To activate an XRP Ledger account and create objects within it, you must hold a minimum amount of XRP as a reserve. This protects the ledger from unbounded growth.

What Is the Base Reserve?

Every address on the XRP Ledger must hold a minimum 1 XRP base reserve. This amount is required to activate an account — new addresses receiving XRP for the first time must receive at least 1 XRP to become active. The base reserve prevents the ledger from being flooded with empty accounts.

Owner Reserve: Per-Object Cost

Beyond the base reserve, each object an account owns in the ledger requires an additional 0.2 XRP incremental reserve (also called the owner reserve). Objects that count toward this include:

• Trust lines (for holding non-XRP tokens)
• Offers on the decentralized exchange
• Escrow contracts
• Payment channels
• NFT pages and offers
• Signer lists and tickets
• Oracles

Calculating Your Reserve

Total reserve = 1 XRP + (0.2 XRP × number of owned objects). An account with 5 trust lines requires 1 + (5 × 0.2) = 2 XRP in reserve. Use the account_info RPC method and check account_data.OwnerCount to see your current object count.

Can You Recover Reserved XRP?

Yes — but only for owner reserves, not the base reserve. When you delete a ledger object (close a trust line, cancel an offer, etc.), the 0.2 XRP incremental reserve for that object is returned to your spendable balance. You can also delete an entire account to recover the 1 XRP base reserve, subject to meeting account deletion requirements.

First Two Trust Lines: An Exception

There's a notable exception for new accounts: you can create your first two trust lines without paying the owner reserve, as long as you funded the account with exactly 1 XRP. If you fund with more than 1 XRP, standard reserves apply from the first trust line.

Reserve Voting

Reserve requirements are not fixed permanently. XRPL validators can vote to adjust both the base reserve and incremental reserve values through the Fee Voting mechanism. Any changes require consensus approval from a supermajority of validators.