Staking Rewards: What Happens Each Epoch

By David Chen

An epoch on Solana lasts roughly two to three days. Rewards are calculated at the end of each epoch and credited to stake accounts at the start of the next. If you delegated mid-epoch, your rewards for that partial epoch will be smaller than a full epoch’s worth.

The activation timeline

When you create a stake account and delegate it to a validator, the stake enters a warmup period. During warmup, your SOL is delegated but not yet earning rewards. After one or more epochs (depending on network conditions), the stake becomes active.

You can check your stake account status in any block explorer:

• Inactive — stake account exists but holds no delegated SOL
• Activating — delegation submitted, waiting for warmup to complete
• Active — earning rewards each epoch
• Deactivating — undelegation submitted, in cooldown
• Deactivated — cooldown complete, SOL can be withdrawn

How rewards are calculated

The network mints new SOL each epoch according to the inflation schedule. Active stake earns a proportional share. Your validator’s commission is deducted before the remainder reaches your stake account.

If the network inflation rate is approximately 5% annually and your validator charges 5% commission, your effective rate is closer to 4.75% before accounting for validator performance.

When rewards appear

Rewards are added to your stake account automatically — they compound unless you withdraw them. Some wallet interfaces show “pending rewards” separately, but on-chain the rewards increase your stake account balance.

Your first reward after activation may seem small because it covers only the portion of the epoch during which your stake was active. Expect a full epoch’s rewards starting from your second active epoch onward.

Verifying rewards yourself

Pick your stake account address in a block explorer and compare the balance at the start and end of an epoch. The difference (minus any deposits or withdrawals you made) should match the expected reward for that epoch.

If numbers do not align, check whether your validator had downtime or an elevated skip rate during that epoch — poor performance reduces rewards for all delegators to that validator.

Reward rates change as the inflation schedule adjusts. Always verify current figures on-chain.