Setting up gas sponsorship

Privy supports two gas payment modes. Choose the one that fits your app:

App pays
User pays

Your app’s gas credits cover transaction fees for all users. Users transact without ever needing to hold ETH or native tokens.

Getting started

Enable gas sponsorship in the dashboard

Go to the gas sponsorship tab in the Privy Dashboard and select App pays.

Configure chains

Select which chains you want to enable sponsorship for. Sponsored requests may only come from the chains that you have configured. Want support for more networks? Reach out to us!

Send transaction requests

Apps must use TEE execution in order to use our native gas sponsorship feature. Learn how to migrate here!

With the React SDK, use the useSendTransaction hook with sponsor: true:

import {useSendTransaction, useWallets} from '@privy-io/react-auth';

const {sendTransaction} = useSendTransaction();
const {wallets} = useWallets();

sendTransaction(
  {
    to: '0xE3070d3e4309afA3bC9a6b057685743CF42da77C',
    value: 100000
  },
  {
    sponsor: true // Enable gas sponsorship
  }
);

With the React SDK, use the useSignAndSendTransaction hook with sponsor: true:

import {useSignAndSendTransaction, useWallets} from '@privy-io/react-auth/solana';

const {signAndSendTransaction} = useSignAndSendTransaction();
const {wallets} = useWallets();

const selectedWallet = wallets[0];

const transaction = new Uint8Array([/* your encoded transaction */]);

const result = await signAndSendTransaction({
  transaction: transaction,
  wallet: selectedWallet,
  options: {
    sponsor: true // Enable gas sponsorship
  }
});

Allow transactions from the clientTo sponsor transactions from your client-side application, enable this setting in your gas sponsorship dashboard configuration. When disabled, transactions can only be sponsored from your server.

$ curl --request POST https://api.privy.io/v1/wallets/<wallet_id>/rpc \
  -u "<your-privy-app-id>:<your-privy-app-secret>" \
  -H "privy-app-id: <your-privy-app-id>" \
  -H "privy-authorization-signature: <authorization-signature-for-request>" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
      "method": "eth_sendTransaction",
      "caip2": "eip155:1",
      "sponsor": true,
      "params": {
          "transaction": {
              "to": "0xE3070d3e4309afA3bC9a6b057685743CF42da77C",
              "value": "0x2386F26FC10000"
          }
      }
  }'

To sponsor transactions initiated from a client SDK, you may relay the transaction from your server.

import { PrivyClient } from '@privy-io/node';

const privy = new PrivyClient({ appId: 'your-app-id', appSecret: 'your-app-secret' });

const response = await privy
  .wallets()
  .ethereum()
  .sendTransaction(walletId, {
    caip2: 'eip155:1',
    params: {
      transaction: {
        to: '0x{address}',
        value: '0x2386F26FC10000',
      },
    },
    sponsor: true,
  });

$ curl --request POST https://api.privy.io/v1/wallets/<wallet_id>/rpc \
  -u "<your-privy-app-id>:<your-privy-app-secret>" \
  -H "privy-app-id: <your-privy-app-id>" \
  -H "privy-authorization-signature: <authorization-signature-for-request>" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
      "method": "signAndSendTransaction",
      "caip2": "solana:EtWTRABZaYq6iMfeYKouRu166VU2xqa1",
      "sponsor": true,
      "params": {
          "transaction": "insert-base-64-encoded-serialized-transaction",
          "encoding": "base64"
      }
  }'

import { PrivyClient } from '@privy-io/node';

const privy = new PrivyClient({ appId: 'your-app-id', appSecret: 'your-app-secret' });

const response = await privy
  .wallets()
  .solana()
  .signAndSendTransaction(walletId, {
    caip2: 'solana:EtWTRABZaYq6iMfeYKouRu166VU2xqa1',
    transaction,
    sponsor: true,
  });

Using gas sponsorship from other client SDKsThe sponsor: true parameter is currently supported in the React SDK and server-side SDKs (REST API, Node, Rust). For other client SDKs (React Native, Swift, Android, Flutter, Unity), you can achieve gas sponsorship by building the transaction in your client, then relaying it through your server with sponsor: true.

Certain flows that require on-chain ECDSA signature verification such as Permit2 are not supported by EIP-7702 upgraded wallets. We recommend using an approval-based flow where possible.

Next steps

Transaction management

Learn how gas-sponsored transactions work and how to track transaction status with webhooks

Security best practices

Protect your application from gas sponsorship abuse with rate limiting and threat mitigation strategies

Gas fees are covered using the wallet’s USDC or USDT balance — no ETH required, and your app’s gas credits are not charged.

User pays mode is currently only supported on EVM chains via the transfer API. It does not apply to raw eth_sendTransaction or wallet_sendCalls RPC calls.

Supported chains and tokens

Chain	USDC	USDT
Ethereum	✓	✓
Base	✓	✓
Optimism	✓	✓
Arbitrum	✓	✓
Polygon	✓	✓
Sepolia (testnet)	✓	✓
Base Sepolia (testnet)	✓	✓
OP Sepolia (testnet)	✓	—
Arbitrum Sepolia (testnet)	✓	—
Polygon Amoy (testnet)	✓	—

Getting started

Enable user pays mode in the dashboard

Go to Wallet Infrastructure → Gas sponsorship in the Privy Dashboard and select User pays.

Gas management dashboard showing User pays mode selected with custom token rows

Configure which chains and tokens to accept

Under Custom gas payment tokens, click + Add token to add one or more chain/token pairs. Each row specifies a chain and the token users will pay gas with on that chain.Click Save when done.

The token dropdown only shows tokens deployed on the selected chain. If you change the chain after selecting a token, the token selection resets automatically.

Ensure wallets hold sufficient balance

Before executing a transfer, the user’s wallet must hold enough of the configured token to cover both the transfer amount and the gas fee. Privy estimates the gas fee automatically and returns a clear error if the balance is insufficient — the transaction will not be submitted.

Execute a transfer

Call the transfer API as normal — no extra parameters are required. When the app is in user pays mode and the source token is configured for that chain, Privy automatically uses that token to pay gas.

curl --request POST https://api.privy.io/v1/wallets/<wallet_id>/transfer \
  -u "<your-privy-app-id>:<your-privy-app-secret>" \
  -H "privy-app-id: <your-privy-app-id>" \
  -H "privy-authorization-signature: <authorization-signature>" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "source": {
      "asset": "usdc",
      "amount": "10.0",
      "chain": "base"
    },
    "destination": {
      "address": "0xRecipientAddress"
    }
  }'

The gas token is always the same as the token being transferred. For example, when a user sends USDC on Base and you have configured Base with USDC, the gas fee is deducted in USDC — no ETH is required.

How it works

When a qualifying transfer is submitted, Privy:

Gets a gas quote from the Alchemy ERC-20 paymaster to estimate the maximum fee
Checks the wallet balance — verifies the wallet holds enough to cover both the transfer amount and the estimated gas fee, returning an error immediately if not
Submits the transaction — an approval for the paymaster is bundled atomically with the transfer
Paymaster collects the fee — after execution, the paymaster collects the exact gas fee from the wallet’s USDC or USDT balance.

Errors

Error	Cause
`400` — insufficient balance	The wallet doesn’t have enough of the source token to cover both the transfer amount and gas
`400` — unsupported chain/token	The chain or token combination is not supported for token gas (e.g. USDT on OP Sepolia)

Gas spend reporting

Transfers executed in user pays mode are not included in your app’s gas credit spend reported by GET /v1/apps/gas_spend. Since the user’s tokens cover the fee directly, these transactions do not affect your Privy gas credits balance.

Limitations

Transfer API only. User pays mode is not available for raw RPC methods (eth_sendTransaction, wallet_sendCalls).
EVM only. User pays mode is not supported on Solana.
Gas token must match the transfer token. Gas is always paid using the same token being transferred — you cannot, for example, transfer ETH and pay gas in USDC.
Named assets only. Only usdc and usdt are supported as gas payment tokens.

​Getting started

​Next steps

Transaction management

Security best practices

​Supported chains and tokens

​Getting started

​How it works

​Errors

​Gas spend reporting

​Limitations

Getting started

Next steps

Supported chains and tokens

Getting started

How it works

Errors

Gas spend reporting

Limitations