Solana Token accounts are accounts which store data about solana and SPL tokens on the blockchain.

But this data storage doesn’t come for free on the solana blockchain,unlike the Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchain. There's a little fee to be paid so that these data can be stored on the blockchain and this fee is known as “RENT”

Rent is a mechanism on the Solana blockchain that ensures efficient usage of the blockchain's resources. It needs accounts to maintain a minimum balance equal to the amount of data they store on the network. Accounts that fail to maintain this minimum balance will be removed from the ledger to free up storage, Similar to a bank account. For many accounts, the bank will charge you a fee if you do not maintain a minimum balance. If your balance falls below the required minimum, the bank may charge you a fee or close your account.

Solana Rent fees is just the barest minimum amount you need to pay to keep your Solana token account active and its data still on the blockchain network. Every Solana account stores data on the network as transactions have been made into and out of the account.

But Solana loves us and so therefore, theres a way out, in that Solana Rent Fees are recoverable. Since you only pay rent because your Solana token accounts are live and working, how about if you close the token accounts??

Once you close your solana token account, the information stored on the network about your account would be cleared and therefore you don’t need to pay rent fees anymore, but then solana says

“If they close the account, refund their rent fees” and with this you are able to reclaim your rent…

Below is a snapshot of the close rent accounts option from the STEP dashboard.

HOW DO WE INCUR SOLANA RENT FEES

Practically we incur solana rent fees by creating a Solana token account and funding it. As long as your Solana account from your wallet has been involved in a transaction, it would need to pay rent so as to store the information about those transactions on the network..

Your Solana token account can actually be ‘RENT EXEMPT’ , meaning you don’t have to pay rent but there’s a catch. You have to have a certain minimum balance of Solana tokens in your account as calculated by your account and data size to be exempt from paying Solana rent fees.

For example, for a 16 byte data solana account, it has to have a minimum balance of 0.00100224 SOL to be exempt from paying rent on the network.

HOW TO RELEASE / CLOSE SOLANA RENT ACCOUNTS

When you make a transaction on your wallet that leads to a total loss of all solana tokens in your solana account (though a minimum balance is held back to keep the account active), if you are using an account analytics dashboard like STEP Finance, you can quickly go and close your account and then you get all rent fees refunded to you as the account owner or to a specified account.

Just know that the Higher the amount of Solana tokens you have in your account, the higher the chance of your account being rent-free.

STAY SAFU guys..