--- title: "What it costs to create a token and build on Solana: network, code and law" url: "https://www.unknowngravity.com/en/articulos/solana-token-development-cost" site: Unknown Gravity published: "2026-10-16T15:25:45+00:00" modified: "2026-10-16T15:25:47+00:00" language: en description: "Solana token costs as of Oct 16, 2026: signature fees, priority fees and rent deposits with formulas and SOL examples, plus development, audit and legal." section: "Home > Blog > What it costs to create a token and build on Solana: network, code and law" --- # What it costs to create a token and build on Solana: network, code and law **As of October 16, 2026, creating an SPL token on Solana mainnet costs 1,076,800 lamports (0.0010768 SOL): a 1,066,800-lamport deposit for the mint plus a 10,000-lamport fee.** With your token account, minting and a first transfer, it's 0.00406868 SOL. The real costs are development, the audit and, for a security, the legal work. If you've searched for this number, you've probably found figures calculated with the old constant and undated numbers. This guide gives only costs with a source, a formula and a date, and doesn't convert them to dollars or euros: SOL's price changes by the minute, and a figure without a timestamp is useless for a budget. For the full network and service context, start with our page on [Solana development](/en/blockchain/desarrollo-blockchain-solana). ## What the network charges for an SPL token (October 16, 2026) Solana charges two things: a fee for every transaction and a deposit for the data you store in accounts. This table covers the basic flow of an SPL token on the original program. Deposits come from the official formula with the constant mainnet applied on October 16, 2026 at 14:56 UTC (epoch 1059); fees come from running each command with no prioritization fee. | Operation | Data stored | Deposit (lamports) | Fee (lamports) | Total (SOL) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Create the mint (`spl-token create-token`) | 82 bytes | 1,066,800 | 10,000 (2 signatures) | 0.0010768 | | Create your token account (`create-account`) | 165 bytes | 1,488,440 | 5,000 | 0.00149344 | | Mint (`mint`) | No new data | 0 | 5,000 | 0.000005 | | Send to a wallet with no account (`transfer --fund-recipient`) | 165 bytes | 1,488,440 | 5,000 | 0.00149344 | | **Total** | | 4,043,680 | 25,000 | **0.00406868** | A transfer to a wallet that already has an account for that token only pays the fee: 5,000 lamports. The commands are the ones in the [tutorial on creating a token on Solana](/en/articulos/how-to-create-spl-token-solana). You can check any deposit yourself, because the CLI asks the network: ``` solana rent 82 --url mainnet-beta # original program mint solana rent 165 --url mainnet-beta # original program token account solana rent 170 --url mainnet-beta # Token-2022 token account ``` ## Fees: 5,000 lamports per signature plus an optional priority fee These are the fee rules in force as of October 16, 2026, according to the official docs: - **Base fee:** 5,000 lamports per signature (0.000005 SOL). Half is burned and half goes to the validator. Creating a mint takes two signatures, which is why it costs 10,000. - **Prioritization fee:** optional, paid entirely to the validator, and calculated as `ceil(CU_price × CU_limit / 1,000,000)` lamports, with the price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The default price is 0. - **Limits:** if you don't set a limit, each non-builtin instruction gets 200,000 CU by default; the maximum per transaction is 1,400,000 CU. - **Fees are charged even if the transaction fails.** A worked and tested example: a transfer with `--with-compute-unit-limit 10000 --with-compute-unit-price 1000` pays 10 lamports of priority, 5,010 in total. At 20,000 CU and 50,000 micro-lamports, the priority fee is 1,000 lamports and the total 6,000. Note that you pay for the limit you request, not what you use, so over-requesting means overpaying. The market price of a CU changes constantly; the official docs point to RPC providers' estimation APIs. ## The rent-exempt deposit: formula and the reduction under way Every account must keep a minimum balance proportional to its size. It's still called "rent", but it isn't rent: it's a deposit you get back when the account is closed. The formula published by the Solana Foundation is: ``` deposit = (128 + data_bytes) × lamports_per_byte ``` The 128 bytes are each account's fixed overhead. The `lamports_per_byte` constant was 6,960 for years, and SIMD-0437 cuts it to 696 in five independent steps: - **Step 1** (6,960 → 6,333): live on mainnet since epoch 1028, on September 3, 2026. - **Step 2** (6,960 → 5,080): live since epoch 1033, according to its feature gate status checked on October 16, 2026. That's the value used in this guide: (128 + 82) × 5,080 = 1,066,800. - **Steps 3 to 5** (2,575, 1,322 and 696): the Foundation's page, updated in September 2026, expected them with Agave 4.4 in November 2026. Each step can be put on hold, and a separate feature gate exists to reset the constant to 6,960. That's why figures don't match across pages. The official docs' own table gives 2,039,280 lamports for a 165-byte token account, which is (128 + 165) × 6,960; on October 16, 2026 the network asked for 1,488,440. The docs say so themselves: don't hard-code these values, and query the network with `getMinimumBalanceForRentExemption`, which is what `solana rent` does. ## Token-2022 for an issuer: how much it changes Extensions add data to the mint and to accounts, and more data means a bigger deposit. This is the issuer token from the tutorial: metadata on the mint, accounts frozen by default and a permanent delegate, with one investor onboarded. | Operation | Data stored | Deposit (lamports) | Fee (lamports) | Total (SOL) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Create the mint and store its metadata | 411 bytes | 2,738,120 | 15,000 (3 signatures in 2 transactions) | 0.00275312 | | Issuer's token account | 170 bytes | 1,513,840 | 5,000 | 0.00151884 | | Thaw it and mint | No new data | 0 | 10,000 | 0.00001 | | Investor's account, paid by the issuer | 170 bytes | 1,513,840 | 5,000 | 0.00151884 | | Thaw it after KYC and send tokens | No new data | 0 | 10,000 | 0.00001 | | **Total** | | 5,765,800 | 45,000 | **0.0058108** | The test mint took 275 bytes when created and 411 after `initialize-metadata`; the difference depends on the length of the name, symbol and URI. Each new investor adds a 1,513,840-lamport deposit (0.00151384 SOL) if you pay for their account, plus 15,000 lamports in fees to create it, thaw it and make the first transfer. And if you put the authorities in an SPL multisig, that account takes 355 bytes: a 2,453,640-lamport deposit as of October 16, 2026. The technical comparison of the extensions is in [Token-2022 for regulated tokens](/en/articulos/solana-token-extensions-regulated-assets). ## What you get back and what stays locked - **Token accounts.** Closing an empty account sends all its lamports, deposit included, to the destination set in the close instruction. Whoever paid for the account doesn't get it back automatically: if you pay for your investors' accounts, plan on not recovering that deposit. - **The original program's mint.** It can't be closed, so its deposit stays locked. Token-2022 does let you close a mint if you enable the MintCloseAuthority extension at creation. - **Programs.** Closing a program returns the SOL in its account. If you make it immutable, it can no longer be upgraded or closed. - **Fees.** Never refunded, including those of failed transactions. ## Your own program: the SOL cost of deploying a transfer hook If your token needs custom logic, such as a transfer hook that checks each transfer, you deploy a program. Its account holds the binary and requires a deposit proportional to its size, plus the deployment fees. The calculation is the same: ``` wc -c < ./target/deploy/my_program.so solana rent --url mainnet-beta ``` Using the official docs' example, an 18,504-byte program, `solana rent 18504` returned 94,650,560 lamports (0.09465056 SOL) on mainnet on October 16, 2026. The actual deposit is slightly higher: the program data account adds a 45-byte header and the program account takes 36 bytes, for 95,712,280 lamports (0.09571228 SOL) in total. The docs show 0.12967872 SOL because that figure was calculated with the old constant. If the program grows when you upgrade it, the account is extended and you pay the deposit for the new bytes. ## Development and audit: the line items There's no network rate to quote here, and we don't give figures without a source: they depend on scope. These are the line items worth budgeting and what drives each one: - **Token design:** program (original or Token-2022), extensions, decimals and who holds each authority. Cheap to decide and expensive to fix, because most extensions can't be added later. - **Custody of the authorities:** multisig, hardware wallets and the procedure for signing each mint or correction. - **Your own program, if needed:** a transfer hook or other logic in Rust, with Anchor, Pinocchio or native Rust, plus its tests. - **Audit:** of the program and of the token configuration. A program can be upgraded as long as its upgrade authority exists, so an audit only covers the version reviewed. Verified builds let anyone check that the deployed binary matches the published source code. - **Integrations:** RPC access and indexing, KYC, the investor platform and, if the token is a security, the connection to the ERIR. - **Operations:** the fee for each onboarding, thaw and transfer, and the deposit for any accounts you pay for on behalf of investors. What drives the price of this kind of development is covered in how much it costs to develop a smart contract (in Spanish). ## If the token is a security: prospectus, ERIR and legal advice If the token represents a transferable security, the network becomes the smallest line item. The obligations, and the costs that come with them, come from the law: - **Classification and legal structure.** What the token is and which regime applies. MiCA doesn't apply to financial instruments (Art. 2(4)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114). - **Issue document and ERIR.** Spain's Law 6/2023 requires an issue document (Art. 7), and the issuer appoints one or more entities responsible for registration and recording, the [ERIRs](/en/glosario/erir-entidad-de-registro-e-identificacion-registral) (Art. 8.4), whose service is another line item. - **Prospectus or exemption.** A public offer of securities requires a [prospectus](/en/glosario/folleto-informativo) unless an exemption applies (Art. 35.1 of Law 6/2023 and Art. 3 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1129). It weighs heavily on cost and timing. - **Legal advice and compliance.** Structuring, KYC and anti-money-laundering checks on investors. If it isn't a security but you offer it to the public in the EU, MiCA requires, unless an exemption applies, a [white paper](/en/glosario/whitepaper-mica) drawn up, notified and published (Art. 4). If it's an e-money token, the issuer must be authorized as a credit institution or an electronic money institution (Art. 48). The breakdown for Spain, by line item and phase, is in [how much it costs and how long it takes to issue a security token in Spain](/en/articulos/coste-emitir-security-token-espana), and the [STO estimator](/en/estimador-sto) gives you a first view of your issuance's framework. ## How we approach it at Unknown Gravity Unknown Gravity is a Spanish tokenization technology and blockchain infrastructure company. When we budget a Solana token, we separate three layers: what the network charges, which is calculated and dated; development and audit, which depend on the design; and the legal side, which depends on what the token is. We start with the design and the classification, because they drive the other two. ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does it cost to create a Solana token in dollars or euros? It depends on SOL's price when you pay, which is why we don't convert it here. Multiply the SOL in the table by SOL's price from a source that shows the date and time. As of October 16, 2026, creating an SPL token mint costs 0.0010768 SOL. ### How much does it cost to create a cryptocurrency? If you mean a token on an existing network such as Solana, the network charges little and it can be calculated to the lamport. The real cost is in design, development, the audit and, if it's a security or you offer it to the public, the legal obligations. Building your own network is a different project with a different budget. ### How much does a memecoin on Solana cost? On the network, the same as any SPL token: 0.00406868 SOL for the basic flow, as of October 16, 2026. What a no-code generator charges is its service fee, not a network cost. And offering it to the public in the EU requires, unless an exemption applies, a white paper under MiCA. ### How much is 1 SOL worth? We don't quote prices. For cost calculations, the useful equivalence is this: 1 SOL is 1,000,000,000 lamports, and each signature costs 5,000. Check the price in your currency from a source with a date and time. ### Is the rent deposit refundable? Yes, when the account is closed, with exceptions: the original program's mint and a Token-2022 mint created without MintCloseAuthority, which can't be closed, and immutable programs. Fees are never refunded. ### Why does every page give a different cost? Because the deposit constant has dropped twice since September 2026 and, as of October 16, 2026, three more cuts are planned, and because many figures were published with the old value or with no date. Ask the network: `solana rent 82 --url mainnet-beta` gives you a mint's deposit on that very day. ## Sources - [Fees: base fee and prioritization fee (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/core/fees) - [Fee structure and the prioritization fee formula (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/core/fees/fee-structure) - [Accounts and the minimum storage balance (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/core/accounts) - [Reduced Rent: SIMD-0437 and its five steps (solana.com)](https://solana.com/upgrades/reduced-rent) - [SIMD-0437-2 feature gate on mainnet (Solana Explorer)](https://explorer.solana.com/address/61BtM7BkDEE8Yq5fskEVAQT9mYA8qCejJWoLe5apqg81) - [getMinimumBalanceForRentExemption RPC method (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/rpc/http/getminimumbalanceforrentexemption) - [Create a token account: cost and payer (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/tokens/basics/create-token-account) - [Close a token account (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/tokens/basics/close-account) - [Token-2022: Mint Close Authority and other extensions (solana-program.com)](https://www.solana-program.com/docs/token-2022/extensions) - [Deploying programs: size, cost and closing (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/programs/deploying) - [Programs and the upgrade authority (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/core/programs) - [Verified builds (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/programs/verified-builds) - [Terminology: lamport and SOL (solana.com)](https://solana.com/docs/references/terminology) - [Spain's Law 6/2023 on Securities Markets and Investment Services, consolidated text (BOE, in Spanish)](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2023-7053) - [Regulation (EU) 2017/1129, the Prospectus Regulation (EUR-Lex)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32017R1129) - [Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) (EUR-Lex)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32023R1114) *Framework verified as of October 16, 2026.* Need to budget a Solana token, from the network to the legal side? [Talk to us](/en/meeting).