MetaMask transaction underpriced error and how to fix it

02 September 2026

The “transaction underpriced” error in MetaMask nearly always traces back to EIP-1559, the fee mechanism Ethereum adopted in August 2021. Before that, a simple gas price auction worked. Now you compete on a base fee and a priority fee. Misunderstand how those two numbers interact and your transaction gets rejected.

EIP-1559 splits the fee into three parts: the base fee, the priority fee (tip), and the max fee. The base fee is algorithmically set by the network. It rises when blocks are full and falls when they are not. Every transaction must pay the current base fee. You cannot bribe your way around it. The priority fee is what you add on top to incentivize validators to include your transaction. The max fee is the absolute ceiling you are willing to pay for the entire transaction. If the network base fee exceeds your max fee, the transaction becomes underpriced and is rejected.

There are two distinct flavours of this error. The first happens the moment you try to send. MetaMask checks the current network base fee against your max fee. If your max fee is too low, the wallet refuses to broadcast. You get an immediate error in the interface. The second flavour is more confusing. MetaMask broadcasts a transaction, it sits in the mempool, then the base fee spikes. Your transaction is now underpriced compared to the new base fee. The network rejects it, and MetaMask shows a “replacement transaction underpriced” error when you try to send a new one.

The speed-up button is your first move. Click it in the MetaMask activity tab. MetaMask will auto-suggest a higher priority fee. That often works if the base fee has only nudged up. But if the base fee has jumped significantly, the auto-suggest may still be too low. You then need to set both the max base fee and the priority fee manually.

Manual fix: open MetaMask, go to the transaction in the activity tab, click “Speed up.” Then click “Advanced” or “Edit” to expose the gas fields. Look at a current gas tracker (Etherscan has a simple one). Find the current base fee and the suggested low / average / high priority fees. Set your “Max base fee” to at least the current base fee plus a buffer. A common buffer is 20 - 50 gwei above the current base fee. Set your “Priority fee” to the average or high suggestion from the tracker. Do not copy the exact numbers from a screenshot you found. Check the live numbers yourself. The base fee changes with every block.

If speed-up does not work and you have no pending transaction you care about, you can cancel it. MetaMask gives you a cancel button in the same activity menu. Cancel also needs a valid fee. You may need to set the max base fee and priority fee manually in the cancel screen too.

Some users create the underpriced situation themselves. They try to copy gas settings from a previous transaction that succeeded. That is a mistake. Gas settings are time-sensitive. The base fee from half an hour ago may be irrelevant now. Always set them fresh.

MetaMask shows you a coloured bar for fee estimation. Green means fast. Orange means moderate. Red means slow or risky. If you see red, the suggestion may be too close to the base fee floor. Increase it.

The “replacement transaction underpriced” error specifically means you tried to replace a pending transaction but your new max fee is not high enough to meet the network’s current requirements. The rule is: a replacement transaction must have a max fee at least 10% higher than the original’s max fee. If the network base fee has also risen, you need to exceed that 10% plus the new base fee.

No on-chain pair was found for Lingose as of August 31, 2026. The information here applies to any Ethereum token, not just a specific project.

The blunt reality: if the network is congested and the base fee is spiking block by block, your transaction may be underpriced by the time you click send. Waiting for a quieter block is sometimes the only sensible option. There is no fee bid that guarantees inclusion when gas wars are ongoing. Set your max fee high enough to cover a short base fee spike, or wait.

Back to metamask