LND Channel Rebalancing Strategies -- Keep Routing Fees Flowing

Channel rebalancing moves liquidity from outbound-heavy channels to inbound-heavy ones, keeping your node able to route payments in both directions.

Option 1: Circular Rebalance via lncli

# Pay yourself through a circular route
lncli sendpayment \
  --dest=<your_pubkey> \
  --amt=<sats> \
  --payment_hash=<hash> \
  --last_hop=<target_channel_peer>

Option 2: Use bos (Balance of Satoshis)

# Install bos
npm install -g balanceofsatoshis

# Rebalance channel
bos rebalance \
  --amount 100000 \
  --in <peer_pubkey_with_low_inbound> \
  --out <peer_pubkey_with_low_outbound>

Option 3: Use lndg (Web UI)

LNDg provides a visual interface for rebalancing. Set automation rules to trigger rebalances when channel balance drops below a threshold.

Option 4: Loop Out (off-chain to on-chain)

loop out --amt 500000 --channel <channel_id>

Moves sats off-channel to on-chain, freeing up outbound capacity.

Check Channel Balance Before Rebalancing

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

Rebalancing Cost

Rebalancing costs routing fees. Calculate whether the expected routing revenue from a balanced channel exceeds the rebalancing cost. Max fee rate: typically 0.01-0.05% of amount.

bos rebalance --amount 100000 --max-fee-rate 500  # 500 ppm max

Automate with Charge-Lnd

# charge-lnd can auto-set fees and trigger rebalances
pip install charge-lnd
charge-lnd -c charge.config

Set fee policies that naturally attract flow and reduce manual rebalancing needs.