to accelerate the transaction.
  • maxFee: the maximum fee you’re willing to pay per unit of gas. If the network fee exceeds this value, the transaction fails. Solana has no maxFee concept.
The parameters you set and how the final fee is calculated depend on the blockchain.

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EVM blockchains

Specify gasLimit, maxFee, and priorityFee. Your actual fee is (base fee + priority fee) × gas used. The network sets the base fee based on current congestion, so you don’t specify it yourself.
  • Base fee: set by the network based on congestion. Burned when the transaction is included, which removes it from circulation.
  • Priority fee: additional fee paid to validators to expedite the transaction.
  • Max fee: the maximum you’re willing to pay per unit of gas. Protects against excessive prices when the base fee spikes.
priorityFee doesn’t apply on Arbitrum and can be omitted.

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Solana

Solana’s fee mechanism resembles EIP-1559: specify a priorityFee (in micro-lamports per compute unit, where one lamport is 10^-9 SOL) to incentivize validators to include your transaction. There’s no maxFee concept, and gasLimit is optional. Solana defaults to a compute budget of 200,000 compute units per instruction.

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Estimated costs

Fees on each blockchain depend on that blockchain’s native token price and the gas cost of the operation you’re running.

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Native token prices

Six-month trailing average price for each supported blockchain’s native token.

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Smart Contract Account (SCA) wallets

SCA wallets only run on EVM blockchains. Circle uses lazy deployment: the smart contract account is deployed at the first outbound transaction, so there’s no gas cost at wallet creation or on deposits. Estimated fees for wallet deployment and fungible token transfers on SCA wallets:

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Externally Owned Account (EOA) wallets

EOA wallet creation is free. Solana and Aptos charge a one-time fee the first time a wallet receives a non-native token:
  • Solana: the fee creates an Associated Token Account (ATA). You can recover it by closing the account.
  • Aptos: the fee stores the token on the recipient’s account and isn’t recoverable.
Estimated fees for account creation and fungible token transfers on EOA wallets:
Aptos charges an additional storage creation fee the first time a fungible token is transferred to an address. Approximate totals: the first transfer to a new address is 0.0005324 APT (~0.00232USD);subsequenttransferstothesameaddressare∗∗0.0000002APT∗∗( 0.00232 USD); subsequent transfers to the same address are **0.0000002 APT** (~0.00000087 USD).