Monero subaddresses explained

What a subaddress is

Your wallet's primary address starts with 4. A subaddress starts with 8 and has the same 95-character length. Your wallet can create as many as you need, all derived from your seed and private view key. They are a wallet feature only, so the network treats them like any other address.

The Monero documentation recommends subaddresses as the default way to receive.

Why use them

• Payers cannot link you. If an exchange, an employer and a friend each get a different subaddress, none of them can tell that the addresses belong to the same person by comparing them.
• You know who paid. Label each subaddress, for example with an invoice number, and incoming funds sort themselves.
• One backup. The seed restores every subaddress. No extra keys to store.
• One view-only wallet. Subaddress keys come from the main view key, so a single view-only wallet sees all of them.

Accounts and subaddresses

Wallets organise subaddresses into accounts. Each subaddress has two numbers: an account index and an address index. Account 0, address 0 is your primary address. Accounts let you keep separate balances, for example personal and business, inside one wallet and one seed. Accounts do not have their own address; they are groups of subaddresses with a label and balance.

Accounts are bookkeeping, not separate wallets. One transaction can spend from several subaddresses in an account. If you need truly separate identities, use a separate seed.

How to create a subaddress

• Cake Wallet: on the Receive screen, open the address list and add a new subaddress with a label.
• Feather: Receive tab, generate a new address.
• Monerujo: Receive, then create a new address.
• Monero GUI: Receive, Create new address.
• Monero CLI: address new label-here; account new creates an account.

Some multi-coin wallets show only one address. Guarda added native subaddresses in June 2026, but many multi-coin apps still do not support them. See multi-coin wallets.

Mistakes that undo the privacy

• Sweeping everything at once. If you combine funds from several subaddresses into one transaction, an observer who knows those subaddresses can see they belong together. The docs recommend sweeping per subaddress if you consolidate.
• Reusing the same subaddress for unrelated payers. Make a new one; they cost nothing.
• Assuming perfect unlinkability. A coordinated so-called Janus attack by a payer can, at some cost, test whether two subaddresses share a wallet. For completely separate identities, use separate seeds.
• Forgetting labels. Labels are stored in the wallet file, not in the seed, and are lost on restore. Keep a note of important ones.

Subaddresses vs integrated addresses

The Monero documentation prefers subaddresses for individuals and says integrated addresses suit automated payment acceptance, while also noting that subaddresses are generally preferred for that same job. In practice, BTCPay's Monero plugin creates a subaddress per invoice. The old unencrypted 32-byte payment IDs are deprecated.

If an exchange gives you an integrated address, or a primary address with a separate payment ID, use exactly what it gives you.

Practical examples

• Salary or freelance income: one subaddress per client, labelled with the client's name.
• Exchange withdrawals: a fresh subaddress each time you withdraw, so the exchange cannot see your other incoming payments.
• Donations: a separate account for donations, with a public subaddress, keeps them apart from personal funds.
• Selling online: one subaddress per order, labelled with the order number. See accepting Monero payments.

When you need the primary address

• P2Pool mining payouts go only to a primary address. See how to mine Monero.
• Creating a view-only wallet from keys asks for the primary address.

Restoring a wallet with many subaddresses

Wallets scan ahead only a limited number of unused subaddresses. If you created hundreds, some funds may not appear after a restore until you raise the lookahead (in the CLI, set subaddress-lookahead) and rescan. See how to restore a Monero wallet.

Want to check whether a string is a valid subaddress? Use the address validator.

Frequently asked questions