Solana Accepts Fee Reform: Fixed Validator Share Plus Usage-Based Burn
The Resource and Inclusion Fees SIMD is accepted: 2500 lamports of the base fee go to the validator, the rest is computed from requested compute units and burned. Not yet active on mainnet.
What happened
In the Solana changelog of July 23, 2026, the Solana Foundation reported that the Resource and Inclusion Fees SIMD has reached “accepted” status. The proposal (submitted as pull request #553) changes how a transaction’s base fee is split and burned.
Important context: “accepted” means the proposal has gone through the review process and is approved — not that it is already live on mainnet. Activation is a separate step.
What is set to change
Today the base fee is fixed and split half-burned, half to the validator. The SIMD introduces a new split:
- Fixed validator share: 2500 lamports of the base fee go to the validator that produces the block.
- Usage-based burn: the other part is computed from the requested compute units and burned. Request more compute, and more SOL is burned.
The Solana Foundation calls this second part a “buy-and-burn” strategy tied to network usage. More precisely: it is a usage-dependent burn of part of the base fee — the more the network is used, the more SOL is permanently removed from supply.
Context
- The effect points in two directions: a predictable, fixed income for validators per transaction, and a deflation mechanism tied to load for SOL.
- How fees work on Solana today — base fee, priority fees, compute units — is covered in our background piece Solana fees explained. That piece still describes the currently live model; it will be updated once the reform goes live.
- What a SIMD is and how the path from “accepted” to activation works is in Solana governance explained: SIMDs and SGPs.
- In the same changelog: new (pre-release) validator client versions of Agave (v4.3.0-alpha.2, v4.2.0-beta.2) and Firedancer (v1.1.2, v0.1102.40201), plus various program SDKs — routine development work, not mandatory mainnet updates.
Update (August 28, 2026): Failed in the Governance Vote — for Now
The reform did not pass the first formal on-chain vote: as SGP-0003, it reached 53.9 percent approval — well below the two-thirds threshold. On the voting picture, per Anza: the majority of non-approving stake abstained rather than rejected — which is why a re-parameterized version of the proposal is considered possible. The July “accepted” SIMD status described the specification level; the activation decision sits with governance — and there it is off the table for now. The disinflation doubling voted in parallel passed: see the results.
Note: This is reporting, not investment advice.
What to watch
- Whether a re-parameterized version of the fee reform is put forward
- How the authors respond to the abstention pattern
Sources
- Solana — Solana Changelog: July 23, 2026
- Solana Improvement Documents — Resource and Inclusion Fees (PR #553)