Account reserve
Plain definition. An account reserve is the minimum amount of XRP an XRP Ledger address must hold to exist, which protects the ledger from spam and excessive growth.
Technical definition. The XRP Ledger’s reserve requirement has two parts. The Base Reserve is the minimum XRP required for each address in the ledger. The Owner Reserve, also called the incremental reserve, adds to that requirement for each object the address owns, such as checks, escrows, offers and trust lines. An address’s total requirement is its OwnerCount multiplied by the incremental reserve, plus the base reserve. The XRP Ledger documentation lists the current reserve requirements on Mainnet as a base reserve of 1 XRP and an owner reserve of 0.2 XRP per item, and says they can change from time to time through the Fee Voting process. Reserved XRP cannot be sent to others, but it can pay transaction fees. Validators can agree to new reserve settings through the Fee Voting process.
On this site
On this site, Account reserve comes up in Why must I deposit XRP before a new wallet works?, Why is some of my XRP locked (the reserve), and can I get it back?, How do I look up and read an XRP Ledger transaction on a public explorer? and What is a trust line, and how do I check that a token on the XRP Ledger is genuine?.
Source
Reserves (xrpl.org), read October 1, 2026.