# Reverted Ethereum transactions: failed execution and paid gas

A reverted Ethereum transaction rolls back its execution’s state changes, but the included attempt still consumes gas and the sender’s transaction nonce. REVERT can preserve unused gas; it does not refund work already performed. A failed internal call can also be caught by a contract while the enclosing transaction succeeds.

Evidence: [REVERT instruction](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-140); [Ethereum transactions](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/transactions/); [Gas and fees](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/gas/)

Canonical: https://degreesofsatoshi.com/encyclopedia/ethereum-reverted-transactions/
Published: 2026-10-02
Substantively modified: 2026-10-02
Independently verified by an automated reviewer: 2026-10-02T18:12:41.505Z
Data current through: 2026-10-02

AI-assisted research and drafting with a separate automated source-verification pass; no external expert or named human review is implied.

## Key facts

- **Rollback:** REVERT discards the reverted execution’s state changes and logs. ([REVERT instruction](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-140))
- **Remaining gas:** REVERT does not inherently consume every remaining gas unit. ([REVERT instruction](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-140))
- **Receipt:** A zero receipt status identifies top-level failure. ([Embedding transaction status code in receipts](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-658))

## Why failure still has a cost

Nodes performed computation before discovering the failure. The transaction pays for consumed gas even though the attempted contract-state changes are discarded. An out-of-gas failure and an explicit REVERT do not necessarily consume the same amount.

Suppose an illustrative failed attempt consumes 40,000 gas at 20 gwei per gas. Its execution-gas cost is 800,000 gwei, or 0.0008 ETH. This is not a transfer of the requested token amount to the recipient.

Evidence: [REVERT instruction](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-140); [Gas and fees](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/gas/)

## A subcall can fail without failing everything

A contract may make another call and inspect whether it succeeded. If it handles failure and continues, the receipt can report success for the overall transaction while the failed subcall’s effects are absent.

Read traces and application-specific results when a success badge seems inconsistent with the expected outcome. A receipt does not describe every nested execution decision.

Evidence: [REVERT instruction](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-140); [Solidity: Delegatecall and Libraries](https://docs.soliditylang.org/en/v0.8.30/introduction-to-smart-contracts.html)

## A retry is a new decision

An included failed transaction has already used its nonce. A retry normally uses the next available transaction nonce and must address the original failure condition.

Increasing a fee cannot fix an expired deadline, a missing allowance or a contract condition that rejects the operation. Identify the error and current state before constructing another attempt.

Evidence: [Ethereum transactions](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/transactions/); [Ethereum JSON-RPC](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/apis/json-rpc/); [Ethereum accounts](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/accounts/)

## Questions

### Will raising the gas limit always make a failed transaction work?

No. A higher limit may help an actual gas shortage, but it cannot make a contract’s required authorization, balance, deadline or other logical condition become true.

Evidence: [REVERT instruction](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-140); [Gas and fees](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/gas/)

## Claims and scope

### ethereum-reverted-transactions-quick-answer

A reverted Ethereum transaction rolls back its execution’s state changes, but the included attempt still consumes gas and the sender’s transaction nonce. REVERT can preserve unused gas; it does not refund work already performed. A failed internal call can also be caught by a contract while the enclosing transaction succeeds.

Scope: {"collection":"ethereum","dataAsOf":"2026-10-02","blockHeight":null}

### ethereum-reverted-transactions-fact-rollback

Rollback: REVERT discards the reverted execution’s state changes and logs.

Scope: {"collection":"ethereum","dataAsOf":"2026-10-02","blockHeight":null}

### ethereum-reverted-transactions-fact-remaining-gas

Remaining gas: REVERT does not inherently consume every remaining gas unit.

Scope: {"collection":"ethereum","dataAsOf":"2026-10-02","blockHeight":null}

### ethereum-reverted-transactions-fact-receipt

Receipt: A zero receipt status identifies top-level failure.

Scope: {"collection":"ethereum","dataAsOf":"2026-10-02","blockHeight":null}

## Sources

- [REVERT instruction](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-140) — Ethereum Improvement Proposals. State rollback and remaining gas behavior for a REVERT instruction. Locator: Specification. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T17:03:42.150Z.
- [Ethereum transactions](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/transactions/) — ethereum.org contributors. Signed transaction fields, nonces, propagation, inclusion and transaction types. Locator: The transaction lifecycle; Typed transaction envelope. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T17:03:41.854Z.
- [Gas and fees](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/gas/) — ethereum.org contributors. Execution resource units, fee components and gas expenditure. Locator: What is gas?; Base fee; Priority fee. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T17:03:41.688Z.
- [Embedding transaction status code in receipts](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-658) — Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Receipts report top-level execution success or failure. Locator: Specification. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T17:03:42.150Z.
- [Solidity: Delegatecall and Libraries](https://docs.soliditylang.org/en/v0.8.30/introduction-to-smart-contracts.html) — Solidity contributors. Execution uses another contract’s code in the caller’s context and storage. Locator: Delegatecall and Libraries; Storage, Memory and the Stack; Logs; Message Calls. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T17:03:42.822Z.
- [Ethereum JSON-RPC](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/apis/json-rpc/) — ethereum.org contributors. RPC response fields, transaction receipts, call simulation and log filtering. Locator: eth_getTransactionByHash; eth_getTransactionReceipt; eth_call; eth_getLogs; eth_getCode; eth_estimateGas; eth_getBalance; eth_getStorageAt; eth_getTransactionCount; default block parameter. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T17:03:42.060Z.
- [Ethereum accounts](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/accounts/) — ethereum.org contributors. Key-controlled and code-controlled accounts, balances, nonces and storage. Locator: Account types; An account examined; Account creation. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T17:03:41.958Z.

## Revision history

- 2026-10-02: First publication after primary-source research and independent automated verification.

## Cite this entry

Degrees of Satoshi editorial project. “Reverted Ethereum transactions: failed execution and paid gas.” Published 2026-10-02; updated 2026-10-02. https://degreesofsatoshi.com/encyclopedia/ethereum-reverted-transactions/