The wallet tries to tell you what a transaction will cost before you sign it. How precisely it can do that depends on the action, because the network prices each transaction by its real size and some transactions cannot be measured until they are prepared.
Before you sign
Action | What you see |
Send | A typical figure for this kind of transfer |
Swap | A typical figure, with the network fee shown separately from the provider fee |
Bulk transfer | The real figure for your exact batch, once it has been prepared |
Merging by hand | An estimate before you confirm |
Topping up your Fee Balance | The fee for the top-up itself, shown before you confirm. A top-up is a transaction like any other. |
Connected apps | No estimate. The wallet cannot see the shape of the transaction in advance, so keep a larger cushion in your Fee Balance. |
Why the final amount can differ
An estimate is an estimate. The network charges for what the transaction actually turned out to be, so the final fee can land slightly above or slightly below what you were shown. Both directions are normal.
Where the wallet shows a typical figure rather than a live one, expect a little more variation.
Which actions use the Fee Balance
Anything your wallet submits to the network draws on the Fee Balance:
Sends.
Swaps.
Transactions through connected apps.
Accepting an incoming transfer by hand.
Setting up a preapproval.
Bulk transfers.
Merging holdings.
Topping up the Fee Balance itself.
That last one catches people out, so it is worth saying plainly: refilling the Fee Balance costs a little Fee Balance. If yours has fallen too low to cover even that, you cannot fix it from inside the wallet. How to top up your Fee Balance explains what to do, and we credit it by hand at no charge.
Once one-step transfers or a token preapproval is switched on, the incoming transfers they cover no longer need a manual acceptance, so that fee stops applying to them.
The wallet keeps a current list of these actions with typical figures for each. Open your Fee Balance and choose Learn about Fee Balance to see it. We do not reprint the figures here, because they change and the wallet reads the live ones.
CC moved into the Fee Balance stays there
Topping up is one-way. CC credited to your Fee Balance is set aside for network fees and cannot be moved back to your main balance or refunded. Add what you expect to use, and add more later if you need it.
After you sign
Every fee taken from your Fee Balance is recorded in your History, with the transaction it belongs to. Open the transaction and the fee is in the detail view. That is the place to check what you actually paid, rather than the estimate you were quoted.
Your balance can take a few seconds to catch up after a transaction while it settles on the ledger.
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