A swap still pending after 10 minutes is usually waiting for the network to include it, while a failed swap has already been included and rejected by the contract. You tried to exchange tokens, but the wallet has not given you the result you expected; the first step is to check which of those two states the transaction is actually in.
Check the transaction on the right network
Open the transaction in your wallet and follow its explorer link, making sure the explorer matches the network you used. A wallet can keep showing “pending” after a transaction has disappeared from a node’s transaction pool, so its label alone does not prove that the network still has it.
If the explorer shows a pending transaction, note its nonce, the sequential number assigned to each transaction from your address. On Ethereum and many EVM networks, a later transaction from the same address cannot be processed until earlier nonces are dealt with. If the explorer shows a success or failure status in a block, the transaction is no longer pending: open its details to see the result and any revert reason.
Ethereum.org’s transaction explanation describes the nonce as the account’s transaction counter. That detail matters because a stuck swap can hold up later sends and swaps from the same address, even when those later transactions have higher fees.
A pending swap may be waiting on its fee or an earlier nonce
A pending transaction may have a fee too low for current demand, or it may be queued behind an earlier transaction from your wallet. In a busy period, the network’s base fee can rise above the transaction’s maximum fee; the transaction then cannot be included until conditions change or it is replaced. The timing and fee levels vary by network.
Check whether the explorer shows another pending transaction from your address with a lower nonce. If so, resolve the oldest one first. If the swap itself is the oldest, use your wallet’s “speed up” option if available. It resubmits the same transaction with a higher fee; it does not create a second swap. The new fee must meet the wallet and network’s replacement rules, which can vary.
For example, if a wallet estimates 30 gwei and the transaction uses 200,000 units of gas, the network fee would be about 0.006 ETH (200,000 × 30 gwei). A swap’s gas use varies, and that estimate is not a promise about its final cost. I would use the wallet’s current estimate and its speed-up control instead of guessing a fee from a stale quote.
A failed swap has a different fix from a pending one
Once a failed transaction is in a block, raising its fee cannot make it succeed; the network has already executed and rejected it. The transaction may still have cost gas, because validators did work to process it. Check the explorer’s error details before trying again: a swap can fail when the received amount would fall below its minimum, or when the contract’s deadline has passed.
A quote is based on conditions at the time it is requested. By the time your transaction is included, token prices or available liquidity may have changed enough to violate the swap’s slippage limit. If the failure points to the minimum received amount or a deadline, request a fresh quote and review the slippage setting your wallet or swap screen shows. Do not raise it blindly: a wider tolerance can let a trade complete at a worse price.
Replace carefully, then make a fresh swap if needed
“Cancel” usually means sending a different transaction with the same nonce and a higher fee, often a zero-value send back to your own address. It is a replacement attempt, not a network-level undo button: if the original transaction gets included first, the swap can still happen. Check the explorer afterward before sending another swap.
When the pending transaction is the swap itself, ParaSwap is relevant at the quote stage: its route is a proposed way to execute the trade, while your wallet submits the on-chain transaction that can become pending or fail. Once the old transaction is confirmed as failed or replaced, get a fresh quote through the ParaSwap API or app and submit only after checking the amount, network, and token approval. An approval lets a contract spend a specified token amount; it is a separate transaction and may also need to clear first.
Before you act, ask yourself: is this transaction still pending on the correct explorer, or has it already failed in a block?