Network facts
What is a destination tag?
On the XRP Ledger one account can receive for many people. A destination tag is a number sent with a payment that tells the account’s owner which of them it is for. Exchanges and some services require one; whether an Unheld invoice does depends on which of two modes the merchant chose.
What it is
A 32-bit integer carried in the payment itself, separate from the amount and the address. The receiving account’s owner reads it to credit the right customer. A payment to an account that expects a tag, sent without one, arrives on the ledger like any other — but the owner cannot tell whose it is.
A memo is a different field: free text attached to a transaction, never used by the ledger to route anything. “Memo” and “tag” are often confused in wallet forms; a service that asks for a destination tag wants the number, not a note.
How an Unheld XRP invoice identifies a payment
In one of two ways, chosen by the merchant. In address mode each invoice gets an XRPL account of its own, derived from the merchant’s key, and the account alone identifies the payment: no tag is needed, and the pay page shows none. In tag mode the merchant keeps one account and each invoice is told apart by a destination tag; the pay page shows the account and the tag together, and both must be sent.
A payment to a tagged account that arrives without a tag is held for review rather than credited: matching it to the newest open invoice would be a guess, and Unheld does not guess with money. The sender is asked which invoice it was for.
X-addresses
An X-address packs a classic r-address and a tag into one string starting with “X”. A wallet that only accepts X-addresses can convert the account and tag shown on a pay page into one; the ledger itself still sees an account and a tag.
Questions about destination tags
What is a destination tag?
A number sent with an XRP Ledger payment so that the owner of a shared receiving account can tell which customer the payment is for.
Is the memo the same as the destination tag?
No. A memo is free text that the ledger ignores; a destination tag is a number the recipient uses to route the payment. If a form asks for a tag, enter the number.
Do I need a destination tag to pay an Unheld invoice?
Only if the pay page shows one. An invoice in address mode has its own account and needs no tag; an invoice in tag mode shows the tag next to the account, and both must be sent.
What happens if I forget the tag?
The payment arrives on the ledger but cannot be matched to an invoice, so Unheld holds it for review instead of guessing. Tell the merchant which invoice it was for.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of these documents. Each was read on the date shown rather than recalled.