Priority fee
EconomyThis term is part of the Bitcoin glossary — See all terms
The priority fee is the tip you add above the minimum rate to nudge miners into including your transaction sooner.
Think of the mempool as the queue at a busy bakery. The network has a minimum fee rate — a floor below which nodes will not even relay your transaction — but anyone can bid more. Whatever exceeds that floor is the priority fee: a direct tip to the miner working the queue, inviting them to slip your payment ahead of everyone waiting.
How much? When the network is calm a modest tip is enough and some wallets keep it near zero. When a burst of activity fills the cheapest slots, raising the priority fee from, say, 2 to 10 sat/vB can move you from the back of the line to the front. Wallets handle this automatically, and RBF lets you raise the bid later if the queue marches on without you.
