How to Read an XRP Transaction on XRPScan, Field by Field

To read an XRP transaction on XRPScan or any XRP Ledger explorer, check three things: who sent what to whom, how much actually arrived (the delivered amount, not the Amount field), and whether the result says tesSUCCESS in a validated ledger. Those three answers come from the ledger record itself, not from a screenshot.

The XRP Ledger docs say a transaction hash can be used as a “proof of payment,” because anyone can look up the transaction by its hash to verify its final status. That includes you. When someone sends a screenshot that says “sent,” you can check the record yourself. XRPScan is one of several third-party explorers for the XRP Ledger. They lay pages out differently and their labels can change, so this guide uses the field names from the XRP Ledger docs, which define what each field means.

How do you find an XRP transaction on an explorer?

You find it by its hash or by the account address. The XRP Ledger docs say “Every signed transaction has a unique ‘hash’ that identifies it.” Paste that hash into the explorer’s search bar and you land on the transaction’s page. Copy and paste it, because one wrong character leads to the wrong page or none.

The second way in is the address. Search an account and you’ll see its transaction history, the same history the docs refer to when they say you can look up a transaction in an account’s history. Find the one you want by time and amount.

One habit protects you here: type the explorer’s web address yourself or use a bookmark. A look-alike site can show a look-alike page.

Who sent what to whom on an XRP transaction?

Four fields answer it: transaction type, Account, Destination and destination tag.

Field	XRP Ledger docs definition	What to check
TransactionType	“The type of transaction.”	Says Payment if you expected a payment
Account	“The account that initiated the transaction.”	The sender you expected
Destination	“The account receiving the payment.”	Your address, matched at the start, middle and end
DestinationTag	“Arbitrary tag that identifies the reason for the payment to the destination, or a hosted recipient to pay.”	For an exchange, matches the tag on your exchange account

The tag matters for shared addresses. The XRP Ledger docs explain that exchanges use destination tags to tell which customer a payment is for. Our destination tag explainer covers what happens if one is missing. Explorers may label these fields differently, such as “Sender” for Account.

Why can the delivered amount differ from the Amount?

The Amount field is a maximum, not a promise. The XRP Ledger docs describe it as “The maximum amount of currency to deliver.” A sender can set a partial payment flag and “send a payment which delivers less than the Amount field indicates.”

So the docs give a clear rule: “When processing any Payment, use the delivered_amount metadata field, not the Amount field.” Explorers usually show this as “delivered amount” further down the page.

The docs warn that “Partial payments can be used to exploit naive integrations with the XRP Ledger to steal money from exchanges and gateways.” In the scenario they describe, a partial payment “succeeds (result code tesSUCCESS) but actually delivers a very small amount.” A cropped screenshot can show a large Amount and a success code while leaving the delivered amount out of the frame.

There is one limit worth knowing. The docs say “Direct XRP-to-XRP payments cannot be partial payments.” The trick applies to token and cross-currency payments.

What do tesSUCCESS, tec and validated mean?

The result code tells you whether the transaction worked, and “validated” tells you whether that result is final.

Result	What the XRP Ledger docs say	How to read it
tesSUCCESS	“The only code that indicates a transaction succeeded. This does not always mean it accomplished what you expected it to do.”	Applied by the ledger. Still check the amount and address
tec codes	“The transaction did not achieve its intended purpose, but the transaction cost was destroyed.”	On the ledger, fee paid, but not done. Don’t count it as paid
Validated	tesSUCCESS: “If this appears in a validated ledger, then the transaction’s success is final.”	Look for “validated” next to the ledger number or status

“It’s on the ledger” and “it was delivered” are not the same sentence. A tec result proves the first and not the second.

What are Fee, Sequence and ledger index?

These are housekeeping fields. They rarely decide whether you were paid, but they explain the rest of the page.

• Fee: “Integer amount of XRP, in drops, to be destroyed as a cost for sending this transaction.” A drop is the smallest unit of XRP. The fee isn’t paid to a company; it’s destroyed. The fee is separate from the Amount; the Payment docs say SendMax “Does not include the XRP destroyed as a cost for submitting the transaction.”
• Sequence: “The sequence number of the account sending the transaction.” The docs say a transaction is only valid if the Sequence number is exactly 1 greater than the previous transaction from the same account. A Sequence of 0 means the transaction uses a Ticket instead.
• Ledger index: which ledger version the transaction landed in.
• LastLedgerSequence: “Highest ledger index this transaction can appear in.” A deadline written in ledger numbers.

How do you check an XRP payment step by step?

Here is a made-up incoming payment of a token to your exchange account, read top to bottom:

1. The hash at the top matches the one you were given.
2. Type says Payment.
3. Account is the sender you expected. Destination matches your exchange deposit address at the start, middle and end.
4. The destination tag matches your exchange account’s tag.
5. You scroll past Amount and read the delivered amount. That is what arrived.
6. The result says tesSUCCESS, and the ledger shows as validated.

Now change one thing: the result code starts with tec. The payment appears on the ledger, but it didn’t do its job. Go back to the sender and don’t treat it as paid.

For a withdrawal from an exchange to your own wallet, the sender is the exchange, the destination is your wallet, and there may be no tag at all, which is normal for a wallet you control. Compare the delivered amount with what the exchange said it would send. Our test transaction guide shows how to use a small send to confirm everything first.

What are the limits of an XRP Ledger explorer?

An explorer is a website reading the ledger for you, so it can lag, change labels or go offline. If a page looks wrong, check a second explorer before drawing a conclusion. The docs also say the delivered amount can show as “unavailable” for partial payments in ledgers from before January 20, 2014, so very old records need a closer read.

And the ledger only shows what reached an address. If you sent to an exchange, the payment can show as delivered to the exchange’s address while the exchange still hasn’t credited your account. For that, contact the exchange’s own support.

XRP transaction checklist

• Find it by hash or address, on an explorer you typed in yourself.
• Check the type, sender, destination and tag.
• Read the delivered amount, not just Amount.
• Look for tesSUCCESS, and treat tec as not done.
• Confirm it’s in a validated ledger.

What to check next

Look up one of your own past payments on an explorer and find the delivered amount and the result code. Then, the next time someone tells you a payment is on its way, ask for the hash and read the record yourself. Before you sign anything that sends a payment, our guide to reading a Xaman sign request covers the same fields from the other side.

Sources

• XRP Ledger docs: Transactions
• XRP Ledger docs: Partial Payments
• XRP Ledger docs: Transaction Results
• XRP Ledger docs: Transaction Common Fields
• XRP Ledger docs: Payment transaction
• XRP Ledger docs: Source and Destination Tags
• XRP Ledger docs: tes Success