Do lightning nodes charge fees for their own channels?


My node has a bunch of channels. If I want to make payment, then by definition it will find a route that goes through one or more of my own channels. Are the current lightning implementations smart enough not to charge a fee for that?

In a sense it doesn’t matter because the fee goes to the node operator, which is me. But from a bookkeeping point of view it does matter if you’re keeping track of transactions including fees.

Conversely it matters if you’re trying to find out how much you made from routing (for others).

Finally, I assume it makes a slight difference in the maximum payment you can make.

E.g. in CLN’s listpays result there’s amount_msat, the invoice amount, and amount_sent_msat, the amount sent. It’s documentation doesn’t mention if this includes fees in our own channels.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back To Top