requestAirdrop

requestAirdrop asks a Solana test cluster to mint free SOL into an address so you can pay fees and rent while developing. You pass the base-58 pubkey and an amount in lamports (1 SOL = 1,000,000,000 lamports), and the node returns the airdrop transaction signature. It works only on devnet and testnet faucets — on mainnet it is a no-op or error, since real SOL cannot be conjured. Call it on TheRPC at https://solana.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY, then confirm the funds with getBalance.

Use cases

• Fund a fresh devnet wallet with a few SOL before running integration tests that pay fees and create accounts.
• Top up a testnet account from a CI pipeline so automated end-to-end runs start with a known balance.
• Bootstrap a local dApp demo on devnet so the first user does not need an external faucet to try a swap or mint.

Parameters

Response

Example request

1curl https://solana.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
6  "id": 1,
7  "method": "requestAirdrop",
8  "params": [
9    "9WzDXwBbmkg8ZTbNMqUxvQRAyrZzDsGYdLVL9zYtAWWM",
10    1000000000,
11    {}
12  ]
13}'

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Devnet and testnet only. On mainnet the call is a no-op or returns an error, because mainnet SOL has real value and cannot be minted on demand.
• Faucets are heavily rate-limited and often capped or temporarily disabled. Expect failures, request modest amounts, and back off and retry rather than hammering the endpoint.

Supported networks

• Mainnet
• Devnet

See also

• getBalance
• getSignatureStatuses