LND Channel Rebalancing Strategies -- Fix Stuck Liquidity

Channels become unbalanced over time. All liquidity piles up on one side, making you unable to route payments.

1. Circular Rebalancing (bos)

npm install -g balanceofsatoshis
bos rebalance --out CHAN_ID_1 --in CHAN_ID_2 --amount 100000

2. Circular Rebalancing (lncli)

lncli payinvoice SELF_INVOICE \
  --allow_self_payment \
  --outgoing_chan_id OUT_CHAN_ID \
  --last_hop IN_NODE_PUBKEY

3. Loop Out (submarine swap)

loop out --channel CHAN_ID --amt 200000
loop monitor

4. Fee Policy as Autopilot

Raise fees on high-local channels to slow outgoing flow. Lower fees on depleted channels to attract inbound.

# High fee to drain outbound
lncli updatechanpolicy --chan_point TXID:IDX --fee_rate 500 --base_fee_msat 1000

# Low fee to attract inbound
lncli updatechanpolicy --chan_point TXID:IDX --fee_rate 1 --base_fee_msat 0

Check Balance Ratio

lncli listchannels | jq '.channels[] | {alias: .remote_alias, local: .local_balance, remote: .remote_balance}'

Key Tip

For routing nodes, automate with LNDg, ThunderHub, or Charge-lnd. Manual rebalancing does not scale beyond a handful of channels.