A drop is the smallest indivisible unit of XRP, similar to how a satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin. One XRP equals exactly 1,000,000 drops (one million drops). All transaction fees on the XRP Ledger are expressed and processed internally in drops.

Why Drops Matter for Fees

The XRP Ledger's base fee is 10 drops — equivalent to 0.00001 XRP. Using integer arithmetic with drops (rather than decimal XRP values) allows rippled servers to calculate fees with perfect precision, avoiding floating-point rounding errors that could cause inconsistencies across nodes.

When you check the current fee via the XRPL API's fee method, the response returns values like:

• base_fee: "10" (drops)
• minimum_fee: "10" (drops)
• median_fee: "11000" (drops)
• open_ledger_fee: "10" (drops)

Converting Drops to XRP

To convert drops to XRP, divide by 1,000,000. For example, 11,000 drops = 0.011 XRP. To convert XRP to drops, multiply by 1,000,000. For example, 0.5 XRP = 500,000 drops.

Drops in Practice

When building applications on XRPL, always specify fees in drops as strings (not numbers) to avoid precision issues. A transaction with "Fee": "12" in the JSON structure pays 12 drops. The signed transaction must include the exact Fee field value — the ledger will burn exactly that many drops, even if the minimum has changed since signing.