Ethereum gas fees chart, 2015–2026
Switch between the gas price in gwei and the dollar cost of a plain ETH transfer. The log scale lets 0.1 gwei and 100 gwei share one chart; dashed lines mark London, the Merge, Dencun and the 60 million gas limit.
Gas price by month (gwei)
Every month since Ethereum’s first transactions. The expensive stretch stands out: mid-2020 to early 2022, when most months were between roughly 40 and 160 gwei (with a lull in June–July 2021), followed by smaller bumps in 2023 and 2024. Since March 2025 every month has been under 3 gwei, and since August 2025 about 1 gwei or less.
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | 56 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| 2016 | 50 | 50 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 23 | 21 | 20 |
| 2017 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 22 | 20 | 21 | 21 | 14 | 20 | 30 |
| 2018 | 40 | 20 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 9.0 | 8.0 | 5.5 | 6.5 | 8.8 | 8.9 | 9.1 | 9.0 |
| 2019 | 9.0 | 8.0 | 5.1 | 6.0 | 6.6 | 10 | 6.0 | 10 | 19 | 10 | 10 | 9.0 |
| 2020 | 5.0 | 6.6 | 6.0 | 6.7 | 23 | 30 | 45 | 98 | 126 | 46 | 38 | 58 |
| 2021 | 85 | 161 | 132 | 107 | 64 | 20 | 24 | 62 | 87 | 101 | 125 | 83 |
| 2022 | 130 | 77 | 40 | 48 | 67 | 47 | 22 | 14 | 13 | 19 | 18 | 16 |
| 2023 | 21 | 29 | 28 | 34 | 62 | 22 | 25 | 22 | 14 | 13 | 32 | 38 |
| 2024 | 23 | 36 | 44 | 17 | 8.1 | 8.7 | 6.1 | 4.4 | 9.3 | 14 | 16 | 15 |
| 2025 | 11 | 3.3 | 1.1 | 1.6 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.0 | 0.75 | 0.89 | 1.0 | 0.52 | 0.09 |
| 2026 | 0.17 | 0.27 | 0.14 | 0.63 | 0.38 | 0.29 | 0.18 | 0.19 | 0.33 | 0.31 | · | · |
Values in gwei (1 gwei = 0.000000001 ETH). Darker amber means pricier gas. 2015 starts in August (the first transactions); October 2026 runs to October 18. Before August 2021 each cell is the median gas price paid in about 60 sampled blocks; after, it is the average daily base fee plus the month’s median tip. Scroll sideways on small screens.
What was the Ethereum gas price on a date?
Pick any day from August 5, 2021 for that day’s average base fee and what common transactions cost. Earlier dates show the month’s sampled median, because there was no base fee before EIP-1559.
Daily from August 5, 2021 (EIP-1559) to October 18, 2026 · monthly before that, back to August 2015
Ethereum gas on May 1, 2022 (UTC day)
- Average base fee
- 728.0 gwei
- Base fee + median tip
- 729.5 gwei
- ETH close (Coinbase)
- $2,824.86
- Plain ETH transfer (21,000 gas): about $43.28
- USDT transfer (46,100 gas): about $95.00
- Uniswap swap (133,900 gas): about $275.94
- A plain transfer cost about 9,839× what it did on October 18, 2026 ($0.0044).
Tip = that month’s median priority fee from our eth_feeHistory samples. On spike days real tips were much higher, so treat spike-day costs as a floor. Swap gas uses today’s median Uniswap swap (133,900 gas); older swaps used different amounts.
Highest and lowest gas days since EIP-1559
Daily average base fee (UTC days, ultrasound.money). Transfer costs add that month’s median tip, so on spike days they understate what many people actually paid.
| Most expensive days | Avg base fee (gwei) | ETH transfer | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 1, 2022 | 728.0 | $43.28 | Yuga Labs’ Otherside “Otherdeed” land mint (Apr 30 U.S. evening) |
| Jan 10, 2022 | 195.7 | $12.77 | – |
| May 12, 2022 | 193.7 | $8.01 | – |
| Jan 14, 2022 | 173.0 | $12.13 | – |
| Oct 28, 2021 | 170.3 | $15.51 | – |
| Cheapest days | Avg base fee (gwei) | ETH transfer |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 6, 2025 | 0.026 | $0.0020 |
| Dec 20, 2025 | 0.026 | $0.0020 |
| Dec 21, 2025 | 0.029 | $0.0021 |
| Dec 28, 2025 | 0.030 | $0.0022 |
| Dec 27, 2025 | 0.031 | $0.0022 |
- The Otherside mint (April 30 – May 1, 2022) is the all-time spike. CoinDesk reported average gas prices around 800 gwei with spikes of 6,000 to 7,000 gwei, and users spent more than $176 million on fees in 24 hours; Decrypt counted 55,843 ETH burned by the mint.
- 95 days since August 2021 averaged above 100 gwei; the last was May 8, 2023. Since August 25, 2024, 499 days have averaged below 1 gwei.
- Before EIP-1559, the highest monthly median in our samples was February 2021 (160.5 gwei), followed by March 2021 (132.0) and September 2020 (126.0). The single priciest sampled block, on January 4, 2021, had a 622 gwei median.
Why Ethereum gas is so cheap in 2025–2026
Gas prices are set by demand for block space relative to supply. Since EIP-1559 (London, August 5, 2021) every block has a target of half its gas limit: the base fee rises by up to 12.5% after a fuller block and falls after an emptier one. Three things changed the supply side:
- The gas limit doubled in 2025. Validators raised it from 30 million to 36 million in February, 45 million in July and 60 million on November 25, 2025, with EIP-7935 making 60 million the client default in Fusaka. In our data the average base fee was 0.54 gwei in the 30 days before the 60 million step and 0.09 gwei in the 30 days after.
- Blobs moved layer 2 data off the main fee market. Dencun (March 13, 2024) gave rollups separate blob space with its own fee. The average base fee was 47.5 gwei in the 30 days before Dencun and 27.6 gwei in the 30 days after; other factors were moving too, so treat that as a correlation. See layer 2 fees compared for what a transaction costs on Base, Arbitrum and others.
- Main-chain demand has stayed below the target. With a base fee near zero, blocks are on average less than half full; spikes still happen on busy days (the 2026 high so far was 2.7 gwei on February 5).
Cheap gas has a trade-off for holders: the base fee is burned, so low fees mean little burn. ETH supply only shrinks when the base fee averages above about 13.6 gwei (ultrasound.money’s estimate); the last month above that was December 2024. Our ETH supply and inflation page tracks the burn.
Ethereum gas limit history
The block gas limit caps how much work fits in one block. Miners voted it up in small steps before the Merge; since then validators signal it, and it moves once enough of them agree. The right-hand column is the first month in which the median block in our samples was at the new level, so it can lag the actual change by a few weeks.
| Gas limit | How and when | First month in our samples |
|---|---|---|
| ≈3.14 million | Ramped up by miners in the weeks after the July 30, 2015 launch | Aug 2015 |
| ≈4.7 million | Miner vote, early 2016 | Mar 2016 |
| ≈6.7 million | Miner vote, mid-2017 | Jul 2017 |
| 8 million | Miner vote, late 2017 | Dec 2017 |
| 10 million | Miner vote, autumn 2019 | Oct 2019 |
| 12.5 million | Miner vote, mid-2020 | Aug 2020 |
| 15 million | Miner vote, spring 2021 | May 2021 |
| 30 million (15M target) | London upgrade, Aug 5, 2021: EIP-1559 doubles the maximum and targets half-full blocks | Aug 2021 |
| 36 million | Validator signalling, February 2025 (first raise since 2021) | Feb 2025 |
| 45 million | Validator signalling, about July 21–22, 2025 | Aug 2025 |
| 60 million | Validator signalling, Nov 25, 2025; EIP-7935 made 60M the default in Fusaka | Dec 2025 |
Fusaka (December 3, 2025) also capped a single transaction at 16,777,216 gas (EIP-7825). Glamsterdam, with no mainnet date yet, is designed to allow higher limits; Hoodi testnet will raise its limit to 200 million at the fork. Full fork details are in the Ethereum upgrades timeline.
Gas before and after EIP-1559
- 2015 to August 4, 2021: a first-price auction. Each sender set one gas price, miners kept all of it, and wallets guessed. In 2015–2017 most senders paid round numbers, which is why the monthly medians sit at exactly 50 gwei and later 20 gwei for long stretches.
- From August 5, 2021: a protocol-set base fee that is burned, plus a priority fee (tip) for the block producer. Our monthly median tips fell from 1.5–2 gwei in 2021–22 to about 0.003–0.04 gwei in 2026.
- Neither London nor the Merge cut fees. Typical gas rose from 20–24 gwei in June–July 2021 to 62–125 gwei in August–November 2021, and the average base fee was 12.6 gwei in the 30 days before the Merge versus 12.9 gwei after.
To time a transaction today, use the gas tracker’s best-time heatmap (56 days of blocks by weekday and hour), estimate a specific action with the gas fee estimator, or read Ethereum gas fees explained for how gas units, gwei and tips fit together.
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License: The tables, chart and CSVs on this page are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Reuse them for any purpose, including commercially, with credit (“GrowYourEthereum, Ethereum Gas Price History, CC BY 4.0”) and a link. The raw daily base fee comes from ultrasound.money and raw prices from Coinbase Exchange; their terms apply to those feeds.
Cite this data
Free to reuse in articles, research, reports and apps under CC BY 4.0. Copy a ready-made citation below; the HTML version includes the credit link the license asks for.
GrowYourEthereum. (2026). Ethereum Gas Price History [Data set]. Updated October 19, 2026. https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-gas-price-history. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
<a href="https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-gas-price-history">Ethereum Gas Price History</a> by GrowYourEthereum, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>.
@misc{growyourethereum_ethereum_gas_price_history_2026,
author = {{GrowYourEthereum}},
title = {Ethereum Gas Price History},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-gas-price-history}},
note = {Data set, updated October 19, 2026. CC BY 4.0}
}More datasets, JSON files and embeddable widgets: free Ethereum data for journalists, researchers and builders.
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Add the yearly gas price table (typical gwei, average ETH transfer cost and the priciest month of each year) to your article or site. It is free, has no ads or tracking, and keeps a visible credit line. Preview the widget.
<iframe src="https://growyourethereum.com/embed/gas-history" width="100%" height="600" style="border:none;max-width:780px;display:block;" title="Ethereum gas price by year by GrowYourEthereum" loading="lazy" ></iframe> <p style="font-size:13px;">Source: <a href="https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-gas-price-history">Ethereum gas price history</a> by GrowYourEthereum (CC BY 4.0).</p>
Methodology
- Before EIP-1559: we read every 3,000th mainnet block from block 46,200 to block 12,962,200 (about two a day; 3,783 blocks with transactions) from a public archive RPC on October 19, 2026, and took the median gas price of each block’s transactions, ignoring zero-price transactions. A month’s value is the median of its block medians (about 60 blocks).
- From August 5, 2021: ultrasound.money’s daily average base fee (UTC days, to October 18, 2026) plus the month’s median priority fee, taken from 1,258 eth_feeHistory samples (1,024 blocks each, the gas-weighted 50th-percentile tip). Our own base-fee averages from those samples matched ultrasound.money within about 2.5% on a typical month.
- Costs: gas price × gas used × the Coinbase ETH-USD daily close. Before EIP-1559 a month’s cost is the median of its sampled blocks; after, the mean of its days. Years average their months. Gas used: 21,000 for a plain ETH transfer, 46,100 for a USDT transfer and 133,900 for a Uniswap swap (medians measured for our gas tracker in October 2026).
- Limits: a 2-blocks-a-day sample cannot catch every intraday spike before 2021, and a monthly median tip understates tips on spike days. Etherscan and other sites use different averages (for example mean gas price of all transactions), so their numbers differ from ours.
Ethereum gas price history FAQ
What is the average Ethereum gas price in 2026?
About 0.29 gwei. That is the average of the monthly typical gas price (base fee plus median tip) from January 1 to October 18, 2026, the cheapest year on record. The average base fee was 0.37 gwei over the 30 days to October 18 and 0.054 gwei on October 18 itself. A plain ETH transfer (21,000 gas) cost about 1.4 cents on average in 2026 and about 0.4 cents on October 18.
When were Ethereum gas fees the highest?
The record day since EIP-1559 is May 1, 2022 (UTC), when the daily average base fee hit 728 gwei during Yuga Labs’ Otherside land mint; tips that day pushed some transactions far higher. By month, February 2021 had the highest typical gas price in our samples (a 160.5 gwei median), and November 2021 was the most expensive month in dollars, about $11.73 for a plain ETH transfer, because ETH was trading near $4,400. 2021 was the most expensive year: 87.6 gwei and about $5.11 per transfer on average.
What was the lowest Ethereum gas price ever?
The lowest daily average base fee in the EIP-1559 era was 0.026 gwei on December 6, 2025, and December 2025 was the cheapest month (0.094 gwei typical). In 2026, 275 of 291 days to October 18 averaged under 1 gwei. Before August 2021 there was no base fee, and the median price paid rarely fell below 4 to 5 gwei.
Why are Ethereum gas fees so low now?
Under EIP-1559 the base fee rises when blocks are more than half full and falls when they are less. Validators raised the block gas limit from 30 million to 36 million (February 2025), 45 million (July 2025) and 60 million (November 25, 2025), so there is far more room per block, and blocks have mostly stayed below the target. In our data the average base fee was 0.54 gwei in the 30 days before the 60M increase and 0.09 gwei in the 30 days after. Dencun (March 13, 2024) also moved layer 2 data into separate, cheaper blob space.
How much does it cost to send ETH right now?
A plain ETH transfer always uses 21,000 gas. Multiply by the gas price and the ETH price: on October 18, 2026, 21,000 × about 0.087 gwei (base fee plus tip) × $2,407.51 ≈ $0.0044. A Uniswap swap (about 133,900 gas) cost about 3 cents. For the current price, use the live gas tracker on this site.
Did EIP-1559 (the London upgrade) lower gas fees?
No. EIP-1559 changed how fees are set, not how much block space exists: it added a base fee that is burned, plus a tip, and made fees more predictable. The typical gas price in the months after London (62 to 125 gwei from August to November 2021) was higher than in June and July 2021 (20 to 24 gwei), because demand rose. Fees fell much later, as capacity grew and demand for main-chain space eased.
Did the Merge lower gas fees?
No, and it was never meant to. ethereum.org calls “The Merge failed to reduce gas fees” a misconception because the Merge changed consensus, not network capacity. In our data the average base fee was 12.6 gwei in the 30 days before the Merge (September 15, 2022) and 12.9 gwei in the 30 days after.
What gas price makes ETH deflationary?
About 13.6 gwei. ultrasound.money estimates that ETH supply shrinks when the base fee stays above roughly 13.6 gwei, because the burn then exceeds new issuance. The last month to average above that was December 2024 (14.0 gwei), and the last day was October 10, 2025. See our Ethereum supply page for burn and inflation data.
Will Glamsterdam make gas cheaper?
It is not settled. ethereum.org’s Glamsterdam page says EIP-2780 could make a standard ETH transfer up to 71% cheaper, but the current EIP-2780 text keeps a plain transfer to an existing account at 21,000 gas. Glamsterdam also prepares for higher gas limits. As of October 19, 2026 it has no mainnet date: Hoodi testnet activation is scheduled for October 26, 2026.
Where does this gas price data come from?
Before August 5, 2021 we read about two mainnet blocks per day from a public archive RPC (3,783 blocks) and took the median gas price of their transactions. From August 5, 2021 we use ultrasound.money’s daily average base fee plus the median priority fee from 1,258 eth_feeHistory samples of 1,024 blocks each. Our own eth_feeHistory base fees matched ultrasound.money within about 2.5% on a typical month. Dollar costs use Coinbase ETH-USD daily closes.
Sources
- ultrasound.money: base fee over time, burn and the “ultra sound” barrier
- ethereum.org: Gas and fees
- EIP-1559: Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain
- ethereum.org: JSON-RPC API (eth_feeHistory, eth_getBlockByNumber)
- Coinbase Exchange API: product candles (ETH-USD daily data)
- Ethereum Foundation: London mainnet announcement (Jul 15, 2021)
- ethereum.org: The Merge (gas fee misconception)
- Ethereum Foundation: Dencun mainnet announcement (Feb 27, 2024)
- CoinDesk: Ethereum validators signal 45M gas limit; 36M set in February 2025 (Jul 21, 2025)
- Ethereum Foundation: Checkpoint #5, gas limit at 45M (Jul 29, 2025)
- CoinMarketCap Academy: Ethereum reaches 60M gas limit before Fusaka (Nov 2025)
- EIP-7935: Set default gas limit to 60M
- Ethereum Foundation: Fusaka mainnet announcement (Nov 6, 2025)
- CoinDesk: BAYC team raises $285M with Otherside NFTs, clogs Ethereum (May 1, 2022)
- Decrypt: Otherside NFT mint burned more than $157M in ETH
- ethereum.org: Glamsterdam
- EIP-2780: Resource-based intrinsic transaction gas
Educational data page. Not financial advice. GrowYourEthereum is independent and not affiliated with ultrasound.money, Coinbase or the Ethereum Foundation. Data to October 18, 2026, gathered October 19, 2026. This page and its CSVs: CC BY 4.0.