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The Hedera Portal exposes an HTTP faucet endpoint so you can fund testnet and previewnet accounts programmatically from the terminal, scripts, CI/CD pipelines, SDKs, or agentic workflows, with no browser, no reCAPTCHA, and no copy-pasting.
For a one-off, the web faucet at portal.hedera.com is the simplest path. Use the Faucet API when you want to fund accounts programmatically or in bulk.
Need mainnet HBAR? This Portal Faucet API serves testnet and previewnet only. For mainnet, the ecosystem project HashPort runs a community-operated Faucet API that distributes HBAR to onboard new users.

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Before you start

The Faucet API requires a Hedera Portal account and a Personal Access Token (the web faucet does not):
  1. A Hedera Portal account. Sign up if you don’t have one.
  2. A Personal Access Token (PAT). Generate one from the Portal UI, following Create an API Key.
In your terminal, set your token as an environment variable so the curl examples below can read it. The export command runs in a macOS or Linux shell (bash or zsh) and lasts for the current terminal session: 
export HEDERA_PAT="<your-personal-access-token>"
On Windows PowerShell, use: 
$env:HEDERA_PAT = "<your-personal-access-token>"

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Make a request

Send a POST to /api/disbursement/cli with your PAT as a Bearer token.
About the destination: A Hedera account ID (0.0.x) must already exist on the network. An EVM address that has no account yet gets one created on the spot through auto account creation when the HBAR lands.
curl -X POST https://portal.hedera.com/api/disbursement/cli \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HEDERA_PAT" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "address": "0.0.12345",
    "amount": 25,
    "network": "testnet"
  }'

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Request fields

FieldRequiredDescription
addressYesThe destination: a Hedera account ID (0.0.12345) or an EVM address (0x…, 40 hex chars).
amountYesA whole number of HBAR to send, from 1 to 100.
networkNotestnet (default) or previewnet.
sdkVersionNoFor tool authors: the SDK version, so usage can be attributed.
cliVersionNoFor tool authors: the CLI version.

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Response

A successful request returns the amount sent, the on-chain transaction ID, and your remaining daily allowance: 
{
	"amount": 25,
	"transactionId": "0.0.2@1715600000.123456789",
	"dailyQuota": {
		"used": 25,
		"remaining": 75
	}
}
  • amount: how much HBAR was actually sent.
  • transactionId: the on-chain transaction ID. Use it to look up the transfer on a mirror node or HashScan.
  • dailyQuota: used and remaining HBAR in your rolling 24-hour window.

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Limits

Three limits apply to every request, and a call must satisfy all three:
  • Up to 100 HBAR per call.
  • Up to 100 HBAR per 24 hours, as a rolling window tied to your Hedera Portal account.
  • One funding per destination account per 24 hours. This cooldown is shared with the web faucet, so if an account was funded on the web today, the API will refuse it for the next 24 hours, and vice versa.
A few things to know:
  • You can spread your daily 100 HBAR across multiple accounts (for example, 10 HBAR to each of 10 accounts).
  • You can hit your daily cap while fresh destinations are still available, in which case you’ll need to wait for the window to roll off.
  • You can hit a destination’s cooldown while you still have HBAR left, so switch to another account.

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Troubleshooting

The faucet uses standard HTTP status codes:
StatusWhat it meansHow to fix it
400 Bad RequestYour request body didn’t pass validation, for example amount is missing or outside 1 to 100, or network is invalid.Check the request body against the request fields.
403 ForbiddenYour token is missing, malformed, or has been revoked.Verify the Authorization header reads Bearer <token>, and that the token still exists in the Portal.
422 Unprocessable EntityThe destination can’t be funded: the account ID does not exist, address is invalid, or it was funded in the last 24 hours.Confirm the account exists or the address is well-formed, and off cooldown, or fund a different account.
429 Too Many RequestsYou’ve used your full 100 HBAR for the last 24 hours.Wait for your 24-hour window to roll off, then try again.
500 Internal Server ErrorThe transfer failed on the server side.Retry after a minute. If it persists, check the transaction ID on a mirror node and reach out to support.

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Next steps