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The RealValidator Team Editorial team

Solana commission rate is the percentage of staking rewards a validator withholds before distributing the remainder to its stakers, and it has two independent components: base commission on inflation rewards and Jito MEV commission on MEV tip rewards. A validator with 5% base commission, 8% Jito MEV commission retains 5% of every staker's inflation share and 8% of every staker's MEV tip share.

Commission is stored on-chain in the vote account and is mutable by the withdraw authority. Changes take effect only at epoch boundaries; a change submitted mid-epoch applies to the next epoch's reward distribution. The Jito MEV commission is stored separately, set on the validator's Jito Block Engine configuration (the off-chain auction service operated by Jito Labs), and applies only to MEV tip income, not to inflation rewards.

Headline commission vs. what stakers actually receive

The "headline" number a staker sees in a single field (e.g. "5% commission" on a validator's homepage) typically refers to base commission only. It does not describe the validator's MEV cut. A staker delegating to a validator advertising 5% commission who runs the Jito client and charges 100% Jito MEV commission receives 95% of inflation rewards but 0% of MEV tips. The same staker delegating to a validator at 8% base, 8% Jito MEV receives 92% of inflation rewards and 92% of MEV tips. Total post-commission yield depends on the mix of inflation and MEV income, which varies with network MEV activity.

Stakewiz publishes both components separately on its validator API: commission (base) and jito_commission_bps (MEV commission, in basis points). When comparing operators by total realized yield, both numbers must be read together.

Range observed in this wiki's directory

Across the 28 validators profiled in this wiki at epoch 971 (per Stakewiz, 2026-05-15):

  • Base commission ranges from 0% to 10%. The most common value among MEV-enabled validators is 5%-8%. Several brand-name operators sit at 0% to maximize headline APY (with Jito MEV commission supplying the operator's revenue).
  • Jito MEV commission ranges from 0% to 100%. A 100% Jito MEV commission means the validator keeps the full MEV tip stream; this is observable on profiles for validators who treat MEV as operator revenue rather than passing it to stakers. Stakers reading a validator profile should always check this field; a 0% base commission validator with 100% Jito MEV commission is a structurally different proposition from a 0% base / 0% Jito MEV operator.

Why effective-epoch matters

A validator can raise commission immediately before the inflation distribution event at an epoch boundary, capture a higher share of that single epoch's rewards, and lower it back the next epoch. Solana governance discussed restrictions on such timing in past SIMDs, but as of epoch 971 commission changes remain unrestricted in timing. The defensive practice for stakers: re-check commission at least once per epoch on validators where commission has changed in the trailing 30 epochs, or use Validators.app commission change history (validators.app) to inspect the pattern.

The SFDP enforces caps: participating validators must keep base commission at or below 5% and Jito MEV commission at or below 10% (per solana.org/delegation-criteria as of epoch 971). A validator that raises commission above these thresholds loses SFDP eligibility for the affected epoch.

Terminology traps

  • "Fee" is not the correct term. Use commission rate. Solana also has separate transaction fees (priority fees and the base 5,000 lamports/signature fee) and the per-slot vote transaction fee — these are unrelated to validator commission.
  • "Effective commission" in some external tools refers to a weighted blend of base and Jito MEV commission. There is no on-chain "effective commission" field; the term is a UI construct. Always cite both components separately.
  • Commission applies to rewards, not to delegated stake. A 5% commission validator does not take 5% of a staker's principal; it takes 5% of the inflation reward that staker would otherwise receive.

Sources

Commission rates cited reference Stakewiz validator records at epoch 971, 2026-05-15. Rates change at epoch boundaries; verify on a fresh snapshot when citing for current decisions.