An Associated Token Account (ATA) is a token account on Solana that is deterministically derived from a wallet address and a token mint address. Every wallet has exactly one ATA for each token it holds.

ATAs are the standard way tokens are stored on Solana. When you receive an SPL token, it arrives in an ATA associated with your wallet. If the ATA doesn't exist yet, it must be created before tokens can be received — this creation requires a small SOL rent deposit.

Because ATA addresses are deterministic, any application can calculate the correct token account address for any wallet without looking it up. This makes ATAs the universal standard for token account addressing on Solana.