Bitcoin Transaction Pending or Unconfirmed: Why It Happens and How to Speed It Up

A Bitcoin transaction pending for hours or days means no miner has put it in a block yet, and a Bitcoin transaction either confirms completely or not at all. How soon it confirms depends on its fee rate compared with the other waiting payments. Your routes are to wait, replace it with a higher-fee version (RBF), add a child payment (CPFP), or ask the exchange that sent it.

What "pending" or "unconfirmed" means

A bitcoin transaction unconfirmed in your wallet has been sent to the network but is not in a block yet. It waits in a mempool (short for memory pool), which is a node's queue of pending, unconfirmed transactions. mempool.space's FAQ says (opens in a new tab) there is no one global mempool: every node keeps its own. So one explorer may show a transaction that another does not.

Miners tend to prioritize transactions that pay higher fees. The priority of a pending transaction is set by its fee rate, not by how much you sent. Fee rates are measured in sat/vB (satoshis per virtual byte); the fee guide explains the unit.

If a transaction has not confirmed after a while, it is probably paying a lower fee rate than the other transactions in the mempool. Wallets word this status in different ways, so look up the transaction ID on an explorer rather than relying on the label.

Who can speed up your Bitcoin transaction

For help with a transaction, mempool.space says (opens in a new tab) to contact the entity that helped make it, such as the wallet software or the exchange company. Find your situation:

Only the sender can use RBF. Anyone who controls an output of the stuck transaction can use CPFP: that is the recipient's payment and, usually, the sender's change. For an exchange withdrawal with no ID, see the Kraken example of a pending withdrawal.

Check the transaction on a block explorer

As of October 2026, here is how to read a stuck transaction on mempool.space. To find the transaction ID and pick an explorer, follow how to track a crypto transaction. Copy the whole ID, then paste it into the explorer's search box. If nothing shows, check the ID character by character, then ask your wallet or exchange.

On the transaction details page, find the fee rate in sat/vB. If the transaction has CPFP relationships, the page also shows its effective fee rate and links to the related parent or child transactions.

Compare the fee rate with the explorer's current fee suggestions, which are named High, Medium, Low and No Priority. A rate below the tier you want fits the usual reason for a delay. A rate at or above it can still wait: mempool.space says (opens in a new tab) its suggestions are a guide and do not guarantee confirmation in any period of time.

How to speed up a Bitcoin transaction

As of October 2026, there are two ways to speed up a Bitcoin transaction by raising its fee rate, and which one you can use depends on what you control.

1. Find the speed-up option in the sending wallet

   Open the wallet that sent the payment and find the pending transaction in its history. Button names vary by wallet. Trezor says (opens in a new tab) its Suite app has a Speed up feature, found on the account's Transactions list. Each bump adds to the total you pay in fees, so keep some balance free for it.

   If your wallet has no such option, go to the CPFP step or wait.

2. Replace the payment with a higher fee (RBF)

   Replace by fee (RBF) on Bitcoin lets the sender create a new transaction with a higher fee that spends some of the same inputs as the one it replaces. The sender's wallet must support (opens in a new tab) it.

   A transaction can mark itself as replaceable when it is sent. Since Bitcoin Core 28.0 (October 2024), nodes running it accept a replacement even without that mark, and version 29.0 (opens in a new tab) removed the option to turn this off. Other node software and miners may differ, so what matters in practice is whether your wallet offers a bump.

   The replacement must pay at least the total fee (opens in a new tab) of the transaction it replaces, and the new fee must be higher than the original.

3. Add a child payment (CPFP) if you cannot replace it

   Bitcoin Optech defines (opens in a new tab) child pays for parent as spending an output of a low-fee-rate unconfirmed transaction in a child transaction with a high fee rate, to encourage miners to include both in a block. A miner cannot confirm the child without the parent, so the pair is judged together.

   The recipient can do this by spending their unconfirmed output, if their wallet supports it. The sender can use their change output. It may not work for every transaction. After a child is sent, check the parent's effective fee rate on the explorer.

4. Pick the new fee rate and check the details

   Choose a fee rate from the explorer's current suggestions. A higher fee improves the odds, but nothing guarantees a confirmation time.

5. Look up the new transaction ID

   After a replacement, the transaction has a new ID, and the old one may no longer show as pending. Give the new ID to the recipient or exchange.

   The two versions spend the same coins, so only one can confirm. Often the new one confirms instead of the original, but if the old one confirms first, that payment went through.

Example with made-up numbers

These amounts are invented and use no real wallet. Your wallet may label and group the amounts differently.

• Original: a 200 vB transaction at 2 sat/vB pays a fee of 400 sats.
• RBF: you replace it with a 200 vB version at 10 sat/vB, a fee of 2,000 sats. That is above the original 400, as the rule needs. Only one version confirms. If the replacement confirms, you pay 2,000 sats, not 2,400; if the original confirms first, you pay 400.
• CPFP instead: a 150 vB child at 16 sat/vB pays 2,400 sats. The pair is 350 vB with fees of 400 + 2,400 = 2,800 sats, so its package rate is 2,800 / 350 = 8 sat/vB. Both fees are paid.

The original alone sat at 2 sat/vB. The fix lifted the rate miners see to 10 with RBF or 8 with CPFP.

CPFP cost more in total here because the child adds 150 vB of its own, and both fees are paid. The child alone pays 2,400 sats, more than RBF's 2,000. The numbers are illustrative, and the arithmetic works the same at any rates.

If you wait: will it confirm or drop?

As of October 2026, a waiting transaction can still confirm, but Bitcoin Core nodes can remove it. A Bitcoin Core node reserves 300 MB of memory for its mempool by default, and when it is full the node rejects new transactions below a certain fee rate. By default it also drops a transaction after 336 hours (14 days). Each node can change these settings (opens in a new tab), so this is not a network timer.

Other nodes may still hold a transaction one node has dropped, and mempool.space says (opens in a new tab) it runs very large nodes that do not need to purge transactions. Seeing a transaction there does not mean every node still holds it.

If it never confirms, the coins never left the sender. After a drop, your wallet may show them as available again or may need its own steps, so ask its support rather than assuming. The coins do not come back on a schedule.

Mempool.space's accelerator page (opens in a new tab) warns that a stuck transaction may be purged from most nodes' mempools, which makes RBF or CPFP difficult or impossible. If you want to bump it, do it sooner.

Exchange withdrawals and deposits

The exchange made its withdrawal transaction, so it is the one to ask about its fee. Contact support in the app and give the transaction ID. If it went to your own wallet, see how to speed up a Bitcoin transaction for CPFP. Kraken's status names are one example of what an exchange shows while a withdrawal waits.

For a deposit to an exchange, check the deposit page for how many confirmations it requires before crediting, and ask support if the count is reached and the deposit is still missing.

How to avoid a stuck transaction next time

• Send from a wallet that offers a fee bump. A wallet must support RBF or CPFP for you to use them. Setting up a Bitcoin wallet covers a wallet you control.
• Choose the fee rate from current explorer suggestions before you confirm. See what you can control in a Bitcoin fee.

Risks to understand

As of October 2026, these are the risks around a stuck transaction.

Read how to spot crypto scams.

Paid accelerators are a separate option. mempool.space says (opens in a new tab) its Accelerator gets stuck transactions confirmed for an out-of-band fee. Partners who choose to accept a request prioritize it, so there is no guarantee. A request cannot be changed or cancelled once made, and mempool.space may cancel it. If it detects a conflicting transaction, it cancels the request with no refund. It also advises using RBF or CPFP if you can. This guide does not endorse any paid service.

Before your next send, read how to send crypto to a wallet, and see why a confirmed transaction is final.