To move assets from Ethereum to Arbitrum One, submit a deposit through the official bridge and wait for it to arrive on One. The canonical return route has three parts: initiate a withdrawal on Arbitrum One, wait until it is ready, then Claim it with a separate transaction on Ethereum. A successful receipt on Arbitrum records the start of that return journey. An executed Claim and delivery to the recipient on Ethereum complete it.
This guide follows the route labelled Arbitrum's native bridge in the official Arbitrum Portal. For the network's apps and broader context, see the Arbitrum One ecosystem.
What to have ready
Use a regular crypto wallet that can authorize transactions on both networks, and decide which address should receive the assets. Portal supports a custom destination address: that address receives the funds. Compare the full address before sending.
ETH pays for A measure of the work a network performs to process a transaction. The network fee depends on the amount of work and its price, and is paid in the asset specified by the network rules., the work needed to execute a network transaction. A deposit needs ETH on Ethereum. Starting a withdrawal needs ETH on Arbitrum One; the later Claim needs ETH on Ethereum. Even when withdrawing ETH, you need to fund the Claim before it can release that ETH. These actions do not require ARB. The ETH profile explains the asset, while the Ethereum overview covers mainnet and its layer 2 networks.
Select Arbitrum One, chain ID 42161. Arbitrum Nova is a separate network with its own balances. Using the same wallet address on both does not move assets between them.
Choose the intended token on the receiving side as well as the sending side. One has both Circle-issued native USDC and USDC.e bridged from Ethereum. They have different contract addresses. Portal may offer Circle CCTP for native USDC, which follows a different process from the canonical withdrawal below. Select the destination token before confirming; the official USDC and USDC.e comparison lists their addresses.
Ethereum to Arbitrum One: make a deposit
- Connect your wallet to Portal. Select From: Ethereum and To: Arbitrum One.
- Choose the asset, amount and recipient. When sending ETH, leave enough ETH beyond the transfer amount to pay the fee. Sending another token still requires ETH for fees.
- If the wallet requests Approve, this grants permission to use the selected token. Confirming approval still leaves the deposit transaction to submit. Native ETH does not need a separate token approval.
- Review the network, amount, destination and estimated costs in the wallet, then confirm the deposit. Save its Ethereum transaction hash.
- Follow the receiving side in Portal's Transaction History. Switch your wallet to Arbitrum One and check that the recipient has received the assets. For a token, check the selected token contract.
The Arbitrum quickstart gives roughly 15–30 minutes as a deposit estimate, depending on congestion. Follow the individual transaction: Ethereum confirmation and receipt on One happen on different sides of the bridge.
Arbitrum One to Ethereum: withdraw, then Claim
- Set From: Arbitrum One and To: Ethereum, then choose the token and amount. Use Arbitrum's native bridge for this sequence.
- Confirm the withdrawal in your wallet on One. This first transaction pays its fee on One. Save its hash so you can find the withdrawal later.
- Open Transaction History. Find the wallet's entry, or switch the search mode from Address to Tx Hash, paste the One transaction hash and press Enter.
- Wait for the withdrawal to become claimable. For the canonical One route, this usually takes about a week. Use your entry's status and countdown to follow its progress.
- Once Claim becomes available, switch to Ethereum and authorize the claim transaction. The wallet submitting it needs ETH on Ethereum for its fee.
- Wait for a successful Ethereum receipt, then verify delivery to the selected recipient. For a token withdrawal, check the correct Ethereum token contract rather than relying only on the wallet's asset list.
The waiting period gives the network time to confirm Arbitrum's result and allow execution on Ethereum. Publishing the data and confirming the result add time, and a dispute can extend the process. “About a week” therefore describes a usual time to claimability. The date you started does not, by itself, promise a delivery date.
Being allowed to collect the funds and actually collecting them are separate states. The withdrawal lifecycle documentation calls them CONFIRMED and EXECUTED. Before readiness, the message is UNCONFIRMED. A ready withdrawal can remain unclaimed until someone executes it; the countdown does not send that transaction automatically.
What a completed withdrawal looks like
A public example moves 0.0001 ETH. The Arbitrum One transaction created message position 161 133. Its Ethereum Claim receipt shows successful execution, an OutBoxTransactionExecuted event with transactionIndex = 161133, and an internal transfer of 0.0001 ETH to the recipient.
Searching the original hash in Portal returns settled / Success, with Funds arrived on Ethereum in its details. This connects the start and completion of one withdrawal. The Claim's Value field shows 0 ETH because the bridge contract releases the withdrawal amount; the relevant transfer appears under Internal Transactions. Token deliveries appear under Token Transfers.
Budget ETH for both fees
Add the cost of starting the withdrawal on One to the cost of claiming it on Ethereum. Use the wallet estimate before submitting and the receipt's actual fee afterwards. Gas measures work; A unit of price for network computation, equal to one billionth of the fee currency. Ethereum uses ETH and Arc uses USDC; the total fee also depends on the computation required. expresses the price per unit of gas. One Gwei is 0.000000001 ETH. The Ethereum fee calculation multiplies gas used by the effective gas price.
Illustrative inputs: withdraw 0.1 ETH, with a total initiation fee on One of 0.000020 ETH. Suppose the eventual Claim uses 100 000 gas at 8 Gwei per gas.
- Claim: 100 000 × 8 × 0.000000001 ETH = 0.000800 ETH.
- Both steps: 0.000020 + 0.000800 = 0.000820 ETH, or 0.82% of the withdrawal amount.
- With those inputs, the amount and initiation need 0.100020 ETH on One; Claim separately needs 0.000800 ETH on Ethereum.
The recipient receives 0.1 ETH, while the two fees are paid in addition from their respective network balances. Your wallet will estimate Claim again when you submit it: its price can change during the wait. If you have to fund Ethereum separately to pay it, include the cost of that funding step in the full route.
A deposit to One has its own cost estimate. Bridging another token may add an approval transaction. Add the transactions your route actually needs; a cheap individual step does not establish the cost of the whole journey.
If the funds have not arrived
- One shows Success, but Ethereum has no funds. Find the withdrawal in Transaction History. A running countdown means it is still waiting; an available Claim means collection is ready to execute. Starting again creates another withdrawal.
- The wallet history is empty. Select Tx Hash and search the original One transaction. This also helps with a different destination address or a wallet controlled by a A program recorded on a blockchain. It performs defined actions with funds and data when called, such as exchanging tokens according to an application’s rules., a program stored on the blockchain.
- Claim is ready, but the wallet reports insufficient funds. The submitting wallet needs ETH on Ethereum. Its One balance and the incoming withdrawal cannot pay that fee in advance.
- Claim failed. Check whether this withdrawal was already executed. Stop retrying if you find a successful claim and delivery. Otherwise, keep the original hash, failed Claim hash and network together when following Arbitrum's troubleshooting instructions.
- The Ethereum deposit succeeded, but the token has not arrived on One. Follow both sides in Portal. In Retryable Tickets, select Arbitrum One, enter the original Ethereum transaction hash and choose Check status. The tool finds the message and offers execution if needed. This is a different process from claiming a withdrawal.
An initiated canonical withdrawal cannot be cancelled. After collecting on Ethereum, you can make a new deposit to One.
When considering another route
A fast bridge can pay from a third party's liquidity, with its own quote, supported assets and limits. Starting a new fast transfer does not shorten the wait for a canonical withdrawal already in progress. If the assets are still on an exchange, withdrawing directly to One is another separate route.
Compare the amount you receive and all the expenses: the exchange withdrawal, bridge, any required swaps and ETH for the next action. For a canonical withdrawal already started, its Transaction History entry determines the next step: wait until it is ready or execute Claim.