Aave fees: what lending and borrowing cost

Using Aave costs money in a few specific places. Borrowing costs interest, a liquidation costs a penalty, and every transaction costs gas. This guide lists each cost, who pays it, who receives it and where this site shows the live value. If you are new to loans, start with how to borrow on Aave.

Supplying and withdrawing: no protocol fee

The Aave protocol charges nothing to supply or to withdraw. Supply 1,000 USDC and you receive 1,000 aTokens, redeemable later for the same amount plus interest. The only cost is the network's gas fee. Approving a token first can cost gas too, although some tokens let you approve with a free signature instead.

Borrow interest and the reserve factor

Interest is the main cost of a loan. Aave V3 charges a variable rate that follows utilization, the share of the pool that is lent out, and adds the interest to your debt every second. See how Aave interest rates work.

Not all of that interest reaches suppliers. The protocol keeps a share for the Aave treasury, called the reserve factor, which governance sets for each asset. In October 2026 it was 10% for USDC and USDT and 15% for WETH on the Ethereum Core market. That cut, and the fact that interest is shared across the whole pool, including the idle part, is why suppliers earn less than borrowers pay:

supply rate = borrow rate x utilization x (1 - reserve factor)

A simple example: you borrow $10,000 of USDT on Ethereum Core for a year, and the rate stays at 5% APY. You owe $500 in interest. With a 10% reserve factor, $50 goes to the treasury and $450 to USDT suppliers. You also pay gas to supply collateral, borrow, repay and withdraw.

Real rates move, so the average rate matters, not today's. Our USDT borrow rate history shows the exact average for each day, and the borrow cost calculator shows what a loan costs per day, month and year.

Liquidation: the penalty and the protocol's cut

If your health factor falls below 1, a liquidator can repay part of your debt and take some of your collateral, plus a bonus. That bonus is your penalty, and each collateral asset has its own.

Part of the bonus goes to the treasury as the liquidation protocol fee. It comes out of the liquidator's share, so it does not add to your loss. In October 2026, WETH on Ethereum Core had a 5% bonus, with 10% of that bonus as the protocol fee. If a liquidator repays $1,000 of your debt, $1,050 of your WETH is taken. The treasury gets $5, the liquidator keeps $1,045, and you are $50 worse off than if you had repaid the debt yourself. USDC collateral on the same market carried a 20% share. More in how Aave liquidations work.

Flash loans: 0.05%

A flash loan is borrowed and repaid inside one transaction, with no collateral, so most people never take one directly. In October 2026 the fee was 0.05% on the Ethereum, Base and Arbitrum V3 markets, and all of it went to the treasury: $500 on a $1,000,000 loan. Governance can exempt approved borrowers, such as the app's CoW Protocol swap adapters on nine V3 markets, Ethereum Core among them. See Aave flash loans.

Gas and the app's swap fees

Every transaction pays gas to the blockchain network, not to Aave. Aave's FAQ notes that costs are usually highest on Ethereum and much lower on its other networks.

The official app also offers swaps, such as swapping collateral or repaying debt with collateral. When it routes a swap through CoW Protocol, it adds a fee: 0.15% between closely related assets (two stablecoins, or ETH and wstETH), 0.25% for other pairs, and nothing on debt swaps. This is a charge of the app, not of the lending protocol. Since April 2026, Aave Labs says Aave's share of these fees goes to an Aave DAO treasury address.

Aave V4 and GHO

On Aave V4, a borrower pays the hub's base rate plus a personal risk premium: a percentage of the base rate, set by the risk score of the collateral behind the loan. With a 5% base rate and collateral scored 20%, you pay 6%. In October 2026 every V4 collateral scored 0%, except syrupUSDC on the Maple SyrupUSDC spoke on the Arc network, at 20%.

The hub's liquidity fee is the share of interest the protocol keeps, the same job as the reserve factor. In October 2026 it was 10% for USDC on the Ethereum Core hub. The V4 liquidation fee is the protocol's share of a liquidation bonus, and the bonus grows, up to a maximum, the further a loan falls below a health factor of 1.

On Ethereum Core, the borrow rate of GHO, Aave's stablecoin, is set by governance through the GHO Stewards, who change it in steps. In October 2026 it was 4.5% APR, and its reserve factor of 100% sends all of that interest to the treasury. The old discount for stkAAVE holders was removed in the Aave v3.4 upgrade. Live figures are on the GHO page.

Every Aave fee in one table

This site shows the live values: every V3 asset page lists its reserve factor, its liquidation penalty and whether flash loans are enabled (for example USDC on Ethereum), every V4 asset page its liquidity fee, liquidation fee and collateral risk score, and the GHO page the GHO rate.