Debiting Express and Custom Accounts Preview

With Connect, your platform can directly debit the Stripe balance of an Express or Custom account. If you are interested in this feature outside of the U.S., please contact our sales team.

At times, your platform might need to transfer funds from its connected accounts to your platform account:

To charge the connected account directly for products or services
To recover funds for a previous refund
To make other adjustments to connected account balances (e.g., to correct an error)

When using Express or Custom accounts, you can debit a connected account’s Stripe balance to credit to your platform account’s Stripe balance. Stripe supports two approaches for doing so:

Charging a connected account for your platform’s products or services
Transferring from a connected account to recover funds or make other adjustments

Both approaches create the same flow of funds: a Transfer is created on the connected account and a Payment is created on the platform account. To ensure the transactions are reported appropriate for tax purposes, create a charge for activity that increases your revenue and create a transfer when making adjustments.

Requirements

This functionality is only supported for Express and Custom. Additionally:

The connected account and the platform must be in the same region (i.e., both must be in Europe or in the U.S.)
The currency value must match the default currency of your platform account
An account debit cannot make the connected account balance become negative unless you have reserves enabled (on by default for all new platforms created after January 31st, 2016)

To allow for the most seamless experience, we strongly recommend verifying the connected account’s bank before using Account Debits.

Charging a connected account

The create a charge API call supports providing a connected account ID as the source value:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges \
   -u sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2: \
   -d amount=1500 \
   -d currency=usd \
   -d source="{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"

charge = Stripe::Charge.create(
  :amount => 1500,
  :currency => "usd",
  :source => "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
)

charge = stripe.Charge.create(
  amount=1500,
  currency="usd",
  source="{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
)

$charge = \Stripe\Charge::create(array(
  "amount"   => 1500,
  "currency" => "usd",
  "source" => "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
  ));

Map<String, Object> otherChargeParams = new HashMap<String, Object>();
otherChargeParams.put("amount", 1500);
otherChargeParams.put("currency", "usd");
otherChargeParams.put("source", "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}");

Charge.create(otherChargeParams);

stripe.charges.create({
  amount: 1500,
  currency: "usd",
  source: "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
});

The API call returns the Payment created on the platform account (note: it does not return a Charge).

This approach is appropriate for platforms that charge their connected accounts for goods and services (i.e., for using the platform). For example, a platform can charge its connected accounts for additional fees or services through their Stripe balance, minimizing any need to collect an additional payment method and allowing for nearly instant availability of the funds.

To help keep track of this additional revenue source, Stripe makes sure this revenue is appropriately added to the right tax forms (e.g., 1099).

Transferring from a connected account

The second method for debiting a connected account is to make a transfer from the connected account to your platform account. Use the Stripe-Account header to authenticate as the connected account and provide your platform’s Stripe account ID as the destination:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/transfers \
   -u sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2: \
   -H "Stripe-Account: {CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}" \
   -d amount=1500 \
   -d currency=usd \
   -d destination="{PLATFORM_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"

Stripe::Transfer.create(
  {
    :amount => 1000,
    :currency => "usd",
    :destination => "{PLATFORM_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
  },
  {:stripe_account => "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"}
)

stripe.Transfer.create(
  amount=1000,
  currency="usd",
  destination="{PLATFORM_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}",
  stripe_account="{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
)

\Stripe\Transfer::create(
  array(
    "amount" => 1000,
    "currency" => "usd",
    "destination" => "{PLATFORM_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
  ),
  array("stripe_account" => "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}")
);

RequestOptions requestOptions = RequestOptions.builder().setStripeAccount("{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}").build();

Map<String, Object> transferParams = new HashMap<String, Object>();
transferParams.put("amount", 1000);
transferParams.put("currency", "usd");
transferParams.put("destination", "{PLATFORM_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}");

Transfer.create(transferParams, requestOptions);

stripe.transfers.create(
  {
    amount: 1000,
    currency: "usd",
    destination: "{PLATFORM_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"
  },
  {stripe_account: "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"}
);

This API call returns the Transfer created on the connected account.

This approach is best for making adjustments within a platform (e.g., correcting a mis-payment or recovering any fees you paid to Stripe). Account Debits created as transfers are not reported as revenue (i.e., do not appear on a 1099 tax form).

Note that you do need your platform’s Stripe account ID to perform this request. If you don’t know that value already, perform a retrieve account API call using your platform’s API key.

Requirements

Charging a connected account

Transferring from a connected account

Further reading