What staking NIM actually is
Staking on Nimiq is delegation. You keep your keys. You send one transaction that records you as a staker and names the validator you want to back, and from then on the protocol counts your NIM toward that validator's total stake. The more stake a validator has, the more of the 512 block producing slots it is likely to be given when the next validator set is elected.
The NIM itself moves into the staking contract. That is worth being precise about, because marketing copy on every chain tends to blur it: the staking contract is part of the protocol, not an account belonging to a company or to your validator. Only your own address can deactivate, retire or withdraw your stake. Your validator cannot spend it, we cannot spend it, and there is nobody to email if a website disappears.
That is the whole difference between this and an exchange earn product. There is no counterparty holding your coins, so there is no counterparty to go insolvent. What you do take on is the protocol's own rules, which are the rest of this guide.
What the search results get wrong
Search for how to stake NIM and a wall of posts will tell you to do it on Binance Earn, on Pendle Finance, or through DappRadar. Several of them are published under handles that look official. They are describing something else.
Nimiq's own staking FAQ is blunt about it: exchanges that support NIM do not offer direct staking. Nimiq staking is a transaction type in the protocol, signed by your account. If a platform asks you to deposit NIM with it so that it can earn on your behalf, then whatever that platform is doing, it is a custodial arrangement between you and that platform, and the first thing you have given up is the thing Nimiq staking is designed to keep.
A simple test, and it holds on any chain:
- Real staking asks you to sign. You approve a transaction from your own wallet, and afterwards the delegation is visible on chain against your own address.
- A custodial product asks you to send. You transfer NIM to an address that belongs to someone else, and their database, not the chain, is what says you own anything.
What you need before you start
A Nimiq account, some NIM in it, and nothing else. No registration, no identity check, no third party app.
How much NIM
There are two numbers in circulation and both are real, which is why they get confused. The protocol minimum for creating a new staker is 100 NIM, stated in the developer documentation. The official staking page says you need as little as 1000 NIM. An interface is free to ask for more than consensus does, so treat 100 NIM as the floor the chain enforces and whatever your wallet shows as the floor you actually face. Both figures were checked on 14 September 2026.
Once a staker record exists and sits above the minimum, adding to it does not have to clear that figure again. Topping up an existing stake is a different transaction from creating one.
What it costs
Staking transactions on Nimiq proof of stake carry no network fee. The stake dialog on this site builds them with a fee of zero, and the wallet does the same. The only fee in staking is the one a validator may take from the rewards it distributes, which is a different thing entirely and is covered further down.
Where to stake
Three places, all doing the same thing to the same contract.
- The Nimiq Wallet, at wallet.nimiq.com. The browser interface. It has a staking section where you pick a validator from a list and confirm; Nimiq describes the flow as three clicks. Nothing is installed and the signing happens in your own browser.
- Nimiq Pay, on a phone. The mobile app can create, add to and unstake a delegation natively, signing on the device. Convenient if your account already lives on your phone.
- The Stake NIM button on this site. It opens a dialog that delegates to our own validator, ImpactZero, and it works through the Nimiq Hub on a desktop or through Nimiq Pay on a phone. We run that validator, so read it as us being one option among the rest rather than as a recommendation. Compare all of them on our validators page first.
Whichever route you take, the resulting transaction is the same and the delegation ends up on the same public ledger. There is no version of Nimiq staking that exists only inside one app.
Create, add, or switch
Three staking transactions cover almost everything a staker does. Knowing which one your situation calls for is most of the battle, because the wallet decides it for you and the wording changes accordingly.
| You want to | Transaction | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Stake for the first time | Create staker | Sets your delegation and your first active balance. Minimum 100 NIM. |
| Add to a stake you already have | Add stake | Tops up the active balance and keeps the current delegation. It can be sent from another address, so a second account can fund your stake. |
| Move to a different validator | Update staker | A signalling transaction: it carries no value, so your NIM does not leave the staking contract and come back. Only valid once the stake has been deactivated and released. |
The switch is the one worth reading twice, because it is described wrongly nearly everywhere and the truth sits in the middle. Your NIM never leaves the staking contract. There is no retire, no withdrawal and no new staker record, which is what people mean when they say you do not have to unstake to switch. But the update is not accepted immediately. The developer documentation sets out four steps, and the node software enforces them: set the active stake to zero, wait for the inactive balance to be released, then update the validator address, then put the stake back to active. The reactivate flag some interfaces set only folds that last step into the same transaction; it cannot shorten the wait, because the transaction carrying it is invalid until the wait is over. The full rule, and how to check where you are in it, is in staking mistakes we see as operators.
One more rule that surprises people: an address delegates to one validator at a time. If you want your NIM split across two validators, you need two addresses.
When your stake starts counting, and when rewards arrive
Two different clocks run here, and mixing them up is the source of most "my stake is not earning" questions.
The protocol clock
Nimiq runs in epochs, and an epoch is closed by an election macro block that picks the validator set for the next one. That set, and how many slots each validator holds, is fixed for the whole epoch. So stake changes are reflected at the next election block rather than the second your transaction mines. An epoch is 43,200 blocks, which at roughly one block per second is about 12 hours. In practice that means a fresh delegation starts counting at the next epoch boundary, and the wait for it is whatever is left of the current epoch.
The validator's clock
Rewards are newly issued NIM plus the transaction fees in a batch. The protocol pays them to the validator's reward address, every batch, with the payment for one batch made at the end of the following one. The protocol does not pay stakers directly. Validators distribute to their stakers off chain, on their own schedule and under their own published policy.
That is why "when do I get paid" has no protocol answer. It has a validator answer, and you should find it before you delegate rather than after. Two related facts from the same documentation: stake that is not delegated to any validator is not eligible for rewards at all, and a validator that is registered but not elected in a given epoch produces no blocks and so earns nothing to distribute that epoch.
We do not publish a reward rate on this site. Rates move with the total amount staked across the network, every validator's payout policy differs, and a number printed here today would be quietly wrong within weeks. Nimiq publishes its own estimate, with its own disclaimer, on the official staking page.
Choosing a validator
The headline fee is the easy part and it is not the deciding part. A validator's fee is its cut of the rewards it distributes, so a lower fee does leave more for you, but only out of rewards that actually exist. Things worth weighing:
- Is it elected? Registered, active and elected are three different states. Only an elected validator is producing blocks in the current epoch.
- Does it stay online? An offline validator gets deactivated and earns nothing while it is out, and your stake earns nothing with it.
- What is its payout policy? Distribution is off chain, so the schedule and the method are the validator's own. Published, specific terms are a good sign.
- How concentrated is the set already? Delegating to whoever is largest is the easy choice and the one that makes the network worse.
Our validators page compares every registered validator from live chain data, including fees and stake, and NimMap will draw where the delegation actually sits.
Getting your NIM back out
Worth knowing before you start rather than after. Unstaking on Nimiq is not one withdrawal button: it is three protocol steps, deactivate, then retire, then withdraw, with a lock period between the first two that normally lands between about 12 and 24 hours. Partial withdrawal of the retired balance is not permitted, and the generic "7 to 21 day unbonding period" that other chains have and that answer engines keep importing does not apply here.
The full walkthrough is in how to unstake NIM.
How to check any of this yourself
Staking is public. Put your own address into our block explorer after you stake and the transaction is there, with the validator it names. Open NimMap on the same address and the delegation is an edge you can follow. Look at the validator list to see who is elected right now and what each one charges. If you are new to the chain underneath all this, start with what Nimiq is, or browse the rest of the Learn hub.
Nothing on this page is financial advice, and we publish no price figures anywhere on this site.