Staking on Polkadot is not as passive as you may be used to from other networks. There are several reasons why you may stop receiving rewards, which is why it's worth double-checking and making some optimizations every now and then to ensure ongoing rewards.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

What to know before starting

  • Nominating currently requires a minimum of 250 DOT staked funds on Polkadot (0.1 KSM on Kusama). Please ensure you are above that minimum, or you won't be able to nominate.


‼️ IMPORTANT

Not all nominators with over 250 DOT will get staking rewards. The minimum amount needed to earn rewards is dynamic and can be found on the Nominate page of the Staking Dashboard. Please refer to this referendum for details.


  • If you are staking above the dynamic minimum amount and still aren't receiving rewards, your account may need to be re-adjusted by calling an extrinsic. This is due to the new bags-list feature. You can find instructions on how to fix this here.

Still not receiving rewards?


Before you follow the steps below, check your DOT address to verify whether you are receiving rewards. If you are definitely not receiving rewards, check the following.

1. Are you above the dynamic minimum active bond?

You can find it on the Nominate page of the Staking Dashboard:


If you are above the dynamic minimum but still not getting rewards, check this article for a possible solution.


2. Have you bonded your DOT or KSM?

You can double-check this on the Overview page:


Please follow the instructions here if you have no bonded tokens.


3. Have you nominated at least one validator?

If not, follow the instructions to nominate. If your account were chilled for any reason, you'd need to nominate your validators again to start receiving rewards. When your account is chilled, it stops nominating.

4. Are you nominating too few validators?

You can nominate up to 16 validators on Polkadot and 24 on Kusama. The more you nominate, the higher your chances of receiving regular rewards. Not every validator makes it into the active set every day, so if you nominate too few validators, you may not be receiving rewards every day. Still, make sure you only nominate validators that you trust. Check this article on how to choose validators.

5. Has it been at least 48 hours since you started nominating?

Staking rewards will only begin coming in after enough time for the new validator set selection has passed.

6. Do you have at least one active validator?

Usually, only a single active validator will be selected for a nominator per era. This is expected behavior.

Having multiple inactive or waiting validators is not a problem as long as you have an active one. If you don't have any active validators, you can nominate more of them up to the maximum of 16 or change your selected validators. 


7. Are you sending rewards to the correct address?

Generally, rewards can auto-compound or be sent to the stash as free balance, but you can also choose to direct them elsewhere. You can see and change your reward destination on the Nominate page:


8. Is your payout pending?

You can see this on the Payouts tab of Polkadot-JS UI:


Alternatively, you can check your pending payouts, if any, from the the "Overview" or "Payouts" tabs on the staking dashboard. They will appear as semi-transparent bars in the "Payout history" panel:


⚠️ ATTENTION

Usually, validators perform payouts after each era. But if you don't want to wait for your validator to do it, you can make it happen yourself.

You can click the "Payout" button in the "Staking > Payout" tab in Polkadot-JS UI or in the "Nominate" section on the Staking Dashboard. 

Keep in mind that you'll have to pay some fees for this, so it's better to wait if you can for the validator to do it on their own.