Withdraw Excess Lamports

What Does Withdraw Excess Lamports Do?

WithdrawExcessLamports moves SOL held by a Token Program account above its rent-exempt minimum to a destination account. Token balances and mint supply are untouched — only the surplus lamports move.

This recovers SOL that was previously stranded: lamports sent to a token account, mint, or multisig (all owned by the Token Program) could not otherwise be moved.

Source Reference

Item	Description	Source
`WithdrawExcessLamports`	The instruction (discriminator 38).	Source
`process_withdraw_excess_lamports`	Processor logic and authority checks.	Source

Accounts

Account	Description
`source`	Writable. The token account, mint, or multisig to withdraw from.
`destination`	Writable. Receives the excess lamports.
`authority`	Signs based on the source account type (see below).

Who Can Sign

The required signer depends on the type of the source account:

Source account	Signer
Token account	The token account owner (or its multisig signers).
Mint with a mint authority	The mint authority.
Mint without a mint authority	The mint account itself must sign (see the note below).
Multisig	The configured M-of-N signers.

The "mint without a mint authority" case is uncommon. When it applies, the mint account is the signer: a program-owned (off-curve) mint signs via a CPI from its owning program, and a keypair (on-curve) mint signs with its key.

Native (wrapped SOL) token accounts are not supported and return NativeNotSupported. The withdrawal cannot drop the source account below its rent-exempt minimum.

How to Withdraw Excess Lamports

The example uses a configured @solana/kit client — see Transfer Tokens for client setup.

Withdraw excess lamports (Kit)

import { getWithdrawExcessLamportsInstruction } from "@solana-program/token";

// source/destination: addresses of the account to drain and the lamport recipient.
// authority: a TransactionSigner that signs per the source account type.
const instruction = getWithdrawExcessLamportsInstruction({
  source,
  destination,
  authority
});

await client.sendTransaction([instruction]);

For a multisig authority, pass the co-signers with multiSigners.