Policy Management

A policy is your configuration on a blockchain network for using Circle’s Gas Station. You must set up a policy to use the Gas Station on mainnet. Here, you configure what you are willing to sponsor on behalf of your users. Circle’s Gas Station pays the fees if a transaction meets your configuration.

Policy Setup for Gas Station on mainnets

To activate a mainnet policy, follow these steps:

1. Access the Sponsorship Policy page: Using your credentials, log in to the developer console. Toggle to mainnet [top left corner]. From there, navigate to the Gas Station section, which allows you to manage your gas fee sponsorship policies efficiently.
2. Choose to create or select a policy: If you don’t have a mainnet policy yet, select the option to create a new policy. Alternatively, choose the desired policy from the available list if you already have an existing one.
3. Configure policy settings: Set the desired configurations for your policy based on your specific needs. Refer to the list of configurations provided below for clarity on available options.

Tip:: Make sure your limits are set high enough to cover your expected user transactions. Otherwise, transactions that exceed your policy are not sponsored and may fail.

4. Update or create the policy: After applying the necessary configurations, choose either the Update or Create button at the bottom of the page. Select Update to modify an existing policy, and select Create* to create a new policy.
5. Activate the policy: After confirming your chosen policy configurations, click the Activate button. This final step enables the selected policy and initiates gas fee sponsorship according to the specified settings.

Gas Station auto-sponsors after Policy is set

When you create a policy on a chain, Circle sponsors gas fees for all accounts that meet your configuration. You don’t need to pass the policy ID in each transaction request.

Policy configurations

A policy consists of the following configurations:

1. Policy Name: Provide a descriptive name for the policy to identify it in the policy list. The policy name displays only in the console.
2. Network: Refers to the specific blockchain network where the Gas Station covers gas fees. Each policy supports only one blockchain network, ensuring clarity and ease of management.
3. Default Policy: The policy sponsors gas fees for any transaction on a specific network, including wallet creation and contract execution. You can set only one default policy per network. Circle recommends designating this as the first policy for the specified network.

Note: Transactions use only default policies. If you want to use a non-default policy, update it to default and activate it.

4. Maximum spend per day* (optional): Specify the maximum allowance for gas fees in USD that you are willing to sponsor within a 24-hour period. This restriction provides control over the allocated budget for gas fee sponsorship.
5. Maximum spend per transaction* (optional): The maximum allowance for gas fees in USD that you are willing to sponsor for a single transaction.

Note: Maximum spend per transaction limit does not apply to the first transaction made from any Smart Contract Account (SCA) wallet. This includes SCA-type wallets as well as Console Wallets.

This first transaction limit check does not lock the nonce of the wallet, so in some cases it is possible that multiple calls with high network fees bypass the check.

6. Maximum operations per day* (optional): The maximum number of supported operations (such as transactions) per day.
7. Blocked addresses (optional): A configurable list of blockchain addresses that should not receive sponsored gas fees. This feature allows you to exclude specific addresses from benefiting from gas fee coverage.

*Daily limits reset once every 24 hours at 0:00 UTC.

By leveraging these configurations within a policy, you can fine-tune the gas fee sponsorship parameters to your specific requirements and financial considerations. Note that any limits left blank are not applied.

Transactions Outside Your Policy

If a transaction exceeds your configured policy limits, such as maximum spend per transaction, maximum spend per day, or maximum operations per day, the transaction is not sponsored by Circle’s Gas Station. In this case, the transaction fails unless the sender provides their own gas.

If your policy settings are missing, misconfigured, or too restrictive, user transactions may fail. Review your policy carefully and monitor transaction activity to avoid unexpected failures.

Deactivating a Gas Station policy on mainnets

If you need to deactivate the mainnet policy at any given time, it can be done conveniently from the developer console. To deactivate the mainnet policy, follow these simple steps:

1. Select the mainnet policy: Access the console and locate the intended mainnet policy that you wish to deactivate. This can be found in the policy management section.
2. Click the deactivate option: Once you have identified the mainnet policy, click the Deactivate button in the console interface’s top right corner. This action triggers the deactivation process.
3. Confirm the deactivation: A pop-up modal appears after clicking the deactivate option. Select the deactivate button within the modal to confirm deactivation of the policy.

Warning: Deactivating a policy stops all mainnet transaction sponsorships and end-users wallet transactions are rejected for sponsorship.

Following these steps, you can easily deactivate the mainnet policy, granting you control and flexibility over the gas fee sponsorship within your application.

Policy Setup for Gas Station on testnets

When it comes to using Gas Station on testnets, the setup process is hassle-free. Circle takes care of the initial configuration by automatically generating a default policy upon signing up for an account. This default policy is designed for developers leveraging Wallets during the testing phase. With this default policy in place, you can seamlessly sponsor testnet tokens while building your applications.

It’s important to note the gas fee sponsorship limits applicable for different testnets:

Testnet	Sponsored Token	Daily Limit
Aptos Testnet	APT	10
Arbitrum Sepolia	ETH	50
Avalanche Fuji	AVAX	50
Base Sepolia	ETH	50
Ethereum Sepolia	ETH	50
Optimism Sepolia	ETH	50
Polygon Amoy	MATIC	50
Solana Devnet	SOL	2
Unichain Sepolia	ETH	50

View gas sponsored transactions

Circle provides a dashboard to monitor and analyze these gas sponsorship transactions.

Using the Developer Dashboard

To view gas-sponsored transactions in testnet or mainnet:

1. Access the Gas Station policy page: log in to the developer console using your credentials. From there, navigate to the Gas Station Policy section, which allows you to manage your gas fee sponsorship policies efficiently.
2. Select a policy: Choose the specific policy you want to review from the available list on the policy page.

View sponsored transactions table: There is a table on the policy page that lists transactions that have been sponsored. You can apply filters to refine the view, enabling you to focus on specific transactions.