When Is the Next Bitcoin Halving? Estimated Date and What Changes

Key takeaways

• The next halving is the fifth. It happens at block 1,050,000, when the block subsidy falls from 3.125 to 1.5625 bitcoin.
• If blocks keep arriving about every ten minutes, it is expected around April 2028. Nobody can name the exact day in advance, because the rule is tied to a block number and not to a date.
• The estimate is the number of blocks remaining multiplied by the time each block takes. It moves when blocks arrive faster or slower than ten minutes.
• The halving cuts new issuance and the subsidy part of miners’ income. It does not change the ten-minute target, the 21 million cap or the coins you already hold.
• This article makes no price claims. What halvings do to price is debated, and four past events are too few to set a rule.

When is the next Bitcoin halving?

The next Bitcoin halving is expected around April 2028, and it will take place when the chain reaches block 1,050,000. It will be the fifth halving. At that block the subsidy, the newly issued bitcoin paid to the miner of each block, falls from 3.125 to 1.5625 bitcoin.

Only the date is an estimate. The rule is exact: Bitcoin’s software halves the subsidy every 210,000 blocks, and the fifth halving is the block numbered 1,050,000. The calendar date is whenever the network produces that block. What Is the Bitcoin Halving? covers the mechanism and the earlier events in more depth.

For a quick look at any halving height with an estimated date and the reward before and after it, use the Halving and supply explorer. The table below is a summary, with rewards in bitcoin per block.

Halving	Block height	Date	Reward before	Reward after
First	210,000	November 2012	50	25
Second	420,000	July 2016	25	12.5
Third	630,000	May 2020	12.5	6.25
Fourth	840,000	April 2024	6.25	3.125
Fifth (next)	1,050,000	Around April 2028 (estimate)	3.125	1.5625

Later halvings follow the same pattern, each cutting the reward in half again. The explorer lists them with estimated dates.

Why can’t anyone give the exact date?

Nobody can give the exact date because the halving is tied to a block number, and nobody controls when blocks arrive. Bitcoin’s rules do not contain a calendar. Miners race to find each block, and the network averages about one block every ten minutes, but single gaps range from a few seconds to well over an hour.

Think of a bucket under a tap that drips at an average rate. If you know the bucket’s size and the average drip, you can forecast the day it overflows, but not the minute. Block 1,050,000 is the mark on the bucket.

Chance on its own moves the date less than most people expect. Over tens of thousands of blocks the lucky and unlucky gaps largely cancel, so luck shifts the arrival by days and not months. The larger source of error is the pace itself, which depends on how much mining power is working on the network. Each adjustment of mining difficulty responds to the last 2,016 blocks. When miners add machines, blocks come faster than ten minutes until the next adjustment catches up, and when machines switch off, they come slower.

The record shows this. A strict ten-minute pace puts 210,000 blocks about 1,458 days apart, a little under four years. Each of the four halvings so far arrived sooner than that after the one before, with gaps between roughly three and a half years and just under four, because mining power was mostly growing. Whether that continues depends on whether mining power keeps growing, and nobody can promise it.

How do people estimate the halving date?

People estimate the date by working out how many blocks remain and multiplying by the expected time per block. The steps are simple.

1. Find the current block height on a block explorer. What Is a Bitcoin Block? explains what that number means.
2. Subtract it from 1,050,000 to get the blocks remaining.
3. Multiply by the pace: ten minutes by default, or the average of recent blocks.
4. Add the result to today’s date.

Here is an invented example, not today’s height. Suppose the chain stood at block 1,000,000. That leaves 50,000 blocks, which at ten minutes each is 500,000 minutes, or about 347 days. If blocks were averaging 9.5 minutes instead, the same 50,000 blocks would take about 330 days. A pace only five percent faster pulls the date in by more than two weeks.

That sensitivity is why countdown sites can show slightly different dates for the same halving. Some assume exactly ten minutes, and others use a recent average. The estimate also tightens as the day approaches. With only a thousand blocks to go, roughly a week, the remaining uncertainty is a matter of hours. The explorer on this site assumes a steady ten-minute pace, so treat its future dates as estimates.

How much will the reward be after the next halving?

After the next halving, the subsidy will be 1.5625 bitcoin per block, half of today’s 3.125. At the target pace of about 144 blocks a day, that means new issuance falls from roughly 450 bitcoin a day to roughly 225.

The subsidy is only part of what a miner earns. Each block also pays the transaction fees of the payments it contains, and a halving leaves those untouched. How large the fee share is depends on demand for block space, which changes from day to day. Bitcoin Fees Explained shows how network fees are set.

What does the halving change, and what does it leave alone?

The halving changes how much new bitcoin each block creates and so how much of a miner’s income comes from the subsidy. It leaves almost everything else in the protocol as it was.

Changes	Does not change
The subsidy per block is halved	The ten-minute block target
New bitcoin issued per day roughly halves	The cap of just under 21 million
The subsidy share of miners’ income falls	The difficulty rules
	Your balances, keys and addresses
	How transactions are sent and confirmed

The cap is not at risk, because the halving is how it is enforced. Each period issues half as many coins as the last, and the amounts add up to just under 21 million, as How Many Bitcoin Are Left to Mine? explains.

Difficulty is not changed by the halving itself. If some miners find their income too low and switch machines off, blocks slow for a while, and the next difficulty adjustment lowers the difficulty to restore the pace. Whether that happens depends on the price at the time, how efficient the machines are and what electricity costs. Is Bitcoin Mining Profitable? walks through those factors, and Inside a Bitcoin Mining Operation shows the industry behind them.

What happens to the subsidy in the long run?

The subsidy keeps halving until it reaches zero, and the last fraction of a bitcoin is expected to be issued around the year 2140. Long before that, new issuance is already small, and miners depend more on fees.

Whether fees alone will pay for enough mining to keep the network secure is an open question. Supporters expect fees to grow with use, while skeptics worry that thin fee income could lower the cost of an attack. The test is decades away, and neither side can prove its case yet.

Does the halving affect the price?

Nobody can say, and this site does not predict prices. A halving is known years in advance, so it is not a surprise, and markets respond to many things at once. Four events, each in different conditions, are not enough to establish a rule. Anyone who promises a particular result is selling something. For a decision about your own money, ask a qualified professional.

Does the halving change anything for someone who just holds bitcoin?

No. Your balance, your keys and your addresses are unaffected, and sending bitcoin works as it did the day before. There is nothing to do on halving day.

Large Bitcoin news tends to attract scammers, so be wary of any “halving” giveaway, presale or message urging you to act before the date. Common Bitcoin Scams and How to Spot Them lists the usual pitches. If the basics are new to you, the Start Here path covers them in order, and How Does Bitcoin Work? explains how blocks fit into the system.

Where to go next

• Halving and supply explorer: reward and scheduled supply for any year or block height.
• What Is the Bitcoin Halving? Dates, History and What It Changes: the four halvings so far and what they did and did not change.
• How Many Bitcoin Are Left to Mine? The 21 Million Cap Explained: how the schedule adds up to the cap.
• Bitcoin Hash Rate and Mining Difficulty Explained: the adjustment that keeps blocks near ten minutes.