What is EIP-1559?

EIP-1559 is the Ethereum Improvement Proposal that redesigned how users pay for transactions on Ethereum. It added a base fee per unit of gas that the protocol sets automatically for each block, and that fee is burned. It was first written in April 2019, lists Vitalik Buterin among its six authors, and went live with the London upgrade at block 12,965,000 on August 5, 2021.

What is the primary goal of EIP-1559?

The main goal was to make fees more predictable. Before London, Ethereum used a first-price auction: each user named a gas price, and block producers picked the highest bids. The proposal says this approach is known to be inefficient. Bids swung sharply, fee estimation needed complex tools, and users often waited several blocks when they guessed too low.

EIP-1559 does not promise lower fees. The proposal is about pricing, not capacity. When demand for block space is high, fees still rise. What changed is that wallets can read the current base fee and quote a fair price instead of guessing. How the total fee is built from gas and price per unit is covered in what are gas fees.

How does the EIP-1559 base fee work?

Each block has a gas target, set at half of the block gas limit. The proposal calls the factor of two the elasticity multiplier, which lets blocks stretch to twice the target during busy spells.

The base fee then follows how full the previous block was. ethereum.org says it can move by at most 12.5% per block. A block exactly at target leaves the base fee unchanged, a full block raises it by up to 12.5%, and an empty block lowers it by up to 12.5%. When the change went live, the base fee started at 1 gwei. Our gwei guide explains that unit.

Users set two numbers in a transaction, using a new format known as transaction type 2:

• Max priority fee. The tip, which goes to the block producer.
• Max fee. The most the user will pay per unit of gas in total. Anything between this cap and the base fee plus tip is refunded.

Why does EIP-1559 burn the base fee?

The proposal gives several reasons. Burning the base fee means only ETH can pay for transactions on Ethereum. It offsets some of the new ETH created as rewards. It also removes any reason for block producers to push the base fee up artificially, since they never receive it. They earn only the tip.

Because the burn happens on every transaction, how much ETH is destroyed depends on how busy the network is. The general idea of destroying tokens is covered in what is a token burn.

Does EIP-1559 still apply today?

Yes. As of October 2026, ethereum.org still describes the base fee and tip as the way Ethereum prices gas. Older transactions that name a single gas price are still accepted, but the proposal notes they do not benefit directly from the new pricing.