Ethereum

Ethereum

eth_getBalance

eth_getBalance returns the native-token balance of a given account at a specific block. On Ethereum that's ETH in wei; on BSC it's BNB in wei; on Polygon it's MATIC in wei. The unit is always wei (10^-18 of the chain's native token).

Parameters

safe and finalized are supported on Ethereum mainnet, Gnosis, Arbitrum, Arbitrum Nova, and Avalanche C-chain.

Response shape

The result is a hex-encoded integer in wei. Convert to a number with BigInt(value); converting to a decimal display value requires dividing by 10n ** 18n for the native token.

1{
2  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
3  "id": 1,
4  "result": "0x1a055690d9db80000"
5}

0x1a055690d9db80000 = 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei = 30 ETH.

Common pitfalls

1. Don't divide raw integers in JS. Number("0x1a055690d9db80000") / 1e18 silently loses precision past ~2^53. Use BigInt and an explicit decimal formatter.
2. latest is not necessarily final. If you need a value safe from reorgs, query at the finalized block tag instead.
3. **For ERC-20 balances, use eth_call against the token contract's balanceOf(address) selector — eth_getBalance only returns the native-token balance.

See also

• eth_getTransactionCount — get the nonce alongside the balance.
• eth_call — read ERC-20 balances and other contract state.

1curl https://ethereum.therpc.io \
2  -X POST \
3  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
4  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"eth_getBalance","params":["0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045","latest"]}'