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What is a nonce in a transaction?
A nonce is a counter attached to each transaction an account sends: the first is 0, the next 1, and so on. Only one transaction with a given nonce can be executed for each account. This keeps transactions in order and stops a signed transaction from being replayed.
What it means for you
Your wallet normally sets the nonce for you. Because transactions from one account run in nonce order, a pending transaction stuck with a low fee can hold up the ones you send after it until it is included or replaced.
How it works
On Ethereum, every account stores a nonce: for an externally owned account, the number of transactions it has sent; for a contract account, the number of contracts it has created. Each transaction carries the account's next number, and only one transaction with a given nonce can be executed per account, so a signed transaction broadcast again cannot run twice, and two transactions signed with the same nonce cannot both execute. The word means something else in Bitcoin mining: a number in the block that miners increment until the block's hash meets the proof-of-work target.
Sources: ethereum.org: Ethereum accounts, ethereum.org: Transactions, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (Nakamoto) · checked 4 October 2026
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