Three leftovers sit in the account: one worth 3.10 USDT, one 6.80, one 2.50. Together that is 12.40 USDT. Too small to sell, too small to withdraw, and every time you open Assets they each take up a row.
Put all three through Binance's Small Amount Exchange and the help centre's flat 2% fee takes 0.248 USDT, leaving roughly 12.15 USDT worth of BNB or USDT. Not much. But it is a percentage, so the bigger the leftover, the worse the deal, and any piece big enough to meet a spot order minimum costs a small fraction of that if you sell it on spot instead. Below: what qualifies, what to convert into, what to keep out, and how to check the numbers afterwards.
What makes it onto the conversion list
The rules live on the help centre page How to Convert Small Account Balance to BNB, BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, U and BFUSD?, which shows an update date of 5 August 2026. The hard limits:
- only coins valued below 20 USDT show up;
- one conversion per hour, but you can tick as many coins as you like in that one go;
- leftovers in the Spot, Funding and Alpha wallets all count;
- unlisted or delisted tokens cannot be converted and just stay put;
- the result has to be at least 0.00000001 of the target coin, or the conversion fails.
If a guide you find says “valued in BTC, once every 6 hours, BNB only”, it is describing an older version. The line is now drawn in USDT and BNB is no longer the only target, so an old threshold will not match what you see on your own list.
A coin you expected is missing? The same page says you can set which balances are displayed, at 5, 10 or 20 USDT equivalent, so check that setting before assuming the coin is unsupported.
On the website it is [Assets] → [Spot], then [Small Amount Exchange]. The app uses the same path: [Assets] → [Spot] → [Small Amount Exchange]. The help page walks through the first two steps with pictures:
Read the fee note carefully: 2% for ordinary tokens, 10% for Alpha tokens. A 5 USDT Alpha leftover loses 0.50 in one conversion, five times what the same amount of an ordinary token would. Before you tick anything, look at which rows are Alpha.
BNB or USDT depends on one switch
This feature used to convert into BNB and nothing else. Now the page lists BNB, BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, U and BFUSD as targets. The fee depends on what you convert: 2% for ordinary tokens, 10% for Alpha tokens, whichever target you choose. What differs is what that money does next.
BNB only earns its place if you have turned on paying fees with BNB. With that on, spot fees come out of your BNB, and the help centre puts the saving at up to 25%. Run out of BNB and you pay the full rate again.
Take an account that buys and sells two thousand USDT of spot a month. At the regular 0.100% rate that is 2 USDT in fees. With the BNB discount on, 1.5 USDT. So the discount is worth 0.5 a month. The 12.15 USDT of BNB you just got covers about eight months of fees at 1.5 a month, and the 0.248 you paid to convert comes back after about half a month of discount.
Flip it round. If the switch is off, or you hardly trade spot, converting to BNB just turns a pile of dust into one bigger bit of dust, and now it moves with the BNB price. USDT avoids that BNB exposure and carries the same conversion fee for the same source tokens. You can then check whether the balance meets your order or withdrawal minimum. Where the switch is and how it sits alongside the referral code discount is covered in how the referral discount and the BNB fee discount stack.
If it clears the minimum order, keep it out
Under 20 USDT gets a coin onto the list. It does not mean the coin belongs there.
Say one coin is worth 15 USDT. Through the Small Amount Exchange, 2% is 0.30 USDT. Sold on spot at market, the regular 0.100% taker fee is 0.015 USDT. Same balance, a 0.285 gap, and the conversion route costs twenty times as much.
Selling on spot only works if the amount clears that pair's minimum order value and fits its quantity step size. Both vary by pair and are listed under the trading rules on the order screen. If the quantity keeps getting rejected, the step size is usually the reason, and the sliver that will not fit is what the conversion is for.
So the order goes: try each leftover on the spot order screen, sell whatever goes through, then tick the scraps that remain in a single conversion. Most of this dust comes from the fee being taken out of the coin you bought and from orders that fill in several pieces; checking fees when a spot order fills in parts breaks that down fill by fill.
Because it is a percentage, 1 USDT of dust costs 0.02 to convert and 19 USDT costs 0.38. The closer a balance is to 20, the more it is worth trying on spot first.
After you hit [Convert]: where to check the numbers
The amount on the preview page is an estimate. Per the help centre, the conversion runs at the market price at the moment you click [Confirm], so what lands will be slightly off the preview. On amounts this small the gap is usually a few decimal places deep.
If the price moves 5% or more during the conversion, it does not go through at all, rather than filling you at a bad price. Try again later, remembering you only get one attempt an hour.
Each conversion is itemised under [History] on the Small Amount Exchange page (in the app, the history icon at the top right): which coins went, how much of each, how much of the target coin came back, and the fee. Take that fee figure and work it back. It should be 2% of the converted value, 10% on the Alpha rows. The converted coin goes to your Spot wallet.
Converted to USDT and still can't withdraw it? Check whether you are under the minimum withdrawal amount. That is a separate hurdle, covered in Binance minimum withdrawal: why a small transfer fails or never arrives.
What fee does Binance charge to convert small balances?
According to Binance's help centre (page updated August 2026), the Small Amount Exchange charges a flat 2% on ordinary tokens and 10% on Alpha tokens. Converting 12.40 USDT of dust in one go costs 0.248 USDT.
How often can I convert dust, and how small does a balance have to be?
Once every hour. Only coins valued below 20 USDT appear on the list, and you can tick several in one conversion. Unlisted or delisted tokens cannot be converted.
Should I convert dust to BNB or USDT?
The target does not change the conversion fee: ordinary tokens cost 2%, and Alpha tokens cost 10%. If you pay spot fees with BNB and trade regularly, BNB goes towards those fees at up to 25% off. If the BNB discount is off or you rarely trade, USDT is simpler and spares you holding a small BNB position that moves with its price.