ETH Staking Fees Compared: Lido, Rocket Pool, Coinbase, Kraken and Staking ETFs

Every ETH staking fee, side by side

Fees below are each provider’s published cut of staking rewards, read from its own fee page or SEC filing on October 24, 2026. “Net APR” is our arithmetic at a 2.55% gross network rate (see the published rates check), not a quote.

Exchange rows use the entry-tier or maximum fee (Kraken 25% under $1M of bonded assets; Coinbase standard 35%; Gemini “up to 35%”; Binance.US top of range). Robinhood is shown at 100% of the protocol rate, “to” the 50% floor it discloses. ETF rows include the yearly sponsor fee and the share of ETH staked on Oct 16, 2026.

What the commission costs as a yearly percentage

A cut of rewards is easy to underrate. Turned into a share of your staked ETH, it looks like an expense ratio: commission × gross rate. At 2.55% gross:

So standard Coinbase staking costs about 0.89% of your ETH every year in forgone rewards, more than three times the 0.25% expense ratio of a non-staking ETF such as ETHA, and Kraken’s entry tier about 0.64%. The cut never touches your principal, though: in a year with zero rewards, you pay nothing. Compare ETF expense ratios in spot Ethereum ETFs compared.

Exchange staking: tiers and plans

Two exchanges publish a way to pay less. Kraken lowers its bonded commission as your total bonded balance grows, measured at each weekly payout. Coinbase lowers its cut for Coinbase One subscribers.

• Kraken: no fee to stake or unstake; ETH is bonded staking only (6-day bonding shown), paid weekly. Flexible staking and Auto Earn carry 30%. Its ETH page showed “up to 2.87% APY” before commission on October 25, 2026 (Kraken ETH staking).
• Coinbase: no fee to stake or for a standard unstake; instant unstaking costs a fee shown at request. The 1.65% estimated rate it showed on October 24, 2026 is already after the commission (Coinbase ETH staking). Whether Coinbase One’s lower cut covers its price: Is Coinbase One worth it?
• Gemini: Staking Services Fee “up to 35%” (fee schedule), raised to 35% in its June 2026 user agreement update, which also launched an automatic Asset Rewards program at a 30% commission. Gemini’s page showed ETH at “up to 2% APR”.
• Robinhood: 25% total (including a staking partner fee of at most 2.75%), and ETH stakers get 50%–100% of the protocol rate because stakes are pooled into 32 ETH batches (how that compares with Coinbase: Robinhood vs Coinbase).
• Binance.US: a 9.95%–39.95% service fee across staking assets; it does not list ETH’s exact cut, and its published rates are already net of the fee.

Liquid staking: Lido, Rocket Pool and cbETH

Liquid staking tokens keep your ETH usable (you can sell or use the token in DeFi) and charge the smallest cuts.

• Lido (stETH): 10% protocol fee, split between node operators and the DAO treasury by module (for example 5% + 5% in the curated module), taken during the daily rebase and waived when net rewards are negative. Lido’s API showed a 2.31% 7-day average APR on October 24, 2026.
• Rocket Pool (rETH): since Saturn 1, a 5% node operator commission plus a 9% voter share for RPL stakers and 0% to the treasury, so 14% in all, each adjustable by the protocol DAO. The API’s rETH APR was 1.81%.
• Coinbase cbETH: Coinbase’s cbETH page advertises a 10% commission with no lockups, much lower than its 35% for regular staking on the same platform.

Liquid staking adds smart-contract and depeg risk; see ETH staking risks and the head-to-head Lido vs Rocket Pool vs Coinbase.

Staking ETFs: two layers of fees

Six U.S. spot ETH ETFs stake. Each keeps part of the gross rewards for the sponsor, custodian and staking providers, charges its normal sponsor fee on all assets, and stakes only part of its ETH. Our estimate of what reaches holders at 2.55% gross:

MSSE is shown at the top of its 50%–80% staking target (about 1.07% net at 50%); FETH does not publish its staked share, so 1.92% is an upper bound. ETHE’s 2.50% sponsor fee is larger than its staking income, so its holders still lose about 0.85% a year in ETH terms. Staked shares are from fund pages on Oct 16, 2026; fund details and filings are in spot Ethereum ETFs compared, and daily money flows in ETH ETF flows.

Published rates check: where 2.55% comes from

Working backwards from published net rates gives the same gross figure, which suggests the fee really is the main difference:

• Lido: 2.306% (7-day average) ÷ (1 − 10%) = 2.56% gross.
• Coinbase: 1.65% (estimated, after commission) ÷ (1 − 35%) = 2.54% gross.
• ethereum.org showed a 2.5% current APR; Rocket Pool’s API reported a 2.63% beacon chain APR.
• Kraken: “up to 2.87%” before commission on October 25, 2026, so about 2.15% after its 25% entry tier (its APY compounds weekly; the figure moved between 2.7% and 2.98% on October 24).
• Rocket Pool: the 1.81% rETH APR is below the 2.19% that 2.55% × (1 − 14%) implies. Rocket Pool’s API does not break the gap down, so we use the fee model in the calculator and show the published figure here.

Rates move daily with network activity; track them in ETH staking APR history.

How to pay less to stake ETH

1. Compare the cut, not the headline APY. Some pages show rates before commission (Kraken) and others after (Coinbase, Lido, Binance.US).
2. On Coinbase, check cbETH. Coinbase advertises 10% for cbETH versus 35% for standard staking.
3. Avoid ETHE for staking income. Its sponsor fee alone is more than the staking yield it passes on.
4. Factor in getting out. Exit times and instant-unstake fees vary; check the ETH unstaking queue.
5. Remember taxes. U.S. staking rewards are generally income when received; estimate them with the staking rewards tax calculator.
6. Buy cheaply first. A 1% buying fee wipes out months of staking rewards; see ETH exchange fees compared.

Method

• Fees come from each provider’s official fee page, help article, API or SEC filing, read on October 24, 2026. ETF staking cuts and sponsor fees come from the prospectuses and fund pages listed below; staked shares are as of Oct 16, 2026.
• Net APR = gross rate × staked share × (1 − cut) × share of protocol rate − yearly sponsor fee. The 2.55% gross default is the midpoint of the rates implied by Lido and Coinbase on October 24, 2026. Compounding is yearly.
• We do not model MEV differences, slashing, liquid-token price gaps, promotions or state-by-state availability. We have no affiliate deals with any provider named here.

Download the data (CC BY 4.0)

• CSV: 15 ETH staking options with fee on rewards, sponsor fee, staked share, published rate, net APR and source
• JSON: providers, Kraken and Coinbase One tiers, gross-rate assumption and sources

GrowYourEthereum. (2026). ETH Staking Fees Compared: Commissions, Staking ETF Cuts and Net APR (U.S.) [Data set]. Updated October 24, 2026. https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-staking-fees. Licensed CC BY 4.0.

<a href="https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-staking-fees">ETH Staking Fees Compared: Commissions, Staking ETF Cuts and Net APR (U.S.)</a> by GrowYourEthereum, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>.

@misc{growyourethereum_ethereum_staking_fees_2026,
  author       = {{GrowYourEthereum}},
  title        = {ETH Staking Fees Compared: Commissions, Staking ETF Cuts and Net APR (U.S.)},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-staking-fees}},
  note         = {Data set, updated October 24, 2026. CC BY 4.0}
}