A minimum received of 99.5% of a quote allows at most a 0.5% shortfall before the swap fails. It gives someone swapping TRX for Tether USD (USDT) a floor for the output, instead of letting the trade complete at any price. The floor matters because a quote can change while a transaction is waiting to be included on TRON.
That floor is often called minimum received or amount out minimum. A how TRON swap uses AMM pools article explains the pool mechanics behind a quote; here, the focus is how to decide the least output you will accept. A wallet-based TRON swap lets you exchange TRX and TRC-20 tokens from your connected wallet, without first depositing them at a custodial exchange.
What does minimum received protect?
It sets a condition on execution: if the amount of output tokens is below your stated minimum, the swap should revert instead of delivering less. In an automated market maker (AMM), trades draw tokens from pools, and the exchange rate changes as the pool balances change. A transaction submitted after your quote may therefore face a different rate.
The minimum protects against that difference between quote and execution, commonly called slippage. It does not erase price impact: a large trade can move the pool price while it is being calculated, so the quote itself may already be worse than the market price elsewhere. Nor does the floor guarantee that the quote is fair. Uniswap’s documentation describes this general AMM pattern as a minimum output constraint.
How do you calculate a sensible floor?
Multiply the quoted output by one minus your slippage tolerance. For an illustrative quote of 250 USDT and a tolerance of 0.5%, the floor is 250 × 0.995 = 248.75 USDT. If the execution would return 248.70 USDT, it should fail; if it returns 248.75 USDT or more, it meets the floor.
Choose tolerance based on how much the price could reasonably move before execution, not on how much loss you are willing to ignore. A deeper, actively traded pool and a small trade usually need less room; a thin pool, a large trade, or a fast-moving market may need more. Compare the quote with the market rate and check the pool depth first: increasing tolerance cannot fix a poor quote, it only accepts more deterioration from it.
One common mistake is to raise tolerance after a trade fails without checking why it failed. First refresh the quote and see whether the market moved or the trade would cause substantial price impact. If the new quote still looks poor, reduce the trade size or wait; widening the floor can let an unfavorable execution pass.
What can make the received amount differ?
The minimum applies to the output token amount, not to the entire cost of making the transaction. On TRON, a smart-contract swap uses network resources such as Energy and Bandwidth; the TRON Developer Hub explains how those resources relate to contract execution and transaction data. Check separately what the wallet shows for the network cost, since meeting the token-output floor does not cap that cost.
Also check the output token’s precision. TRC-20 contracts represent token amounts in integer base units, so a displayed decimal amount may be rounded; the actual minimum is enforced against the contract’s units. For a token with unusual transfer behavior, the amount credited to a recipient can also differ from the amount a swap contract records, so the specific token’s contract rules matter.
When should you adjust the tolerance?
Start with the smallest tolerance that fits the pool depth, trade size, and time-sensitive price movement, then review the resulting minimum in USDT before signing in TronLink. If the trade repeatedly fails, refresh the quote and reconsider size or timing before widening the tolerance. A failed swap can still consume network resources, so repeated retries may have a cost.
Decision rule: accept a tolerance only when its minimum output remains an amount you would willingly receive for the TRX you are spending.