Staking withdrawals refer to transfers of ETH from a validator account on Ethereum's consensus layer (the Beacon Chain), to the execution layer where it can be transacted with.
If you are part of a staking pool or hold staking tokens, you should check with your provider for more details about how staking withdrawals are handled, as each service operates differently.
How withdrawals work depends on your validator's withdrawal credential type:
- Legacy validators (Type 1): Excess balance over 32 ETH is automatically and regularly sent to the withdrawal address linked to the validator. Rewards above 32 ETH do not contribute to the validator's weight on the network.
- Compounding validators (Type 2): Rewards compound into the validator's effective balance up to 2048 ETH, increasing the validator's weight and earning more rewards. Only balance exceeding 2048 ETH is automatically swept.
Users can also exit staking entirely, submitting a transaction to withdraw, waiting for any withdrawal queue timeline (based on network demand), and unlocking their full validator balance.
Staking rewards
How rewards are handled depends on the validator's credential type:
Legacy validators (Type 1) have an effective balance capped at 32 ETH. Any balance above 32 ETH received as network rewards does not contribute to the effective balance or increase the weight of this validator on the network, and these rewards are automatically withdrawn to the validator's dedicated withdrawal address every few days. Aside from providing a withdrawal address one time, claiming these rewards does not require any action from the validator operator. This is all initiated on the consensus layer, thus no gas (transaction fee) is required at any step.
Compounding validators (Type 2) can have an effective balance anywhere between 32 and 2048 ETH. Network rewards received by these validators compound into their effective balance, increasing the validator's weight and potential to receive future rewards. Automatic sweeps only occur for balance exceeding 2048 ETH. To withdraw rewards below the 2048 ETH threshold, compounding validators must trigger a partial withdrawal manually from the execution layer, which does require gas.
How did we get here?
Over the past few years Ethereum has undergone several network upgrades transitioning to a network secured by ETH itself, instead of energy-intensive mining as it once was. Participating in consensus on Ethereum is now known as "staking", as participants have voluntarily locked up ETH, placing it "at stake" for the ability to participate in the network. Users who follow the rules will be rewarded, while attempts to cheat can be penalized.
Since the launch of the staking deposit contract in November 2020, some brave Ethereum pioneers have voluntarily locked funds up to activate "validators", special accounts that have the right to formally attest to and propose blocks, following network rules.
Before the Shanghai/Capella upgrade, you couldn't use or access your staked ETH. But now, you can opt-in to automatically receive your rewards into a chosen account, and you can also withdraw your staked ETH whenever you want.
How do I prepare?
Current stakers
- Some users may have provided a withdrawal address when initially setting up their staking deposit—these users have nothing more they need to do
- The majority of stakers did not provide a withdrawal address on initial deposit, and will need to update their withdrawal credentials. The Staking Launchpad (opens in a new tab) has instructions on how to do this
Enter your validator index number below to view your validator details on Beaconcha.in (opens in a new tab). Your withdrawal address can be found under the "Withdrawal Address" header on the "Deposits" tab. A 0x00 prefix indicates the account needs upgrading before withdrawals are enabled.
Important notices
Validator accounts are required to provide a withdrawal address before they can access and withdraw accrued network rewards, or process a full withdrawal upon exiting staking.
If you have not yet provided a withdrawal address for your validator account, there is no threat to your funds in the meantime, assuming your mnemonic/seed phrase has remained safe offline, and has not been compromised in any way. Failure to add withdrawal credentials will simply leave the ETH locked in the validator account until a withdrawal address is provided.
Compounding validators
Validators can opt into compounding by converting their withdrawal credentials from Type 1 to Type 2. This raises the maximum effective balance from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, allowing rewards to compound into the validator's effective balance instead of being automatically swept.
With compounding enabled:
- Rewards increase the validator's effective balance in 1 ETH increments (subject to a small hysteresis buffer (opens in a new tab)), earning more rewards over time
- Automatic sweeps only occur for balance exceeding 2048 ETH
- Partial withdrawals below the 2048 ETH threshold must be triggered manually from the execution layer (this costs gas)
- Multiple validators can be consolidated into a single compounding validator, reducing operational overhead
Exiting staking entirely
Providing a withdrawal address is required before any funds can be transferred out of a validator account balance.
Users looking to exit staking entirely and withdraw their full balance back must initiate a "voluntary exit." This can be done in two ways:
- Using validator keys: Sign and broadcast a voluntary exit message with your validator client, submitted to your consensus node. This does not require gas.
- Using withdrawal credentials: Trigger an exit from the execution layer using your withdrawal address, without needing access to the validator signing key. This requires a transaction and costs gas.
The process of a validator exiting from staking takes variable amounts of time, depending on how many others are exiting at the same time. Once complete, this account will no longer be responsible for performing validator network duties, is no longer eligible for rewards, and no longer has their ETH "at stake". At this time the account will be marked as fully “withdrawable”.
Once an account is flagged as "withdrawable", and withdrawal credentials have been provided, there is nothing more a user needs to do aside from wait. Accounts are automatically and continuously swept by block proposers for eligible exited funds, and your account balance will be transferred in full (also known as a "full withdrawal") during the next sweep.
How do automatic rewards work (Type 1 validator)?
Whether a given validator is eligible for a withdrawal or not is determined by the state of the validator account itself. No user input is needed at any given time to determine whether an account should have a withdrawal initiated or not—the entire process is done automatically by the consensus layer on a continuous loop.
More of a visual learner?
Check out this explanation of Ethereum staking withdrawals by Finematics:
How do Ethereum withdrawals work?
How staking withdrawals work on Ethereum after the Shanghai/Capella upgrade, covering the technical process, withdrawal queue, and what stakers need to know about accessing their staked ETH.
Watch with transcriptValidator "sweeping"
When a validator is scheduled to propose the next block, it is required to build a withdrawal queue, of up to 16 eligible withdrawals. This is done by originally starting with validator index 0, determining if there is an eligible withdrawal for this account per the rules of the protocol, and adding it to the queue if there is. The validator set to propose the following block will pick up where the last one left off, progressing in order indefinitely.
Think about an analog clock. The hand on the clock points to the hour, progresses in one direction, doesn’t skip any hours, and eventually wraps around to the beginning again after the last number is reached.
Now instead of 1 through 12, imagine the clock has 0 through N (N being the total number of validator accounts that have ever been registered on the consensus layer, over 1.2 million as of April 2026).
The hand on the clock points to the next validator that needs to be checked for eligible withdrawals. It starts at 0, and progresses all the way around without skipping any accounts. When the last validator is reached, the cycle continues back at the beginning.
Checking an account for withdrawals
While a proposer is sweeping through validators for possible withdrawals, each validator being checked is evaluated against a short series of questions to determine if a withdrawal should be triggered, and if so, how much ETH should be withdrawn.
- Has a withdrawal address been provided? If no withdrawal address has been provided, the account is skipped and no withdrawal initiated.
- Is the validator exited and withdrawable? If the validator has fully exited, and we have reached the epoch where their account is considered to be "withdrawable", then a full withdrawal will be processed. This will transfer the entire remaining balance to the withdrawal address.
- Does the balance exceed its maxed-out effective balance? For legacy (Type 1) validators, this threshold is 32 ETH. For compounding (Type 2) validators, this threshold is 2048 ETH. If the account has withdrawal credentials, is not fully exited, has an effective balance at the maximum, and has balance above this threshold, then a partial withdrawal will be processed which transfers only the excess to the user's withdrawal address.
There are only two actions that are taken by validator operators during the course of a validator's life cycle that influence this flow directly:
- Provide withdrawal credentials to enable any form of withdrawal
- Exit from the network, which will trigger a full withdrawal
Gas free
Automatic withdrawal sweeps do not require stakers to manually submit a transaction. This means there is no gas (transaction fee) required for automatic sweeps, and they do not compete for existing execution layer block space.
Note that compounding validators who wish to trigger a partial withdrawal below the 2048 ETH threshold must do so manually from the execution layer, which does require gas.
How frequently will my staking rewards be unlocked and available in my wallet?
A maximum of 16 withdrawals can be processed in a single block. At that rate, 115,200 validator withdrawals can be processed per day (assuming no missed slots). As noted above, validators without eligible withdrawals will be skipped, decreasing the time to finish the sweep.
Expanding this calculation, we can estimate the time it will take to process a given number of withdrawals:
| Number of withdrawals | Time to complete |
|---|---|
| 400,000 | 3.5 days |
| 500,000 | 4.3 days |
| 600,000 | 5.2 days |
| 700,000 | 6.1 days |
| 800,000 | 7.0 days |
As you see this slows down as more validators are on the network. An increase in missed slots could slow this down proportionally, but this will generally represent the slower side of possible outcomes.
Frequently asked questions
Further reading
- Staking Launchpad Withdrawals (opens in a new tab)
- Staking Launchpad Validator Actions (opens in a new tab)
- MaxEB deep-dive: compounding and consolidation
- EIP-4895: Beacon chain push withdrawals as operations (opens in a new tab)
- PEEPanEIP #94: Staked ETH Withdrawal (Testing) with Potuz & Hsiao-Wei Wang (opens in a new tab)
- PEEPanEIP#68: EIP-4895: Beacon chain push withdrawals as operations with Alex Stokes (opens in a new tab)
- Understanding Validator Effective Balance (opens in a new tab)
Page last update: April 13, 2026
