XRP Reserve Explained: Why Can't I Send All Of My XRP?

The XRP reserve is the minimum XRP balance every XRP Ledger account must keep and can’t send. As of October 2026 it is 1 XRP for the account plus 0.2 XRP for each object it owns, such as a trust line. It is not a fee: the XRP stays in your account, and most of it can be released.

That is why a wallet may refuse to send your whole balance, or show an amount as locked. The reserve confuses a lot of new holders, especially after they add tokens or try the decentralized exchange. This article explains what the reserve is, what makes it grow, how to shrink it, and what deleting an account actually involves.

What is the XRP reserve?

The reserve is the amount of XRP the XRP Ledger requires an account to hold and not spend. According to the xrpl.org documentation, it has two parts:

Part	Amount on Mainnet	What it covers
Base reserve	1 XRP	The account existing on the ledger at all
Owner reserve	0.2 XRP per object	Each object the account owns, such as a trust line

So an account that owns three objects must keep 1 + (3 x 0.2) = 1.6 XRP. Everything above that is spendable. xrpl.org notes that reserves on other networks may differ. It also lists one exception: an account funded with exactly 1 XRP can open its first two trust lines without extra reserve. Fund it with more than 1 XRP and the normal 0.2 XRP applies to those lines.

These amounts can change. Validators voted them down on December 2, 2024, from 10 XRP and 2 XRP. We explain that change in our trust line reserve article.

Why does the XRP Ledger have a reserve?

The reserve keeps the ledger from filling up with junk. Every account and every object on the XRP Ledger is stored by every server on the network. If creating them were free, one person could create millions and make the ledger expensive to run. Holding back a small amount of XRP per entry makes that kind of spam costly.

The important word is reserve, not fee. Nobody receives it. The XRP stays in your account, and you can see it in your balance. You just can’t move it while the reason for it exists. The XRP Ledger explained article covers how the ledger works more broadly.

What counts toward the owner reserve?

Every object your account owns adds 0.2 XRP. The xrpl.org reserves page lists these object types, as of October 2026:

• Trust lines, which let you hold tokens other than XRP, such as stablecoins
• Offers, which are open buy or sell orders on the XRP Ledger’s built-in exchange
• Escrows, which lock XRP until a time or condition is met
• Checks, which are deferred payments the recipient can cash later
• Payment channels
• Deposit preauthorizations
• Tickets, used to send transactions out of order
• Signer lists, used for multi-signing
• NFT pages and NFT offers
• Oracles

Two details are easy to miss. First, NFTs are counted per page, not per NFT. A page holds up to 32 NFTs, so a small collection may only add 0.2 XRP. Second, an oracle counts as one object with up to five price entries, or two objects with six to ten.

The usual cause of a growing reserve is a mix of forgotten trust lines and open DEX orders. If you once opened a trust line for a token you no longer hold, it may still be sitting there, holding 0.2 XRP.

What happens if my balance falls below the reserve?

Your account keeps working, but with limits. Transaction costs are tiny, but they are paid in XRP, so they can push a balance under the requirement over time. According to xrpl.org, when that happens you can’t send XRP to anyone or create new objects that would raise your reserve. You can still send transactions that don’t do either, as long as you can pay the transaction cost.

The fix is simple: receive enough XRP to get back above the requirement.

How do you free up reserved XRP?

You free owner reserve by removing the objects that require it. Each one you remove releases 0.2 XRP back into your spendable balance.

1. List what your account owns. Most wallets show trust lines and open orders. A block explorer will also list the objects on your address.
2. Cancel open DEX offers you no longer want. Cancelling removes the offer object.
3. Close trust lines you don’t use. According to xrpl.org, a trust line is removed when the balance is zero and your settings are back at their defaults, including a limit of zero. In practice that means sending or selling any remaining tokens first, then removing the line in your wallet. If the issuer has set non-default settings on its side, the line may stay on the ledger, but xrpl.org says it no longer counts toward your reserve.
4. Finish or cancel escrows, checks and payment channels where the rules allow it.
5. Check your available balance again to confirm the reserve went down.

Be careful with tokens you didn’t ask for. Some scam tokens are sent in the hope that you’ll interact with them. Our XRP scams guide explains what to watch for.

Can you get the 1 XRP base reserve back?

Only by deleting the account. The XRP Ledger has a transaction called AccountDelete that removes an account and sends most of its remaining XRP to another address. It is a deliberate, one-way step, and it comes with conditions. According to xrpl.org:

Requirement	What it means
Fee of at least 0.2 XRP	The fee equals at least one owner reserve. It is burned, not refunded.
Fee charged even if it fails	xrpl.org warns the cost applies even if deletion fails, and suggests the fail_hard option to avoid paying for a failed attempt.
Sequence rule	The account’s sequence number plus 255 must be less than or equal to the current ledger index. A newly active account has to wait.
No deletion blockers	Trust lines, escrows, checks, payment channels and some other objects must be removed first. Some, such as a bridge, can’t be removed.
1,000 objects or fewer	Accounts that own more can’t be deleted.
NFTs	Any NFTs the account issued must be burned.

For most holders, deleting an account to recover 1 XRP makes little sense once the burned fee is counted. It is mainly useful for people cleaning up several old addresses. Whatever wallet you use, run the deletion only from software you trust, and send a small test payment to the destination address first.

A quick reserve checklist

• Your locked amount should equal 1 XRP plus 0.2 XRP times the number of objects you own.
• If it’s higher than you expect, look for old trust lines and open orders first.
• Remove only objects you understand. Don’t sign transactions sent to you by strangers or unknown sites.
• Never type your recovery secret into a website or app to “unlock” a reserve. No real reserve tool needs it.
• When setting up a new wallet, plan to send a little more than 1 XRP so you have room for trust lines. Our Xaman wallet setup guide walks through activation.

What to check next

The reserve amounts are set by validator vote, so they can change again. Before relying on a number, check the reserves page on xrpl.org or the reserve your wallet reports. It also helps to review your account’s objects once in a while, the same way you’d check a bank statement. A forgotten trust line or an old open order is the most common reason a balance is less spendable than it looks.

Sources

• XRP Ledger: Reserves
• XRP Ledger: Deleting accounts
• XRP Ledger: Transaction cost
• XRP Ledger: Fee voting