Fee Sponsor on Stellar

At Dfns, we’re committed to making digital asset transactions seamless and accessible even on networks with unique transaction models like Stellar. Today, we’re excited to announce that Fee Sponsors are now supported on Stellar through the Dfns Wallet infrastructure. This means you can now cover network fees on behalf of your users using native protocol features (without requiring them to hold XLM or worry about fees) while still maintaining full control over policy, permissions, and audit trails.

Frictionless transactions using Stellar’s built-in fee bump feature

Unlike many blockchains, Stellar supports fee sponsorship natively at the protocol level via fee-bump transactions. This mechanism allows one account (the sponsor) to pay for the fees of another user’s transaction without re-signing or modifying the original intent.

Here’s how it works:

• A user initiates a transaction and signs it using their Dfns-controlled wallet.
• Instead of sending it directly, the transaction is wrapped inside a fee-bump envelope.
• The fee sponsor wallet (also controlled via Dfns) signs the outer transaction and pays the fee.
• The original transaction executes exactly as intended, with the sequence number and logic preserved.

This makes Stellar one of the few blockchains where fee sponsorship can be accomplished without deploying custom smart contracts or relayers.

Integrating fee sponsorship via the Dfns API

To sponsor a transaction on Stellar, you can use the same familiar Dfns API used for other chains:

POST /wallets/:walletId/transfers
{
  "kind": "Native",
  "network": "Stellar",
  "feeSponsorId": "fs-xxx",
  ...
}

Transactions are only submitted if they pass all policy checks and permission models defined in your organization’s Dfns configuration. This includes cryptographic signature requirements, audit trail enforcement, and optional rate limiting or time-based controls.

Built for standard Stellar transactions

Our current integration is focused on standard Stellar network transactions such as payments, account creations, and trustline operations. These are ideal for applications onboarding new users, managing treasury flows, or providing smooth in-app payment experiences.

If you're building on top of Stellar smart contracts (Soroban) or managing more complex workflows, we’ve developed an experimental service called Launchtube that extends fee sponsorship support to contract invocations. While not yet production-ready for high-value use cases, it's being actively used in early-stage deployments and is available to developers looking to experiment.

We’re also tracking the work being done by OpenZeppelin on a more robust relayer system for Stellar. If you're interested, we’re happy to make an introduction.

A universal experience for sponsoring gas and fees

With support for Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Base, Optimism, and now Stellar, Dfns Fee Sponsors let you offer gasless or fee-free experiences across multiple chains using a single wallet infrastructure and API. No more juggling relayers, writing custom contracts, or compromising on security.

You can start building with Fee Sponsors for Stellar today at app.dfns.io/get-started.