Bitcoin Transaction Unconfirmed or Stuck? How to Check and Speed It Up
You sent bitcoin, or someone sent it to you, and it has been sitting at "unconfirmed" or "pending" for longer than you expected. Rizful's Unconfirmed Transaction Checker tells you what's going on: paste the transaction ID and it shows whether the transaction has confirmed, how far back in the queue it is, and how to speed it up.
🔍 Try the Unconfirmed Transaction Checker →
Step by Step
1. Paste the transaction ID
Open the Unconfirmed Transaction Checker and paste the transaction ID into the box. (Not sure where to find it? See What the Checker Shows below.)
2. Click "Check transaction"
3. Read the status
The top card says whether the transaction has confirmed and, if not, how far back in the queue it is. This one pays 0.13 sat/vB and was about 4 blocks back when we checked. Leave the page open: it checks again every time a new block is found.
4. Compare its fee rate
The details card shows the fee rate the transaction pays, next to the rates wallets recommend right now. The bigger the gap, the longer the wait.
5. Speed it up: one question at a time
If it's stuck, the "Speed it up" card asks whether you sent the payment, are receiving it, or are waiting for a withdrawal from an exchange or app.
6. Pick your wallet
Then it asks which wallet you use: Trezor Suite, Ledger Wallet, Sparrow, Electrum, BlueWallet and about 25 more, plus "Something else". If you're receiving the payment, it first asks which of the addresses is yours.
7. Follow your wallet's steps
You get that wallet's own steps, with the number to type in, in the unit its fee box asks for. If you sent it, that's replace-by-fee (RBF): your wallet sends the same payment again with a higher fee. If you're receiving it, that's child pays for parent (CPFP): you send the bitcoin you're receiving on to yourself, with a fee big enough to pay for both. When a wallet can't do it, the steps say what to do instead, for a hardware wallet usually connecting it to Sparrow.
8. After a fee bump, paste the new transaction ID
A fee bump makes a new transaction with a new ID, and the old one disappears. Paste the new ID and the checker watches it until it confirms.
First, the good news: your bitcoin isn't lost. A transaction that is waiting either confirms, or, if it never does, the network eventually forgets it and the coins stay in the wallet that sent them.
What the Checker Shows
- The status: confirmed, unconfirmed, or not found.
- For an unconfirmed transaction: its fee rate, and how many blocks of better-paying transactions are ahead of it.
- How to speed it up: step by step for your wallet, as sender or receiver, with the exact number to type in.
- Live updates: while the transaction is unconfirmed, the page checks it again each time a new block is found, so you can leave it open.
The transaction ID (txid) is 64 characters of 0-9 and a-f. Your wallet shows it in the transaction's details, sometimes labelled "TXID" or "Hash"; under the box, "Where do I find the transaction ID?" shows where for your wallet. An exchange shows it in the withdrawal's details once it has sent the coins. A link with the txid in it, like https://rizful.com/unconfirmed-bitcoin-transaction?txid=<txid>, opens the checker on that transaction.
Don't have the txid? Look up the receiving address in the Bitcoin Address Checker: each of its unconfirmed transactions links straight to this checker.
Rizful's server fetches the data from public block explorers (Blockstream and mempool.space), and the current fee rates from mempool.space.
Why Is My Bitcoin Transaction Unconfirmed?
A transaction is unconfirmed until a miner puts it in a block. Until then it waits in the mempool, the queue of transactions every node keeps.
A new block comes about every 10 minutes and has room for roughly 1 million virtual bytes (vB). Miners fill it with the transactions that pay the most per vbyte. So how fast a transaction confirms depends on its fee rate, in satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB), not on the amount sent or the total fee.
If the mempool is busy and your wallet chose a low fee rate, newer transactions that pay more keep jumping ahead of yours. That's all "stuck" means.
How Long Does a Bitcoin Transaction Take?
With a fee rate the next block accepts, the first confirmation takes about 10 minutes on average. Blocks are random, so sometimes it's 1 minute and sometimes 30 or more. Each later block adds one more confirmation.
- 1 confirmation: enough for most small payments and many wallets.
- 3 to 6 confirmations: what most exchanges wait for before crediting a deposit. 6 confirmations take about an hour.
- A low fee rate: anything from a few hours to several days, depending on how busy the mempool gets. The checker shows how many blocks of better-paying transactions are ahead of yours.
How to Speed Up a Stuck Bitcoin Transaction
Replace-by-fee (RBF), if you sent it
Your wallet sends the same payment again with a higher fee, and the new version replaces the old one in the mempool. The replacement must pay a higher fee rate and a higher total fee than the original, and it gets a new transaction ID.
Wallets usually offer this only for transactions that signalled RBF when they were sent. Since Bitcoin Core 28, most nodes accept a replacement of any unconfirmed transaction, but your wallet still has to offer the button.
Child pays for parent (CPFP), if you're receiving it
The receiver spends the incoming coins in a new transaction (the child) with a high fee. The sender can do the same with their change output. A miner can only include the child together with its parent, so it looks at the fee rate of the two together:
(parent fee + child fee) ÷ (parent size + child size)
The child's fee has to cover the parent's shortfall as well as its own size. The checker works out about how much that is.
Wait
When the mempool empties out, low-fee transactions confirm too. If yours never confirms, most nodes drop it after about two weeks, and the coins can be spent again from the wallet that sent them.
Use an accelerator
Some services, such as the mempool.space Accelerator, are paid to get mining pools to include a transaction. They're an option when you can't use RBF or CPFP.
A Withdrawal From an Exchange Is Stuck
A withdrawal from an exchange or a custodial app is the exchange's transaction, so you can't bump its fee yourself. Contact their support with the transaction ID. If the coins are coming to your own wallet, you can also use CPFP on the output you receive.
Fee Bumping in Popular Wallets
The checker's "Speed it up" steps cover about 30 wallets and apps, each with the number to type in. A few of them:
- Electrum: in the History tab, right-click the unconfirmed payment and choose "Increase fee" (RBF); to type the rate, click "Tools" and tick "Edit fees manually". For a payment you're receiving, choose "Child pays for parent".
- Sparrow: in the Transactions tab, right-click the unconfirmed payment and choose "Increase Fee (RBF)", or "Increase Effective Fee (CPFP)" for one you're receiving. Drag the "Range:" slider until "Rate:" shows the rate.
- Trezor Suite (desktop): click "Speed up" on the pending payment, then "New fee" and "Customize fee". For a payment you're receiving, use "Send" with "Coin control" to send the pending coin to yourself with a higher fee.
- Ledger Wallet (formerly Ledger Live): open the pending payment and choose "Speed up or Cancel", then "Speed Up". It can't speed up a payment you're receiving; connect the Ledger to Sparrow for that.
- BlueWallet: tap the pending payment and choose "Speed Up".
- Exchanges and custodial apps (Coinbase, Cash App, Strike, River...): only they can change the fee of their withdrawals. Contact their support with the transaction ID.
Menu names change between versions. If you can't find the option, look in the transaction's details screen.
Questions
Can I cancel an unconfirmed bitcoin transaction?
Only by replacing it before it confirms. A "cancel" in wallets such as BlueWallet or Sparrow is an RBF replacement that sends the coins back to your own wallet, with a higher fee. It works only if the replacement gets mined first. Once a transaction has one confirmation, it can't be cancelled.
Why did my transaction ID disappear after I bumped the fee?
RBF makes a new transaction with a new ID, and the old one is dropped. Look up the new ID in your wallet's transaction list. The old ID will show as "not found".
What does "not found" mean?
Neither the blockchain nor the mempool has the transaction. It may have been replaced by a fee bump, dropped after waiting too long, or never broadcast; it may be a testnet transaction; or the ID may be mistyped. If it was dropped or never broadcast, the coins are still in the sending wallet.
What is sat/vB?
Satoshis per virtual byte: the transaction's fee divided by its size. A typical payment (one input, two outputs, Native SegWit) is about 141 vB, so at 5 sat/vB it costs about 705 sats. Transactions with many inputs are bigger and cost more at the same fee rate.
Next Time: Pick the Right Fee
A stuck transaction is almost always one that was sent with a fee rate below what the next blocks needed. How bitcoin transaction fees work explains how to choose one, and how to read the live rates before you send.