Ending a sponsorship and the vote

A sponsor's reserve XRP is locked while the sponsorship lasts. There are three ways out.

The sponsee takes over. The sponsorship ends and the sponsee's own XRP carries the reserve. The sponsee must hold enough. If not, the sponsorship cannot end.

A new sponsor steps in. Only the sponsee can move a sponsorship to someone else. The new sponsor has to agree.

The item goes away. Delete the sponsored trust line, escrow or other item, and the reserve is free. For a sponsored account, the owner can delete the account. Its leftover XRP must go to the sponsor.

The first rule exists because of a bug found in testing. In August 2026, testers showed that a sponsor could end a sponsorship while the sponsee held nothing. The item stayed on the ledger with no reserve behind it. Repeating the trick could fill the ledger with unpaid items at almost no cost.

The feature was not active on mainnet, and no funds were at risk. The fix shipped the next month. It adds the rule above: every item must always have a reserve behind it.

The cost of that rule: a sponsor cannot walk away at will. If the sponsee has no XRP and will not delete the item, the sponsor's reserve stays locked.

Where it stands. Sponsor is in validator voting. It needs more than 80% of trusted validators for two weeks.

SponsorshipTransfer handles reserve sponsorship for one object or account. ObjectID selects an object. Without it, the transaction applies to an account. It cannot be delegated.

Create and reassign set Sponsor with spfSponsorReserve. The new sponsor's SponsorSignature is required for an account and optional for an object. A sponsor that ends a sponsorship names the Sponsee.

Counters move with each change: the sponsor's SponsoringOwnerCount or SponsoringAccountCount, and for objects the owner's SponsoredOwnerCount.

Ending needs a funded sponsee. The sponsee must be able to cover the reserve, or the transaction fails. For sponsored objects, that check comes with the fixCleanup3_4_0 amendment, which is enabled on mainnet.

Fast exit. A sponsor can send the sponsee enough XRP with a Payment, then end the sponsorship. The sponsor does not get that XRP back. xrpl.org suggests doing both steps in one Batch.

Account deletion.

• Deleting a sponsored account: AccountDelete must name the sponsor as Destination, or it fails with tecNO_SPONSOR_PERMISSION. Sponsored objects the account owns must be removed first.
• A sponsor cannot delete its own account while it sponsors any account or object.

The August 2026 disclosure.

• Reported 2026-08-07 from Devnet testing of xrpld 3.3.0.
• Cause: ending object sponsorship did not check that the owner could cover the reserve.
• Test result: 30 unbacked objects at about 20 drops each.
• Fix: a conditional exit. Sponsorship ends only if the sponsee self-funds, another sponsor takes over, or the object or account is deleted.
• Side effect: a sponsor cannot end account sponsorship while the sponsee's balance is below the base reserve.
• Shipped in xrpld 3.4.0, September 2026.

The vote.

Support must stay above 80% of trusted validators for two weeks. See How amendments happen.

Live count: Amendments page.