TRON Committee Proposals: How Votes Change USDT Transfer Fees

The price of a USDT transfer on TRON is not fixed by any company. It comes from chain parameters, and only the committee of 27 active Super Representatives (SRs) can change them, by approving a proposal. A proposal passes if at least 18 of the 27 have approved it when it expires, about three days after it is created, and the new value applies from the next 6-hour maintenance. As of Nov 2, 2026 the two prices that matter are 100 SUN per unit of energy (getEnergyFee) and 1,000 SUN per unit of bandwidth (getTransactionFee), so a standard USDT transfer with no resources on the address burns 6.7735 TRX.

The news: proposal #108

Proposal #108 was created on Oct 30, 2026 at 09:12 UTC. It asks for one change: parameter key 102 set to 1. In the java-tron source, key 102 is ALLOW_OPTIMIZE_TVM_STORAGE_KEY, a virtual machine switch that accepts only the value 1 and can be proposed only after most Super Representatives have upgraded to java-tron 4.8.2.4. That mandatory release came out on Oct 22, 2026; its notes describe optimized “smart contract storage and metadata handling in edge cases” (java-tron releases).

State checked on Nov 2, 2026 at 05:01 UTC through TronGrid:

Field	Value
Parameter	key 102, value 1
Approvals	25, of them 24 from active SRs (18 needed)
Voting deadline	Nov 2, 2026, 12:00 UTC
getAllowOptimizeTvmStorageKey	0, not yet on

That was 7 hours before the deadline; the result was not known at writing time. To check it, see state in the getproposalbyid call below.

The proposer is the same SR address that proposed #104, the vote that cut the energy price to 100 SUN. #108 touches no fee parameter, and the release notes say nothing about costs.

How a proposal becomes a new price

From the committee documentation and the java-tron code (ProposalCreateActuator, ProposalCapsule, ProposalController):

1. Create. Any address registered as an SR or SR candidate can submit a proposal with one or more parameter keys and values. The node rejects values outside the range the code allows.
2. Set the deadline. The expiry is creation time plus getProposalExpireTime (259,200,000 ms, 3 days), rounded up to the next maintenance boundary. #108 opened at 09:12 UTC; 3 days later is 09:12, so it closes at the 12:00 maintenance, a window of 74.8 hours.
3. Approve. SRs add approvals and can withdraw them. Approvals from candidates are recorded but not counted. The proposer can cancel before expiry.
4. Count once, at expiry. At the first maintenance at or after the deadline, the node counts approvals from the active SRs. The rule in code is count >= activeWitnesses × 7 / 10, which for 27 SRs is 18.
5. Apply. If it passes, the new value is written at that maintenance and later blocks use it. If not, the proposal is marked disapproved and a new one is needed.

Maintenance runs every 6 hours (getMaintenanceTimeInterval = 21,600,000 ms), at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 UTC judging by recent expiry times. A fee changes only at one of those moments, and at least three days after the proposal becomes public.

Not everything passes

Of the 108 proposals as of Nov 2, 2026, 04:52 UTC, 50 were approved, 41 disapproved, 16 canceled and one, #108, was still open. Some examples:

• #66 (July 2021) asked to raise the bandwidth price to 1,000 SUN and the activation fee to 1 TRX. It got 17 approvals, one short of 18. The same change passed nine days later as #67 with 20.
• #99 (December 2024) asked to cut the energy price to 21 and got no approvals at all.
• #105 (November 2025) asked to change key 0, the maintenance interval, from 6 hours to 100,000 ms (100 seconds). It got 0 approvals and was disapproved.

The full record of energy-price votes is in what is TRON energy.

What a proposal can and cannot change

A proposal can only set keys listed in the ProposalType enum of java-tron.

• It can change prices (energy, bandwidth, activation, memo, multi-signature), limits, dynamic energy rules, and switch on virtual machine features.
• It cannot move anyone’s TRX or USDT, change the USDT contract, which belongs to its issuer, or set energy rental prices.
• Switches go one way. Keys like 102 accept only 1 and cannot be proposed again once on. Some limits only grow: getMaxDelegateLockPeriod can be raised, never lowered.

The parameters that price a USDT transfer

Values from wallet/getchainparameters on Nov 2, 2026; key numbers from ProposalType in java-tron.

Parameter	Key	Value	What it changes for a transfer
getEnergyFee	11	100 SUN	Burn price per unit of energy: 64,285 × 100 = 6.4285 TRX
getTransactionFee	3	1,000 SUN	Burn price per unit of bandwidth: 345 × 1,000 = 0.345 TRX
getFreeNetLimit	61	600	Free bandwidth a day; covers one 345-unit transfer
getCreateNewAccountFeeInSystemContract	7	1 TRX	Paid by whoever sends the first TRX to a new address
getCreateAccountFee	2	0.1 TRX	Bandwidth part of that activation
getMemoFee	68	1 TRX	Added if the transaction carries a memo
getMultiSignFee	23	1 TRX	Added if several keys sign
Dynamic energy: allow, threshold, increase, max factor	72, 73, 74, 75	1, 5,000,000,000, 2,000, 34,000	Surcharge on busy contracts: 49,635 of the 64,285 energy
getTotalEnergyCurrentLimit	19	180,000,000,000	Daily energy shared among stakers: about 6,400 TRX staked per daily transfer

Activation is covered in how to activate a TRON address, bandwidth in TRON bandwidth cost, and the dynamic energy rules in energy per transaction type.

Sensitivity: what a vote would do to your transfer

Model calculation. The address has no energy and no bandwidth, so everything is burned: 64,285 energy and 345 bandwidth for a standard transfer, 130,285 energy and 345 bandwidth to an address with no USDT. Only one parameter changes per row.

Scenario	Standard transfer	To an address without USDT
Today: energy 100 SUN, bandwidth 1,000 SUN	6.7735 TRX	13.3735 TRX
Energy price 50 SUN	3.5593 TRX	6.8593 TRX
Energy price 150 SUN	9.9878 TRX	19.8878 TRX
Energy price 210 SUN (the value before #104)	13.8449 TRX	27.7049 TRX
Bandwidth price 500 SUN	6.6010 TRX	13.2010 TRX
Bandwidth price 2,000 SUN	7.1185 TRX	13.7185 TRX

• Energy dominates: 95% of today’s burn (6.4285 of 6.7735 TRX). Every 10 SUN on getEnergyFee adds 0.64285 TRX to a standard transfer and 1.30285 TRX to one to a new address.
• Bandwidth barely matters: every 100 SUN on getTransactionFee adds 0.0345 TRX, and nothing if the transfer fits into the free 600 units.
• The pool changes staking, not burning. At 300,000,000,000 a day, the value that got 0 approvals in #96 and #100 (2024), one staked TRX would give 16.69 energy instead of 10.01, so a daily transfer would need about 3,852 TRX staked, not about 6,400.

Renting is outside the committee’s reach, but the gap it closes moves with the burn price. At the current rate on Nov 15, 2026, 30 SUN per unit for 1 hour, a standard transfer’s energy costs 1.93 TRX, which keeps 4.5 TRX against today’s burn. With a 150 SUN burn and the same rate, the gap would be 7.71 TRX. The rate changes; the exact price is shown in the service before you pay, and reference prices are on the pricing page.

Check the current parameters yourself in a minute

1. Open the committee page on TronScan. It lists network parameters with current values and proposals with their status.
2. Open a proposal by number, for example proposal #108, to see its parameters, approvals and expiry time.
3. Or ask a node directly. Both calls are free on TronGrid:

curl -X POST https://api.trongrid.io/wallet/getchainparameters
curl -X POST https://api.trongrid.io/wallet/getproposalbyid -d '{"id":108}'

4. Read the answer. Find getEnergyFee and getTransactionFee. A switch that is off has no value field, which means 0. In the proposal, approvals lists the addresses that approved; only active SRs count.
5. Check a receipt. wallet/gettransactioninfobyid returns energy_fee and net_fee in SUN: divide by the energy and bandwidth used to see the prices charged.

FAQ

Who decides the TRON energy fee? The 27 active Super Representatives. A new value needs at least 18 of their approvals at expiry.

Does proposal #108 change the price of a USDT transfer? No fee parameter. Key 102 is a virtual machine switch.

Does the committee set energy rental prices? No. Rental is a market price. The committee sets only the burn prices and network limits. More answers are in the FAQ.