5000 Lamports = 0.000005 SOL – The Solana Base Fee Explained
On the Solana blockchain, every transaction carries a base fee of 5,000 lamports per signature. Since 1 SOL = 1,000,000,000 lamports, this means the base fee is 0.000005 SOL. At a SOL price of $160, this equates to approximately $0.0008 — making Solana one of the most cost-effective blockchains available.
5000 Lamports Breakdown
- 5,000 lamports ÷ 1,000,000,000 = 0.000005 SOL
- At $100/SOL ≈ $0.0005
- At $150/SOL ≈ $0.00075
- At $200/SOL ≈ $0.001
- At $250/SOL ≈ $0.00125
When Is the 5000 Lamport Fee Applied?
- Every Solana transaction with 1 signature
- Multi-sig transactions: 5000 lamports × number of signers
- Token transfers, NFT mints, smart contract calls
- Program deployments and account creations
The base fee of 5,000 lamports per signature is fixed by the Solana protocol and applies to every transaction on mainnet, testnet, and devnet.
— Solana Documentation
Total Fee = Base Fee + Priority Fee
While the base fee is always 5,000 lamports per signature, users can also add a priority fee (measured in micro-lamports per compute unit) to have their transaction processed faster during periods of network congestion. The total fee formula is:
Total Fee = (5,000 × signatures) + (compute_unit_limit × compute_unit_price / 1,000,000)
For a simple single-signature transfer, the minimum cost is always 5,000 lamports = 0.000005 SOL.