Rebalance a vault

When a vault's Health Factor drifts toward 100%, you have three ways to bring it back. Rebalancing is one of them: it uses the vault's own ETH to repay stETH liability against Lido Core, reducing both Total Value and Minted stETH at once. This guide walks you through when to pick rebalance over the alternatives, and how to do it.

A rebalance is the same on-chain mechanism as the protocol's forced rebalance: you're just running it on your own schedule and amount, before someone else does. For the background, see Vault health → What happens when a vault is unhealthy.

Three ways to recover health: and when each fits

For the full trade-off discussion, Lido's Health emergency guide is the canonical reference.

When to use this guide

Pick rebalance when all of these are true:

• The vault's Health Factor is uncomfortably low or already below 100%.
• You don't hold stETH outside the vault to burn directly.
• You don't want to commit fresh ETH from elsewhere.
• The vault has liquid ETH available (or you can unstake some).

If the health factor is already below 100%, treat rebalancing as urgent: any address can call forceRebalance on the VaultHub once that threshold is breached, and the protocol will pick the timing and amounts for you.

Before you start

• The signing wallet holds REBALANCE_ROLE on the vault Dashboard.
• The vault is connected to the Vault Hub. Disconnected / disconnecting vaults can't be rebalanced: only voluntary disconnect, withdrawal, and reconnect are allowed in those states.
• The vault has enough liquid ETH to cover the rebalance amount. If not, unstake some rewards first.
• You've decided how much to repay. Aim for a target Health Factor with a buffer (e.g. 110–115%), not just enough to clear 100%.

How to do it

You can drive a rebalance two ways: by ETH amount (the most common path) or by share amount (when you want to repay a specific number of stETH shares). Both call the same Dashboard.rebalance underneath; they just take different units.

🖱️

to rebalance in the UI: from a vault page click Rebalance, pick Rebalance with ETH or Rebalance with shares, enter the amount, review the projected Health Factor and post-rebalance Total Value, and sign.

</> to rebalance via the API

By ETH amount: rebalanceVaultWithEther.

By share amount: rebalanceVaultWithShares.

The endpoint returns a partial transaction; your wallet broadcasts it. The rebalance settles in a single transaction: there's no queue or beacon-chain delay.

Verify

• Health Factor jumps up to the projected value once the transaction confirms.
• Total Value drops by the rebalanced ETH amount.
• Minted stETH (the vault's liability) drops by the equivalent share amount.
• The Vault Health badge moves out of the At risk band (if it was below 100%).

Common pitfalls

• Not enough liquid ETH. The transaction reverts if the vault doesn't hold the requested amount as liquid balance. Either unstake validators first to free ETH, or rebalance a smaller amount.
• Picking the wrong unit. ETH amount is denominated in wei; share amount is in raw shares (no 1e18 division). Mismatched units are the most common cause of unexpected rebalance sizes when calling the API directly. The UI handles the conversion.
• Rebalancing too little. Clearing 100% by a single basis point leaves no buffer for the next rebase or report. Aim for a target above 110% so you don't have to do this again next week.
• Trying to rebalance a disconnected vault. Vault-hub connection must be connected. If you're mid-disconnect, the rebalance call will fail.

Related

• Vault health: what the health factor is and what moves it
• Common stVault operations → Burn: the alternative when you hold stETH
• Common stVault operations → Deposit: the alternative when you have spare ETH
• Unstake a validator: free liquid ETH before rebalancing
• Vault metrics: catch low health early
• Health emergency guide (Lido docs): recovery options compared in depth