TRON replaces the single “gas fee” model used by EVM chains with a dual-resource accounting system: Bandwidth pays for the physical size of a transaction, while Energy pays for smart-contract computation.
Users obtain these resources primarily by staking TRX; when their resources are insufficient, the protocol burns TRX as a fallback. Staking also produces TRON Power (TP) for governance.
Staking TRX: the source of resources
TRON’s current mechanism is Stake 2.0, active since April 7, 2023, through proposal #84 and specification TIP-467. When you stake TRX, the TRX is locked rather than spent—it remains yours—and you choose whether that stake produces Bandwidth or Energy. Staking also generates TRON Power (TP) at a fixed ratio of 1 TRX staked = 1 TP on the current Mainnet, which is used to vote for Super Representatives.
The amount of Bandwidth or Energy you receive is not a fixed number per TRX. It is a proportional share of a network-wide pool:
Your Bandwidth = total network Bandwidth limit × your Bandwidth stake ÷ total TRX staked for Bandwidth
Your Energy = total network Energy limit × your Energy stake ÷ total TRX staked for Energy
The current Mainnet pools are 43,200,000,000 Bandwidth and 180,000,000,000 Energy. Because the pools are shared, the same TRX stake yields fewer resources as more users stake. Resources are consumed automatically when you broadcast transactions and regenerate gradually over a rolling 24-hour window.
Bandwidth: paying for transaction size
Bandwidth is consumed by every on-chain transaction, roughly in proportion to the serialized byte size of the transaction. Read-only queries do not consume on-chain Bandwidth. A plain TRX transfer consumes only Bandwidth; a smart-contract call consumes Bandwidth and Energy.
Bandwidth payment follows a strict order:
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Staked or delegated Bandwidth is tried first.
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If that cannot cover the transaction, the account’s free Bandwidth is tried—currently 600 Bandwidth per activated account, recovering over 24 hours.
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If neither source can cover the transaction in full, TRX is burned for the entire Bandwidth cost.
A key rule is that Bandwidth sources are not combined. For example, if a transaction needs 270 Bandwidth and the account has 200 staked Bandwidth plus 100 free Bandwidth, the network does not combine them; it burns TRX for all 270 Bandwidth.
The current burn rate is 0.001 TRX per Bandwidth unit (1,000 SUN), so a 270-byte transfer with no sufficient quota burns about 0.27 TRX. These rates are chain parameters and can be changed by Super Representative governance.
Energy: paying for smart-contract execution
Energy is consumed only by smart-contract execution, including TRC-20 token transfers, DApp interactions, and other TVM operations. Each TVM instruction has a fixed Energy cost, and the total consumption of a call is the sum of those costs. Energy has no free quota; accounts must stake for it, receive it through delegation, or burn TRX.
Energy settlement differs from Bandwidth:
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Available Energy can cover part of the execution cost.
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TRX is burned for the remaining Energy at the current rate of 0.0001 TRX per Energy unit (100 SUN).
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The transaction’s
fee_limitcaps the caller-side Energy budget, including both available Energy and the portion paid by burning TRX.
TRON also includes a Energy model that can apply an additional coefficient to certain high-usage contracts, raising the total consumption. There is also a deployer Energy sharing mechanism: a smart contract’s deployer can absorb part of the caller’s Energy cost, enabling DApps to sponsor user transactions—a feature with no direct equivalent in Ethereum.
Delegation: staking without giving up ownership
Stake 2.0 separates staking from delegation. A staker can delegate Bandwidth or Energy to another externally owned account while the TRX remains staked under the original owner’s account. Key properties:
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Both Bandwidth and Energy can be delegated.
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TRON Power cannot be delegated—voting rights stay with the staker.
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Delegation can be locked for a period; the default lock period is 86,400 blocks, about 3 days, with a maximum of 30 days.
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The recipient gets the resource quota, but the staker keeps ownership of the underlying TRX.
This enables common patterns such as a cold wallet staking TRX and delegating Energy to a hot wallet that transacts, or a DApp sponsor delegating Energy to its users.
Unstaking: resources stop immediately, TRX waits
When you unstake, your Bandwidth or Energy allocation drops immediately, but the unstaked TRX enters a pending period before it becomes spendable. On Mainnet, that delay is currently 14 days (network parameter #70). After it expires, the TRX can be withdrawn.
Delegated TRX must be undelegated before it can be unstaked. In addition, the TRON Power associated with unstaked TRX expires, adjusting the account’s voting weight.
Governance: TRON Power and Super Representatives
TRON Power is the voting weight in the election of the 27 Super Representatives (SRs) who produce blocks and govern the network. Staking grants TP automatically, but the user must actively use it by calling wallet/votewitnessaccount to vote for SRs. Unused TP earns nothing; voting is what produces yield. Votes are counted in the next maintenance cycle, approximately every 6 hours, and then generate rewards continuously.
A transaction’s journey, step by step
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The transaction is built and serialized. Its byte size determines the Bandwidth requirement.
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Bandwidth is charged. Staked/delegated Bandwidth is used first; otherwise free Bandwidth; if neither covers the full size, TRX is burned for all Bandwidth.
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If it is a contract call, the TVM executes it. Each TVM instruction consumes Energy.
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Energy is settled. Staked/delegated Energy covers as much as possible; the remainder is burned as TRX, subject to
fee_limit. -
TRON Power remains separate. Staking gives TP, but TP only matters when the holder votes for Super Representatives; unused TP earns nothing.
TRON transactions are powered by a resource-first, burn-second model: stake TRX → receive Bandwidth/Energy + TRON Power → consume resources automatically → burn TRX only for any shortfall, with delegation allowing the stake owner and the transacting account to be different.
Compared with Ethereum, where every transaction requires a gas fee in ETH, TRON separates the cost of size from the cost of computation and lets users prepay those costs through staking, reserving TRX burning as a fallback for those who have not staked enough or have exhausted their quotas.
