The requestAirdrop RPC method allows you to request an airdrop of SOL (lamports) to a specified account. This method is exclusively for non-mainnet environments like Devnet and Testnet, where it serves as a faucet to provide developers with free SOL for testing their applications.

Important: This method will not work on Mainnet Beta.

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Common Use Cases

  • Funding Test Wallets: Obtaining SOL to pay for transaction fees and deploy programs on Devnet or Testnet.
  • Automated Testing: Scripts can use requestAirdrop to ensure test accounts have sufficient SOL before running test suites.
  • Development & Experimentation: Quickly acquiring SOL to interact with on-chain programs during development.

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Request Parameters

  1. pubkey (string, required): The public key of the account that will receive the airdropped lamports, provided as a base-58 encoded string.
  2. lamports (u64, required): The amount of lamports to request. (1 SOL = 1,000,000,000 lamports).
  3. options (object, optional): An optional configuration object that can include:
    • commitment (string, optional): Specifies the commitment level to wait for when confirming the airdrop transaction (e.g., "finalized", "confirmed", "processed"). If omitted, the node’s default commitment for airdrops is used.

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Response Structure

The result field in the JSON-RPC response is a single string representing the transaction signature of the airdrop, base-58 encoded.

Example Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": "5VERv8NMvzbJMEkV8xnrLkEaWRtSz9CosKDYjCJjBRnbJLgp8uirBgmQpjKhoR4tjF3ZpRzrFmBV6UjKdiSZkQUW",
  "id": 1
}

This signature can then be used with getTransaction or a Solana explorer to track the status of the airdrop transaction.

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Code Examples

# Request 1 SOL (1,000,000,000 lamports) to a Devnet address
# Replace <YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS> with an actual base-58 public key
# Ensure you are targeting a Devnet RPC URL
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d \
  '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "requestAirdrop",
    "params": [
      "<YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS>",
      1000000000
    ]
  }' \
  https://devnet.helius-rpc.com/?api-key=<api-key> 

# Request 0.5 SOL with "confirmed" commitment
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d \
  '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "requestAirdrop",
    "params": [
      "<YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS>",
      500000000,
      {
        "commitment": "confirmed"
      }
    ]
  }' \
  https://devnet.helius-rpc.com/?api-key=<api-key>

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Developer Tips

  • Network Specific: This method is only functional on test networks (Devnet, Testnet) that have a faucet enabled. It will fail on Mainnet Beta.
  • Rate Limiting: Airdrop faucets are often rate-limited to prevent abuse. If you make too many requests in a short period, you might receive errors.
  • Amount Limits: There might be limits on the amount of SOL you can request per airdrop or per time period.
  • Confirmation: After requestAirdrop returns a signature, the transaction still needs to be processed and confirmed by the network. You can use confirmTransaction (from @solana/web3.js) or poll getSignatureStatuses to wait for confirmation.

This guide explains how to use requestAirdrop to fund your test accounts on Solana’s development networks.