There are many ways someone might end up with tokens in their Solana wallet but be unable to use them due to a lack of $SOL for gas fees. These tokens could have been bridged from another chain, sent from a centralized exchange, or even gifted by a friend—only to become effectively stuck. Fortunately, there are several ways to fund the wallet with $SOL to cover those gas fees
1) Send Solana from a Centralized Exchange
If you have an account with a centralized exchange (CEX) like Coinbase or Binance, you can free up your stranded tokens by purchasing $SOL and transferring it to your wallet. However, if you don't currently have funds on a CEX and want to avoid the 5-7 day wait for a bank transfer to clear, there are alternative ways to fund your Solana wallet with $SOL.
2) Bridge Over Solana from Another Blockchain
2) If you have funds on another blockchain, such as Ethereum, Base, or Arbitrum, you can use deBridge to bring $SOL into your wallet. deBridge is a cross-chain bridge that lets you transfer tokens and swap them for Solana (or other assets) in a single transaction. It currently supports 12 different blockchains.
You can try out deBridge here.
3) Buy Solana with a Credit or Debit Card
If you have a debit card, credit card, Apple pay or Google pay you'll be able to buy Solana using Jupiter's On-ramp feature.
a) Head to Jupiter and click "Onboard" in the top menu.
b) Click "Onramp"
c) Set the currency you'd like to pay with
d) Choose the payment network you'd like to use to buy Solana. Jupiter will automatically suggest the least expensive payment network, but there are several options available. If one doesn’t work, try another.
e) Choose you payment method: debit card, credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or direct from your bank.
f) Click "Buy SOL" and follow the on-screen instructions to complete your payment.
4) Use Jupiter's Gasless Swap to Buy Solana
If neither a CEX nor deBridge works for your situation, there's another option: Jupiter's gasless swap feature on their decentralized exchange. While this feature is still in beta and currently available only on Jupiter Edge, it allows you to swap certain tokens for $SOL without needing any $SOL in your wallet. Currently, only seven tokens are supported for gasless swaps, but USDC is one of the permitted tokens and should cover many scenarios.
To use the gasless swap:
a) Go to Jupiter Edge and connect your Solana wallet.
b) In the swap interface, toggle to "RFQ" mode.
c) Select the token you'd like to swap (e.g., USDC) and set $SOL as the output token.
d) Click "Swap."
When your wallet displays the Confirm Transaction screen, it will notify you that there's insufficient $SOL to complete the transaction. Don't worry — simply click the "Confirm Anyway" button at the bottom.
The transaction will process, and within moments, you'll have $SOL in your wallet.