The Solana Staking Rate is the total staking yield that the Solana network can pay at the validator level before any validator commission or protocol fees.
In simple terms:
Solana Staking Rate = inflation rewards + block rewards, annualized as a percentage
You can think of it as the raw network staking rate.
It measures what the network itself pays out across every validator, before commission. MEV is not part of it. Stakers do earn MEV, and it sits on top of this rate.
Some parts of the app and help centre call the same benchmark the Solana Staking Index (SSI). It is the same number.
Where do these rewards come from?
When you stake SOL, rewards are made up of:
Inflation rewards
New SOL created by the protocol and paid to validators based on stake and performance.Block rewards, also called priority fee rewards
Part of the transaction fees that users pay to speed up their transactions.
These priority fees are kept by the validator.
Delegators only benefit from them if a protocol or strategy is designed to redistribute that value. Marinade Native effectively passes priority fees back to stakers through validator bids.MEV rewards
Extra rewards validators can earn from how they order and include transactions in blocks.
MEV is excluded from the Solana Staking Rate, so it is earned on top of the rate rather than counted inside it.
The Solana Staking Rate adds the first two of these across the whole network and annualizes them from recent on chain data.
Why does this matter?
It gives a clear benchmark for staking on Solana.
It shows the baseline the network pays on inflation and block rewards, before commission and before any MEV.
When we say a strategy or product is close to or beating self staking, we compare its net APY to the Solana Staking Rate.
Because the Solana Staking Rate excludes MEV, it reads lower than validator APY figures that do include MEV. Check what a number contains before comparing it with another one.