Arbitrum Moves to Update Its L1 Fee Math Ahead of Ethereum’s Glamsterdam Upgrade

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• Offchain Labs proposed updating the parentGasFloorPerToken and perBatchGasCharge parameters that govern how Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova calculate and pass through Layer-1 fees
• The change is designed to keep user-facing L1 fee estimates accurate once Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade changes the underlying gas cost of posting transaction batches to the base layer
• The proposal does not include an ArbOS software upgrade and does not change the broader L1-pricing algorithm itself, only the two specific parameters feeding into it

A constitutional proposal from Offchain Labs, the primary development team behind Arbitrum, appears among the network’s active on-chain votes in a November 2, 2026 governance roundup, aimed at keeping Arbitrum’s fee accounting accurate as Ethereum’s own infrastructure changes beneath it. Arbitrum, like other optimistic rollups, periodically posts batches of its transaction data back to the Ethereum base layer, and the cost of doing so is passed through to users as part of their overall transaction fee.

The proposal specifically targets two parameters: parentGasFloorPerToken and perBatchGasCharge. Together, these feed into the formula Arbitrum uses to estimate and charge for the Layer-1 portion of a transaction’s cost. Offchain Labs’ proposal explains that Ethereum’s upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade will change the actual gas cost associated with posting a batch of rollup data to the Ethereum base layer, and without a corresponding update to Arbitrum’s own pricing parameters, the fees Arbitrum charges users for that L1 cost would drift out of line with what it actually costs the network to post data once Glamsterdam takes effect.

Notably, the proposal frames this as a narrow, surgical fix rather than a broader upgrade. It explicitly states that the change does not include an update to Arbitrum’s ArbOS software, the operating layer that governs much of the chain’s core behavior, and that it does not alter the underlying L1-pricing algorithm itself, only the two specific input parameters that feed into that unchanged formula. That framing is likely intended to reassure the DAO that this is a calibration adjustment tied to a known, scheduled upstream change on Ethereum, rather than a more consequential software change requiring deeper scrutiny.

Because the proposal is labeled constitutional, it follows Arbitrum’s formal governance track for changes that touch the network’s core operating rules, requiring DAO approval through an on-chain vote rather than being implemented unilaterally by the development team.

Voting on the proposal runs through November 12, 2026, giving it roughly the same window as several other active Arbitrum governance items listed in the same update. The full roundup is posted on Arbitrum’s own governance forum.