How Energy Delegation Works on TRON

Energy delegation on TRON lets an address that has staked TRX for energy hand that energy to another address, while the TRX itself never leaves the owner. The owner signs a DelegateResource transaction that names a receiver and an amount in TRX, and the network turns that amount into energy at the current network ratio: as of Oct 19, 2026, 1 delegated TRX gives about 9.59 energy a day, so 65,000 energy needs about 6,778 TRX. The owner takes it back with UnDelegateResource, at any moment unless the delegation was locked.

Renting energy is this same operation with a price and a term. Below: the fields, the TRX math, locks, what happens to used energy, and a real delegation followed block by block.

What delegation moves and what it does not

Delegation is part of Stake 2.0. According to the delegation guide in the TRON documentation:

• the TRX stays staked under the owner’s name. Only the routing of the resource changes;
• energy and bandwidth can be delegated, TRON Power cannot: voting rights stay with the owner;
• TRX that is delegated cannot be unstaked until the owner takes the delegation back;
• the minimum is 1 TRX, an address cannot delegate to itself, and the receiver cannot be a contract. The java-tron code also requires the receiver to exist on chain, so a new address must be activated first;
• only the unused part of the owner’s stake can be delegated. wallet/getcandelegatedmaxsize returns how much an address can delegate right now.

How the owner gets staked energy and the 14-day unstaking wait are in freeze TRX or rent energy.

The two transactions and their fields

Field	DelegateResource	Meaning
owner_address	required	The address whose staked TRX backs the energy. It signs the transaction
receiver_address	required	The address that gets the energy. It signs nothing
balance	required	Amount in SUN of staked TRX, not an amount of energy
resource	required	ENERGY or BANDWIDTH
lock	optional, default false	If true, the owner cannot take the delegation back during the lock period
lock_period	optional	Lock length in blocks, about 3 seconds each

UnDelegateResource takes the same owner, receiver, balance and resource. Field names are from the delegateresource reference.

Only the owner signs. The receiver’s address is just a value in someone else’s transaction, so receiving energy never needs the receiver’s key or signature.

How much TRX to delegate for 65,000 or 131,000 energy

Because balance is in TRX, the energy it produces depends on the network ratio:

TRX to delegate = energy you need / (180,000,000,000 / total TRX staked for energy)

As of Oct 19, 2026, 05:12 UTC (TronGrid, getTotalEnergyCurrentLimit and TotalEnergyWeight): 180,000,000,000 / 18,769,301,712 = 9.59 energy per TRX.

Energy target	What it covers	TRX to delegate
64,285	A standard USDT transfer, exact	6,703.25
65,000	A standard USDT transfer, rounded	6,777.80
130,285	A transfer to an address with no USDT, exact	13,585.32
131,000	Same, rounded	13,659.88

These numbers show up on chain. In block 87,237,917 (Oct 19, 2026, 05:12:51 UTC) there were 30 energy delegations. Six were for exactly 6,778 TRX, one for 6,777.803396 TRX, which is the 65,000 target computed to the last SUN at that block’s ratio, and three for 13,660 TRX.

The same TRX gives different energy over time

Since the delegation is fixed in TRX, the receiver’s energy floats with the network. On Oct 13, 2026, with 18,729,496,901 TRX staked for energy, 6,778 TRX produced 65,140 energy. By Oct 19 the total had grown by 0.21%, and the same 6,778 TRX gave 65,002. Over an hour the drift is invisible; over a month it can matter.

Locks: lock and lock_period

A lock is the receiver’s protection. Without it, the owner can undelegate at any time, even a few seconds after delegating.

• lock_period is counted in blocks. One hour is 1,200 blocks, one day 28,800.
• If lock is true and lock_period is 0, java-tron uses 86,400 blocks, about 3 days.
• The maximum is the chain parameter getMaxDelegateLockPeriod. It was set to 864,000 blocks by Proposal #88 (July 2023) and is still 864,000 as of Oct 19, 2026: 864,000 × 3 seconds = 30 days. The java-tron proposal code allows this limit only to be raised, up to one year (10,512,000 blocks).
• A new locked delegation to the same receiver must last at least as long as the time left on the current lock, so a lock can be extended, never shortened.
• When a lock expires, nothing happens on its own: the energy stays with the receiver until the owner sends UnDelegateResource.

Locks are rare in practice: none of the 37 delegations in the block above (30 for energy, 7 for bandwidth) used one.

What happens to used energy when the delegation ends

Spent energy is counted as usage and recovers over 24 hours. When the owner undelegates, the network moves part of the receiver’s unrecovered usage back to the owner (resource reclamation):

Usage moved to owner = (TRX undelegated / receiver’s total TRX for energy) × receiver’s unrecovered usage

The result is capped at the energy that the undelegated TRX give at the current network ratio.

If the receiver has no stake of its own and the whole delegation is withdrawn, the fraction is 1: all the usage goes to the owner, and the receiver is left with neither energy nor debt. If the receiver also stakes TRX, only the delegated share moves. Delegated energy that was not spent leaves with the delegation.

A real delegation, block by block

Here is one delegation cycle from Oct 19, 2026, checked through the TronGrid API:

Time (UTC)	Block	Transaction	What happened
05:12:51	87,237,917	DelegateResource	6,778 TRX of energy from TWkvff…98cdn to TMkZ8A…BzT2fp
05:12:57	87,237,919	USDT transfer	The receiver sent USDT, used 64,285 energy and 345 bandwidth, burned 0 TRX
05:13:00	87,237,920	UnDelegateResource	The same 6,778 TRX taken back

What the cycle shows:

1. The receiver paid nothing for the delegation. The DelegateResource transaction cost the owner 279 bandwidth and no energy; nothing was charged to the receiver.
2. The energy matched the target. At that block’s ratio, 6,778 TRX gave about 65,002 energy; the transfer needed 64,285, leaving about 717 unused.
3. The owner took it back after 9 seconds. With no lock, nothing guaranteed the receiver that it would come after the transfer.
4. The usage left with the delegation. The receiver has no stake of its own, so by the reclaim formula all of its usage, about 64,285 units, moved to the owner.

For a renter, step 3 is the lesson: send the transfer as soon as the energy arrives, inside the paid term. What a provider can and cannot do to your address is in is renting TRON energy safe.

How to see a delegation in TronScan

Open the transaction by hash on tronscan.org. A delegation page names the operation, both addresses, the resource and the amount in TRX, and TronScan converts that TRX into energy at the ratio of the moment you open the page, so the figure drifts: for the delegation above its API returned 65,007.62 at about 05:40 UTC on Oct 19, 2026.

The same transaction appears in the history of both addresses. The receiver’s address page shows its available energy, delegated energy included. For an exact list, the node API has wallet/getdelegatedresourcev2 (how much one address delegates to another) and wallet/getdelegatedresourceaccountindexv2 (who an address delegates to and receives from).

Delegating energy yourself, step by step

1. Stake TRX for energy under Stake 2.0.
2. Check what is free to delegate with getcandelegatedmaxsize. Energy used in the last 24 hours reduces it.
3. Check the receiver: activated, not a contract.
4. Enter the amount in TRX, from the table above plus a small margin.
5. Decide on a lock: it gives the receiver a guarantee, but you cannot take the energy back early.
6. Sign, check in TronScan, and undelegate when the job is done.

Renting replaces steps 1 to 6 with one order: the provider delegates from its own stake. At the current rate on Nov 12, 2026, 26 SUN per unit for 1 hour, 65,000 energy costs 65,000 × 26 SUN = 1.69 TRX, against about 6,778 TRX staked to delegate it yourself. The rate changes. The exact price is shown in the service before you pay, and reference prices are on the pricing page. Ordering steps are in the guides.

FAQ

Does the receiver have to sign anything? No. DelegateResource and UnDelegateResource are signed by the owner only.

How long can energy be locked? Up to 864,000 blocks, about 30 days, as of Oct 19, 2026. Without a lock, the owner can take the energy back at any time.

Can I rent energy without staking anything? Yes. The provider delegates from its own stake; your address only receives. More answers are in the FAQ.