Ethereum gas tracker
Live gas price in gwei. Slow / standard / fast plus EIP-1559 base fee. Speed-of-confirmation estimates, refreshed every 15 minutes.
Current gas prices
Cost of common transactions
| Transaction | Gas limit | Gwei | ≈ USD | ETH |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETH transfer | 21 000 | 0.2 | $0.01 | 0.000004 |
| ERC-20 transfer | 65 000 | 0.2 | $0.03 | 0.000013 |
| Uniswap swap | 180 000 | 0.2 | $0.07 | 0.000035 |
| NFT mint | 250 000 | 0.2 | $0.10 | 0.000048 |
| L2 bridge deposit | 130 000 | 0.2 | $0.05 | 0.000025 |
Gas in Ethereum is the fee for executing operations in smart contracts. A simple ETH transfer costs 21,000 gas; a Uniswap swap — 150–200K; minting an NFT — 250–400K. The dollar cost = gas × gas_price_in_gwei × ETH_price / 10⁹.
Since EIP-1559 (August 2021) gas price has two parts: base fee (burnt, ETH removed from supply) and priority fee (goes to validators as a tip). Base fee is auto-adjusted so target block utilisation stays at 50%. When the network is congested — base fee rises.
The slow / average / fast parameters are recommendations from analysis of the last 200 blocks and pending tx prioritisation. Slow suits non-urgent ops (entering a trend); fast — arbitrage, liquidations and MEV-sensitive trades.
How to save on gas
Use L2
Arbitrum, Base, Optimism — same apps, often the same protocols, gas tens of times cheaper. Bridging via the official bridge takes 10–20 minutes.
Pick weekends and UTC nights
Average gas on Saturday–Sunday is 20–40% lower. If a tx is not urgent — defer it.
Batch transactions
Instead of approve + swap, do a single Permit2 transaction via 1inch or CoW Swap. 30–50% savings.
Watch base fee
When base fee drops below 20 gwei — a good moment for large operations. Set a gas-drop alert through the screener.
FAQ
- What is gwei?
- Gwei = 10⁻⁹ ETH. 1 ETH = 10⁹ gwei. Gas prices are always quoted in gwei because a normal transaction costs tens or hundreds of gwei × tens of thousands of gas, which in ETH would be 0.0001–0.001 — awkward numbers.
- What is the difference between base fee and priority fee?
- Base fee is the mandatory part that is burnt (deflationary mechanism). Priority fee is a voluntary tip to the validator. Transactions with higher priority fee are included sooner. On quiet blocks priority fee = 0; in a congested network — 2–5 gwei.
- Why did my transaction fail but gas was charged?
- Gas pays for the attempt, not for success. If the tx failed due to slippage, insufficient allowance or an internal require() in the contract — gas is still consumed. This is an EVM property; on other VMs (like Solana) a failure does not charge the fee.
- Which L2s are better — optimistic or ZK?
- Optimistic (Arbitrum, Base, OP) have cheaper transactions but a 7-day challenge window for L1 withdrawals. ZK (zkSync Era, Linea, Polygon zkEVM) are 10–30% more expensive but withdrawals settle in minutes-to-hours and security is stronger (no fraud-proof needed). For most DeFi tasks optimistic is enough.