How to Send ICP: Step by Step

What you need before sending

• An ICP wallet — self-custody, exchange account, or custodial wallet like ICPay.
• A small balance for the transfer fee (currently 0.0001 ICP per ICRC-1 transfer).
• The recipient's account ID (64 hex characters) or their ICP username.

ICP account IDs and principals

On the ICP ledger, the destination of a transfer is an account ID — 64 hexadecimal characters that encode a principal plus an optional subaccount. Every wallet derives one for you, usually shown as a long string or QR code.

Accounts can also carry a subaccount, so one principal can host many accounts — which is exactly how a custodial wallet like ICPay keeps each user's balance in a separate subaccount of one canister.

Send by account ID

1. Open your ICP wallet and choose Send.
2. Paste the recipient's 64-character account ID.
3. Enter the amount in ICP.
4. Double-check every character before confirming.

ICP transfers are final in about a second. There are no chargebacks and no support tickets to undo a mistake — so the character-by-character check matters.

Send by username

Long account IDs are the number one source of lost funds. ICPay removes that failure mode with username transfers: register a public username, then anyone can send you ICP to that name. The canister resolves the username to your account at transfer time — still one ICRC-1 ledger transaction, still final — but you no longer have to copy 64 characters by hand.

Transfer fees and minimums

ICRC-1 transfers cost a small fixed fee in ICP, paid by the sender on top of the amount sent. It is tiny, flat, and does not scale with the size of the transfer. On the Internet Computer, querying balances and looking up usernames is free — only update calls that change state consume cycles, and cycles are derived from a stable unit, not from ICP's price.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

• Sending to the wrong network. ICP has no wrapped cross-chain variants to confuse, but always confirm the destination is an ICP account ID, not an Ethereum address.
• Copy-paste typos. Use a QR code, a saved contact, or a username instead of typing addresses by hand.
• Sending more than you intended. Enter the amount, review the full summary, then confirm.

Start sending

ICPay turns the whole flow into a few taps: sign in with Internet Identity, pick a username, and send ICP by name. New to the ecosystem? Read what is ICP and our picks for the best ICP wallet.