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What is EIP-1559?
EIP-1559 is the change to how Ethereum transaction fees work. Each block has a base fee per unit of gas that the protocol sets and burns, and senders add an optional tip, the priority fee, for the validator who includes their transaction.
What it means for you
Your wallet sets a max fee; you pay the base fee plus your tip and get the rest back, so the max is a ceiling, not the price. If the base fee climbs above your max fee, the transaction waits unconfirmed. The burned part goes to no one and cannot be reclaimed.
How it works
The base fee changes each block according to how full the previous block was compared with a target: up when blocks are fuller, down when emptier, by at most one eighth (12.5%) per block. Blocks can stretch to twice the target, so bursts of demand are absorbed by bigger blocks and a rising price instead of a bidding war. A type 2 transaction states maxFeePerGas and maxPriorityFeePerGas; the validator receives the smaller of the tip or the max fee minus the base fee, the base fee is burned, and the difference is refunded.
An example
Say the base fee is 20 gwei and you set a 2 gwei tip with a 40 gwei max fee. A plain transfer uses 21,000 gas, so you pay 22 gwei x 21,000 = 462,000 gwei, or 0.000462 ETH. Of that, 0.00042 ETH is burned and 0.000042 ETH goes to the validator; the 40 gwei ceiling is never charged.
Sources: EIP-1559: Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain, ethereum.org: Gas and fees · checked 4 October 2026
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