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What is a priority fee?
The priority fee, or tip, is the part of an Ethereum transaction fee that goes to the validator who includes the transaction in a block. It is added on top of the base fee, and a higher tip can get a transaction included sooner when blocks are busy.
What it means for you
Wallets usually set the tip for you, and raising it helps only when there is competition for block space. The tip is paid only on gas actually used and is capped by your max fee: if the base fee rises, the tip is squeezed first, which can leave a transaction too unattractive to include.
How it works
In a type 2 transaction the sender sets maxPriorityFeePerGas and maxFeePerGas. For each unit of gas, the validator receives whichever is smaller: the maximum tip, or the max fee minus the block's base fee. Anything left between that and the max fee is refunded to the sender. Unlike the base fee, the tip is not burned. It lets senders signal urgency and gives validators a reason to include more transactions.
Sources: ethereum.org: Gas and fees, EIP-1559: Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain · checked 4 October 2026
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