An additional receiving address derived by the same wallet. Separate subaddresses help avoid giving unrelated payers the same reusable identifier.
One wallet, several receiving identifiers
A wallet derives subaddresses from its key material and account/subaddress indices. It can watch payments to these addresses under the same wallet without requiring a new seed for each one.
The address identifies where a sender should construct a payment. Funds reside in unspent outputs, not in a separate on-chain account named by the address. Wallet account labels organize the user interface rather than creating a public account register.
References: Subaddress construction · Monero source: wallet/wallet2.cpp
Separating two customer payments
A shop can give one customer a fresh subaddress and another customer a different one. The wallet can identify which receiving subaddress a payment used, helping the shop associate it with the right request.
The two customers cannot simply compare an identical address string to establish reuse. If both payments are tied to the same logged-in account or invoice database, however, the service already has another way to associate them.
References: Subaddress construction
Subaddresses and stealth output keys
A subaddress is the reusable information a payer receives. Each payment still uses the one-time output-key construction. Creating a subaddress and creating an output are therefore different operations.
Wallets derive subaddresses using indices. Restoring from the same supported seed can reproduce that address family, but local labels are not automatically recovered from the chain. Keep useful invoice records and backup metadata according to your wallet's instructions.
References: Subaddress construction · Monero source: wallet/wallet2.cpp
Limits of address separation
Subaddresses reduce direct address reuse. They do not stop a payer from keeping records, eliminate active attacks described in the technical documentation or make unrelated wallet activity invisible to a compromised device.
Combining outputs and sharing information with counterparties can introduce additional links. Use subaddresses as one part of payment organization and privacy, rather than treating each as a completely independent wallet with a separate security boundary.
References: Subaddress construction · Monero source: wallet/wallet2.cpp
Related glossary terms
Practical guides
- Stop Giving Every Website the Same Piece of You
- Monero Offline Wallets: Cupcake, Cold Storage and Signing
Technical baseline: v0.18.5.4. Reviewed 2026-11-08 UTC.