LND Channel Rebalancing -- Fix Stuck Routing

Why Rebalance?

Unbalanced channels cause routing failures. If all liquidity is on one side, you cannot route in that direction. Rebalancing moves liquidity from outbound-heavy channels to inbound-heavy ones.

Check Channel Balance

lncli listchannels | jq '.channels[] | {remote_pubkey, local_balance, remote_balance}'

Manual Circular Rebalance

# Pay invoice to yourself via specific outgoing channel
lncli addinvoice --amt 100000
# then:
lncli payinvoice --allow_self_payment <payment_request> --outgoing_chan_id <chan_id>

Using bos (Balance of Satoshis)

npm install -g balanceofsatoshis

bos rebalance \
  --amount 100000 \
  --out <outbound_peer_pubkey> \
  --in <inbound_peer_pubkey> \
  --max-fee-rate 500

Automated with charge-lnd

pip install charge-lnd

# charge.config
[default]
strategy = proportional
fee_rate = 500

# Run:
charge-lnd -c charge.config

Profitability Check

Track routing fees: lncli fwdinghistory --max_events 1000

Do not rebalance if the fee cost exceeds the routing revenue from that channel. Rebalancing only makes sense if the channel earns more than it costs to maintain.