Monero transaction time: confirmations and the 10-block lock

Short answer: a Monero transaction usually gets its first confirmation in about 2 minutes, the network's block target. The receiver can spend the XMR once it has 10 confirmations, about 20 minutes after it was sent. That 10-block lock is a consensus rule, so no fee or wallet setting shortens it. When a wallet shows no payment at all, check the wallet before the transaction: it may not have scanned that block yet.

How long does a Monero transaction take?

A payment passes through four stages on its way to a spendable balance. The times are averages at Monero's 2-minute block target.

Two things stretch this: blocks arrive at random, and a wallet can only show a payment after scanning the block that holds it. Both are covered below.

What does the 2-minute block target mean in practice?

Monero has aimed for one block every 120 seconds since its March 2016 network upgrade, as the upgrade table in the Monero README records; DIFFICULTY_TARGET_V2 in the Monero source is 120 seconds. Difficulty adjusts to hold the average there, but single gaps vary a lot.

Model blocks as random arrivals 2 minutes apart on average, the standard model for proof-of-work mining. The next block then comes within 2 minutes about 63% of the time and within 6 minutes about 95% of the time. Ten blocks take 20 minutes on average, but anywhere from about 11 to 31 minutes in 9 cases out of 10, so a 25-minute wait for an unlock is normal, not a fault.

Block space is rarely the bottleneck. Monero has no fixed block size: a block larger than the recent median costs the miner part of the reward, so blocks grow when fees justify it. With no backlog in the pool, a transaction paying the standard fee goes into the next block. Services that accept XMR set their own threshold for crediting it, which may be more than 10 confirmations. How this compares with Zcash is in Monero vs Zcash.

Why is my Monero balance locked?

Every output a Monero transaction creates stays unspendable until it has 10 confirmations. The README lists a "10 block lock time for incoming outputs" among the rules of the v12 network upgrade on 30 November 2019, and the source sets CRYPTONOTE_DEFAULT_TX_SPENDABLE_AGE to 10. The network enforces it, so no wallet, node or service can let you spend a younger output. Newly mined coins wait longer: 60 blocks.

The lock protects the ring signatures that hide the spender. Each input references decoy outputs alongside the real one, and an output that a short chain reorganisation could remove makes a bad decoy, because a transaction using it could become invalid. The Monero research discussion on the lock sets out this reasoning.

Wallets show the split differently. The CLI's balance command prints the total, the unlocked balance and the blocks left to unlock. The Monero GUI's Account page shows a total balance and a total unlocked balance, and its transaction history lists an incoming payment as, for example, 4/10 confirmations. Feather's balance guide counts locked outputs as unconfirmed rather than spendable.

Why your change is locked too

A Monero wallet spends whole outputs. Say your wallet holds a single 1 XMR output and you pay someone 0.3 XMR. The transaction uses up that output and creates two new ones: 0.3 XMR for the receiver, and the rest, minus the network fee, back to you as change. That change is a new output, so it is locked for 10 blocks like any payment you receive. Until then your unlocked balance is zero, which is why you often cannot send twice in a row.

The fix is to hold your balance in several outputs. The CLI's sweep_all command accepts outputs=N to split a balance into N equal outputs, and Feather's guide suggests the same. The split is itself a transaction, so its outputs are locked once; after that, spending one leaves the others unlocked.

Custom unlock times are being retired

A sender could once lock a payment for longer by setting a custom unlock time. Nodes already refuse to relay new transactions that set one, and the Monero project announced on 10 May 2026 that the feature will be removed at consensus with the planned FCMP++ upgrade, which had no activation date when this guide was written.

Why does a new or restored wallet show nothing yet?

A Monero balance cannot be looked up on an explorer. Your wallet finds its payments by scanning every block with your private view key, so it shows a payment only after scanning the block that contains it. A wallet behind the network shows an old balance, or zero, even when the payment confirmed long ago.

Restore height

When you restore from a seed, the restore height tells the wallet where to start scanning. The getmonero.org guide to changing the restore height says it should ideally be the block with the wallet's first incoming transaction. Set it too high and the wallet never sees earlier payments; when unsure, go lower. Without one, the scan starts at Monero's launch in April 2014. Wallets using 16-word Polyseed phrases avoid part of this, because the seed stores the approximate creation date.

Remote node or your own node

A wallet reads the blockchain through a node. Your own node gives the best privacy, but it must first download and verify the whole chain, which the Monero FAQ warns can take a long time on an old hard drive or slow connection. A remote node lets the wallet start at once, but the Moneropedia entry on remote nodes notes that operators can link transactions to IP addresses, and a slow or lagging one delays when payments appear.

If a payment seems to be missing

1. Compare your wallet's synced block height with the current height on a Monero block explorer. If the wallet is behind, let it finish or switch nodes.
2. Check that the restore height is below the block of your first payment. If not, lower it and rescan.
3. Check that the payment went to an address from this wallet. The official wallet code watches the first 200 subaddresses in each of the first 50 accounts, moving the window as it finds payments; if you generated addresses far beyond that, raise subaddress-lookahead and rescan.
4. Ask the sender for the transaction ID and look it up, then use one of the proofs below.

Does a higher fee make a Monero transaction faster?

Only when there is a queue. The GUI's send form offers Automatic, Slow (x0.2 fee), Normal (x1 fee), Fast (x5 fee) and Fastest (x200 fee); the CLI calls the levels unimportant, normal, elevated and priority. On Automatic, the wallet code uses the lowest level unless the pool has a backlog at that fee or the last 10 blocks were more than 80% full, and then picks Normal.

When blocks have room, every waiting transaction goes into the next one, so a higher fee buys nothing. When they don't, it moves you up the queue for the first confirmation. No fee touches the lock, which counts blocks: a Fastest and a Slow transaction both unlock 10 blocks after the block that includes them.

Two more differences from Bitcoin. There is no replace-by-fee: the key images are already in the pool, so a second version paying more would be rejected as a double spend. And a transaction that is never mined is dropped by nodes after three days, the pool lifetime in the Monero source. Bitcoin's side is in how long a Bitcoin transaction takes.

How do you check or prove a Monero payment?

A Monero explorer can confirm that a transaction exists, which block holds it, its confirmations and its fee. It cannot show the amount, the sender or the receiver; for those, a wallet has to produce a proof.

In the CLI the pairs are get_tx_key and check_tx_key, get_tx_proof and check_tx_proof, and get_spend_proof and check_spend_proof; the CLI stores transaction keys by default (setting store-tx-info). In the GUI the same checks are on the Prove/check page under Advanced, and the getmonero.org guide to proving a payment walks through the transaction key method.

Two cautions. The CLI reference warns that a proof shows funds were sent, not that they are still spendable. And share only what the check needs: a transaction key reveals one transaction, your private view key reveals every incoming payment, and nobody checking a payment needs your seed or spend key.

How long until XMR from a Ghostex swap is spendable?

Monero is receive-only on Ghostex: it can be the payout of a swap, not the coin you pay with. The wait has two parts: the order, which ends once the payout is on-chain, and the lock, which runs in your wallet afterwards.

Ghostex's typical 5 to 30 minutes covers steps 1 to 4. A BTC to XMR swap spends most of it on Bitcoin confirmations and an LTC to XMR swap on Litecoin ones, while a USDT TRC20 to XMR swap clears Tron in about a minute. Step 5 happens in your wallet after the order is complete. It is Monero's rule, not a hold: nothing on the order is pending, and nobody at Ghostex could release the XMR sooner. Which coin to start from is compared in how to get Monero without KYC.

Paste a new subaddress for each swap. The Monero documentation recommends subaddresses by default, and a fresh one stops your orders from being linked through the payout address; swapping BTC to XMR privately covers what else each chain reveals. A standard address starting with 4 or a 106-character integrated address also works. The flat 0.48% fee and the payout network fee, which Ghostex covers, are already in the quote.

If a swap cannot complete, the refund never comes in XMR: it returns in the coin you paid with, to your refund address or the address you paid from, minus the network cost. If the order shows Completed but your wallet shows nothing, work through the checklist above; where the network has a public explorer, the order page links to it. If the payout still does not appear, write to support@ghostex.ai with your order ID. Ghostex never asks for identity documents, a seed phrase or private keys.