Ethereum staking: 2.66 percent gross, 2.2 net

With Ethereum staking, the network currently pays around 2.66 percent a year, and just over 2.2 percent reaches you through a provider. That gap is the real answer to the question of what staking delivers: the protocol sets the gross yield, the provider sets the net yield. On top of that come a waiting period on the way out, a tax treatment of its own in Germany, and a risk that has nothing to do with the price.

This piece explains how the reward arises, how much Ethereum actually pays out in October 2026, which four routes lead into staking, and what the provider's cut does to the result. We collected every yield figure in this article ourselves on October 4, 2026, from the network data and from two of the largest providers.

What Ethereum staking is and how the reward arises

At Ethereum, staking means this: you deposit ether as security so that a validator may propose and confirm new blocks. A validator is a machine with its own key pair that takes part in consensus. For correct work the protocol issues new ether; for negligence it deducts part of the security. Anyone working against the rules loses more, and that is called slashing.

The reward draws on three sources: the issuance of new ether by the protocol, users' priority fees, and additional income from the ordering of transactions within a block. How the procedure works in detail is set out in Ethereum's staking documentation. What matters for the yield: the first two sources fluctuate with network load, and none of them is guaranteed.