Stake Pool Fees: What are the 340 ada fee and the percentage fee? Will I be charged this fee to stake my ada?

You are not charged this fee to stake your ada. The only fees you are charged to stake your ada are:

• A transaction fee (currently around 0.17 ada) to authorize the delegation transaction.
• 2 ada deposit which you can claim back if you decide to stop staking.

For each 5-day epoch, rewards are distributed to all ada holders who delegate to a stake pool, providing the stake pool produced a block. These rewards consist of:

• A set percentage of the ada reserves (undistributed ada). As this is a set percentage this is gradually declining over time.
• All of the transaction fees during the epoch. Currently, this is a small addition to the reward pot but as Cardano sees more activity this will increase the staking annual percentage rate (APR).

The amount of ada received by a pool of delegators from the reserves for each new block is currently around 500 ada. If a stake pool produces 1 block it will receive around 500 ada, 2 blocks around 1000 ada, and so on. The number of blocks a stake pool produces is proportional to the amount of delegation in the Stake Pool. From the total amount of ada that a pool of delegators is awarded, the stake pool operator (SPO) first takes the fixed fee of 340 ada, or maybe more if they have set a higher fixed fee. The SPO is then also awarded the margin fee that they have set, this is a percentage of the ada that remains after the fixed fee is taken. The ada that is left after these fees are taken is then shared between all of the delegators in the stake pool, weighted towards how much ada they have delegated. All of this happens automatically by the protocol, and is therefore trustless.

The lowest fees that an SPO can currently set for their stake pool is a 340 fixed fee and a 0% margin fee.

You may also find these FAQs of interest:

• Is my ada safe when staking?

• What happens when I move to a new stake pool? Will I lose rewards?

• Should I get a hardware wallet?