Transaction Fee XRP – XRPL Transaction Cost Guide

To protect the XRP Ledger from spam and denial-of-service attacks, every transaction destroys a small amount of XRP. The transaction cost can increase with network load, making it expensive to overload the network. Each signed transaction specifies the exact amount to destroy in the Fee field.

Current Minimum Transaction Cost

The current minimum transaction cost for a standard XRP Ledger transaction is typically 0.00001 XRP (10 drops). During higher-than-usual load, the required fee may increase.

Why XRP Fees Are Burned

XRP transaction costs are not paid to any party. The XRP specified as the Fee is irrevocably destroyed (burned).

Load-Based Fee Scaling

rippled uses load-based thresholds. If a transaction’s Fee is below a server’s local load cost, that server ignores the transaction and does not relay it. If the Fee meets local load cost but not the open ledger cost, the transaction may be queued for a later ledger.

Open Ledger Cost and Fee Escalation

Open ledger cost is a second threshold. A transaction can only be included in the current open ledger if it meets the open ledger cost requirement. After a soft limit is reached, the open ledger cost can increase rapidly, and transactions may be queued for later ledgers.

Queued Transactions

When a transaction meets local load cost but not open ledger cost, rippled estimates whether it is likely to be included later. If so, it places the transaction into the transaction queue and relays it; otherwise it discards it.

Special Transaction Costs

Some transactions have special costs before load scaling: most reference transactions cost 10 drops; multi-signed transactions cost 10 drops × (1 + number of signatures); EscrowFinish with fulfillment costs 10 drops × (33 + (fulfillment bytes ÷ 16)); AccountDelete and AMMCreate cost 2,000,000 drops; a key reset SetRegularKey can be 0 under specific conditions.

How to Query and Set Fees

You can query transaction costs via rippled APIs: server_info (human-oriented) provides validated_ledger.base_fee_xrp and load_factor; server_state (machine-oriented) provides base_fee in drops plus load_factor and load_base to compute effective cost. The fee method can be used to check open ledger cost.

Every signed transaction must include a Fee value. The ledger executes transactions exactly as signed, so the exact Fee specified is destroyed even if it is higher than the current minimum. It is recommended to look up current load-based costs before signing and to set LastLedgerSequence so a transaction can expire if needed.

Failed Transactions and Fees

Transaction cost applies when a transaction is included in a validated ledger, even if it fails with a tec code. The fee is only debited when the transaction becomes part of a validated ledger. If failure is final and not relayed, it is not included and does not affect balances.

FAQ

What is the minimum transaction fee for XRP?

The typical minimum is 0.00001 XRP (10 drops) for standard transactions, unless load scaling increases it.

Who receives XRP transaction fees?

No one receives them. XRP fees are destroyed (burned) to protect the network.

Why do fees sometimes rise?

During high load, servers raise thresholds so only sufficiently-priced transactions are relayed and included.