accountSubscribe

The Solana accountSubscribe method creates a subscription to receive real-time notifications whenever a specific account's lamports or data changes.

Usage Notes

• Must be called via a WebSocket endpoint; HTTP is not supported.
• If the WebSocket connection is dropped, subscriptions are automatically cancelled. You must re-subscribe upon reconnection.
• CU is consumed based on the volume of subscribed data, so it is recommended to use appropriate filtering options to subscribe only to the data you need.

---

1. Request

Parameters

The subscription request accepts the following parameters.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
id	integer or string	required	A unique identifier for the request. Used by the client to match requests with responses.
jsonrpc	string	required	The JSON-RPC protocol version. Always set to "2.0".
method	string	required	The name of the method to execute. Set to "accountSubscribe" here.
params	array	required	Account information and options to subscribe to. The first element is the account public key, and the second is a configuration object.
params[1].commitment	string	optional	Specifies the level of block commitment. - finalized: Queries the most recent block confirmed by a supermajority of the cluster at maximum lockout. The cluster recognizes this block as finalized. - confirmed: Queries the most recent block voted on by a supermajority of the cluster. - processed: Queries the node's most recent block. This block may still be skipped by the cluster.
params[1].encoding	string	optional	Encoding format for account data. - base58 (slow) - base64 - base64+zstd - jsonParsed (applies a parser if available, otherwise returns a binary string)

Example

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "accountSubscribe",
  "params": [
    "CM78CPUeXjn8o3yroDHxUtKsZZgoy4GPkPPXfouKNH12",
    {
      "encoding": "jsonParsed",
      "commitment": "finalized"
    }
  ]
}

---

2. Response

Subscription Response

Upon successful subscription creation, a subscription ID is returned.

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": 23784,
  "id": 1
}

This subscription ID is required when calling the accountUnsubscribe method.

Notifications

Once the subscription is active, the server pushes notifications whenever the account state changes. The notification format is identical to the response from the getAccountInfo RPC.

Response data format:

• Response data is delivered in one of the following formats depending on the encoding option: base58, base64, base64+zstd, or jsonParsed.
• jsonParsed converts data to a human-readable format via program-specific parsers, but returns a binary string if no parser is available.

Base58 Encoding Example

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "accountNotification",
  "params": {
    "result": {
      "context": { "slot": 5199307 },
      "value": {
        "data": [
          "11116bv5nS2h3y12kD1yUKeMZvGcKLSjQgX6BeV7u1FrjeJcKfsHPXHRDEHrBesJhZyqnnq9qJeUuF7WHxiuLuL5twc38w2TXNLxnDbjmuR",
          "base58"
        ],
        "executable": false,
        "lamports": 33594,
        "owner": "11111111111111111111111111111111",
        "rentEpoch": 635,
        "space": 80
      }
    },
    "subscription": 23784
  }
}

JSON Parsed Encoding Example

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "accountNotification",
  "params": {
    "result": {
      "context": { "slot": 5199307 },
      "value": {
        "data": {
          "program": "nonce",
          "parsed": {
            "type": "initialized",
            "info": {
              "authority": "Bbqg1M4YVVfbhEzwA9SpC9FhsaG83YMTYoR4a8oTDLX",
              "blockhash": "LUaQTmM7WbMRiATdMMHaRGakPtCkc2GHtH57STKXs6k",
              "feeCalculator": { "lamportsPerSignature": 5000 }
            }
          }
        },
        "executable": false,
        "lamports": 33594,
        "owner": "11111111111111111111111111111111",
        "rentEpoch": 635,
        "space": 80
      }
    },
    "subscription": 23784
  }
}

---

3. How to Use

Connect to WebSocket Channel

wscat -c wss://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com

Subscribe an Account

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "accountSubscribe",
  "params": [
    "CM78CPUeXjn8o3yroDHxUtKsZZgoy4GPkPPXfouKNH12",
    { "encoding": "jsonParsed", "commitment": "finalized" }
  ]
}

Receive Notifications

• Initial response: returns a subscription ID
• Subsequent: receive "accountNotification" events when account changes occur

Unsubscribe

There are two ways to cancel a subscription:

1. Close the connection: Enter Ctrl+C in the terminal window to close the WebSocket connection, which automatically cancels all subscriptions.

2. Cancel a specific subscription: Use accountUnsubscribe to cancel a specific subscription while keeping the connection open.

Unsubscribe request:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "accountUnsubscribe",
  "params": [23784]
}

Response after unsubscribe:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": true
}