Working with multiple currencies

Stripe supports processing charges in 135+ currencies. This allows you to present prices in a customer’s native currency and avoid conversion costs for customers.

The currencies you can use are determined by the country of the Stripe account where the charge is made.

Currency conversions

A currency conversion occurs if the presentment currency differs from the settlement currency.

The presentment currency is the currency that’s used for charges. The settlement currency is the currency that you can receive payouts in, depending on the charge type and applicable currency conversion. See the supported presentment currencies and the supported settlement currencies.

Depending on bank account or debit card availability, the following occurs when paying out a balance:

If you regularly charge in multiple currencies, you may be able to establish multiple bank accounts to have multiple settlement currencies.

Currency conversions use the current exchange rates provided by our service providers, with an additional conversion fee applied by Stripe. There are online resources for conversion calculation that can help you estimate current market rates. However, these numbers can fluctuate and may not reflect Stripe’s rates at the time a payment is processed.

Application fees for direct charges

Although direct charges are in the connected account’s default currency, your platform receives the application fees for direct charges in your platform’s default currency.

If your platform doesn’t use application fees and retains a portion of the charges instead, those funds are paid out (and converted or not) the same way as other charges on the platform account.

Application fees for destination charges and converting balances

Application fees collected using the application_fee_amount parameter aren’t converted again for destination charges; your platform always receives application fees in the connected account’s settlement currency. However, we recommend that you use the transfer_data[amount] parameter to transfer less of the charge amount to the connected account.

If you create charges on the platform using the destination or on_behalf_of parameters, you might accumulate balances in multiple currencies. If you don’t have bank accounts for these other currencies, Stripe provides a way to pay out balances in non-default currencies to your platform’s default bank account.

These currency conversions are created as manual payouts with currency set as the currency of the source balance:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payouts \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc: \
  -d amount=1000 \
  -d currency=xaf

As long as there are sufficient funds in the balance for the specified currency, Stripe automatically converts the funds to the default bank account’s currency.

Example scenarios

The following examples illustrate how to work with multiple currencies in Connect:

Direct charges

Direct charges are always converted to the connected account’s default currency from the presentment currency. The application fee is converted to the platform’s default currency.

For example, you accept a charge for a connected account in USD. The connected account settles in EUR. The funds sent to the connected account are converted to EUR and the application fee is converted back to your platform in USD from EUR.

Destination charges without on_behalf_of

Destination charges are converted to the platform’s default currency from the presentment currency and the funds sent to the connected account are converted again to the connected account’s default currency. If application_fee_amount is used, the application fee remains in the connected account’s currency. If transfer_data[amount] is used, the application fee amount remains in the platform’s default currency.

For example, you accept a charge for a connected account in USD. The connected account settles in GBP. The funds sent to the connected account are converted to GBP. If application_fee_amount is used, the application fee is converted from USD to GBP. If transfer_data[amount] is used, the application fee is retained in USD from the initial presentment amount, without any intervening conversions.

Destination charges with on_behalf_of

Destination charges are converted to the connected account’s default currency from the presentment currency. The application fee remains in the connected account’s currency, whether application_fee_amount or transfer_data[amount] is used.

For example, the connected account accepts a charge in USD but settles in EUR. The charge is converted to EUR and sent to the connected account in EUR. The application fee is collected in EUR.

Separate charges and transfers without on_behalf_of

Separate charges are converted to the platform’s default currency from the presentment currency and the platform later transfers the funds to the connected account. The application_fee_amount and transfer_data[amount] parameters are not used to collect fees, since the platform can choose the appropriate amount to send at transfer time.

Separate charges and transfers with on_behalf_of

Separate charges are converted to the connected account’s default currency from the presentment currency and the platform later transfers the funds to the connected account. The application_fee_amount and transfer_data[amount] parameters are not used to collect fees, since the platform can choose the appropriate amount to send at transfer time.