diff --git a/doc/release-notes.md b/doc/release-notes.md
--- a/doc/release-notes.md
+++ b/doc/release-notes.md
@@ -6,3 +6,4 @@
  - Update fee calculation to add 179 effective bytes per transaction output in excess of inputs.
    Refund 179 bytes worth of minimum fee per input in excess of outputs to a minimum of
    10 + 34 * (number of utxos)
+ - Default minimum relay fee dropped to 250 sat/kb from 1000sat/kb
diff --git a/src/validation.h b/src/validation.h
--- a/src/validation.h
+++ b/src/validation.h
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
 /** Default for DEFAULT_WHITELISTFORCERELAY. */
 static const bool DEFAULT_WHITELISTFORCERELAY = true;
 /** Default for -minrelaytxfee, minimum relay fee for transactions */
-static const Amount DEFAULT_MIN_RELAY_TX_FEE(1000);
+static const Amount DEFAULT_MIN_RELAY_TX_FEE(250);
 /** Default for -excessutxocharge for transactions transactions */
 static const Amount DEFAULT_UTXO_FEE(0);
 //! -maxtxfee default
diff --git a/test/functional/mempool_limit.py b/test/functional/mempool_limit.py
--- a/test/functional/mempool_limit.py
+++ b/test/functional/mempool_limit.py
@@ -37,8 +37,8 @@
         txid = self.nodes[0].sendrawtransaction(txFS['hex'])
 
         relayfee = self.nodes[0].getnetworkinfo()['relayfee']
-        base_fee = relayfee * 100
-        for i in range(4):
+        base_fee = relayfee * 500
+        for i in range(3):
             txids.append([])
             txids[i] = create_lots_of_big_transactions(
                 self.nodes[0], txouts, utxos[30 * i:30 * i + 30], 30, (i + 1) * base_fee)