eth_getBalance

eth_getBalance returns the ETH balance of an account on Ethereum mainnet, measured at a block you pick. The value comes back as wei — the smallest unit of Ether, with 18 decimals — so a balance of one ETH reads as 0xde0b6b3a7640000. Pass an address plus a block tag: latest for the current head, finalized for a value that can't be reorged, or a specific hex height for a point-in-time read. Send it to https://ethereum.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY (chain ID 1). This reports only native ETH; a token's balance lives in that token's own contract, not here.

Use cases

• Wallet display. Render the ETH figure in a wallet header, converting wei to Ether for the user.
• Affordability check. Confirm an account holds enough ETH to cover value plus gas before you bother running eth_estimateGas or signing.
• Payment detection. Poll the balance at latest and react when it rises to spot an incoming deposit.
• Historical audit. Read the balance at a fixed past height for accounting or forensics — that requires an archive node, which is why pruned-state queries can fail.

Parameters

Response

Example request

1curl https://ethereum.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
6    "method": "eth_getBalance",
7    "params": [
8        "0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045",
9        "latest"
10      ],
11    "id": 1
12  }'

Try it live in the Ethereum playground.

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• A wei balance routinely exceeds 2^53, so Number(hex) silently loses precision. Always parse with BigInt(value) and divide by 10n**18n to reach whole ETH.
• A balance at latest sits at the head and can shift in a short reorg before justification. For a ledger or system of record, read at finalized so the figure can't be revised out from under you.
• This is native ETH only. To get an account's USDC, DAI, or any ERC-20 holding you call balanceOf on the token contract via eth_call — this method never sees token balances.

Supported networks

• Mainnet — Chain ID: 1
• Sepolia — Chain ID: 11155111

See also

• eth_getTransactionCount
• eth_call
• eth_getProof

1curl https://ethereum.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
4  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"eth_getBalance","params":["0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045","latest"]}'