Using Connect with Express accounts

Express enables your platform to manage payout schedules, customize the flow of funds, and control branding. Stripe will handle onboarding, account management, and identity verification for your platform.

Connect Onboarding is the recommended method for creating Express accounts. However, you can also use OAuth with Express accounts.

Express demo

To see the complete Express onboarding flow in action, try the sample end-to-end Express integration before you start building your own. This demo includes an example of a user onboarding experience and account management for Rocket Rides, an on-demand marketplace.

You can find the demo’s complete source code on GitHub.

Prerequisites for using Express

To create Express accounts, you must meet all of these requirements:

Minimum API version: Express requires the API version 2017-05-25 or later. Capabilities in Express require the API version 2019-02-19 or later.
Platform in a supported country: Platforms in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States can create Express accounts for any country Stripe supports.
Platforms in the UAE: Platforms in the UAE can only create Express accounts based in the UAE with the following charge types: destination_charges and separate charges and transfers. Destination charges using the on_behalf_of attribute are not yet supported for UAE platforms.
Vetting for fraud: Your platform is ultimately responsible for losses incurred by Express accounts. To best protect against this, you need to closely examine all accounts that sign up using your platform for potential fraud. Refer to our best practices guide for more information.
Platform profile: You need to complete your platform’s profile.

Onboarding Express Accounts outside of your platform’s country

You can enable onboarding on a per-country basis in the Connect Settings section of your Dashboard.

The Express account onboarding flow is currently localized in English, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Swedish.

Keep the following in mind when onboarding accounts globally:

International business: Your platform is responsible for understanding the implications of doing business internationally, such as tax and financial reporting.
Charge flows: Be sure to review your options for creating charges based on the countries you intend to operate in.
Service agreement type: Your platform can create connected accounts under the recipient service agreement to enable cross-border transfers. Such accounts have restricted access to capabilities.

Configure the onboarding experience

Before onboarding your first account, go to the Connect settings page to customize the visual appearance of the form with your brand’s name, color, and icon. Connect Onboarding requires this information.

Create an Express account and prefill information

Create an Express account and set type to express in the account creation request.

Terminal

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts \
  -u sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "type"="express"

If you know the country and capabilities for your connected account, you can provide that information when you create the account. Connect Onboarding then collects the requirements for those capabilities.

Terminal

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts \
  -u sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "country"="US" \
  -d "type"="express" \
  -d "capabilities[card_payments][requested]"="true" \
  -d "capabilities[transfers][requested]"="true"

If you omit capabilities, Connect Onboarding uses the settings in the Configuration settings section of the Stripe Dashboard to automatically request capabilities based on the country for the connected account.

If you’ve already collected information for your connected accounts, you can prefill that information on the account object for the user and it won’t be collected again in the Connect Onboarding flow. Connect Onboarding only collects required information when you create or update an account.

You may want to prefill with test data when testing your integration.

Create an account link

You can create an account link with the following parameters:

account
refresh_url
return_url
type = account_onboarding

Terminal

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/account_links \
  -u sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "account"="acct_1032D82eZvKYlo2C" \
  -d "refresh_url"="https://example.com/reauth" \
  -d "return_url"="https://example.com/return" \
  -d "type"="account_onboarding"

Redirect your user to the account link URL

The response to your Account Links request includes a value for the key url. Redirect to this link to send your user into the flow. URLs from Account Links are temporary and can only be used once because they grant access to the account holder’s personal information. Authenticate the user in your application before redirecting them to this URL. If you want to prefill information, you must do so before generating the account link. After you create the account link for an Express account, you won’t be able to read or write information for the account.

Don’t email, text, or otherwise send account link URLs directly to your user. Instead, redirect the authenticated user to the account link URL from within your platform’s application.

Handle the user returning to your platform

Connect Onboarding requires you to pass both a return_url and refresh_url to handle all cases where the user is redirected to your platform. It’s important that you implement these correctly to provide the best experience for your user.

You can use HTTP for your return_url and refresh_url while in test mode (e.g., to test with localhost), but in live mode only HTTPS is accepted. Be sure to swap testing URLs for HTTPS URLs before going live.

return_url

Stripe issues a redirect to this URL when the user completes the Connect Onboarding flow. This doesn’t mean that all information has been collected or that there are no outstanding requirements on the account. This only means the flow was entered and exited properly.

No state is passed through this URL. After a user is redirected to your return_url, check the state of the details_submitted parameter on their account by doing either of the following:

Listen to account.updated webhooks.
Retrieve the account with the API.

refresh_url

Your user is redirected to the refresh_url in these cases:

The link is expired (a few minutes went by since the link was created).
The link was already visited (the user refreshed the page or clicked back or forward in the browser).
Your platform can no longer access the account.
The account has been rejected.

Your refresh_url should trigger a method on your server to call Account Links again with the same parameters, and redirect the user to the Connect Onboarding flow to create a seamless experience.

Handle users that have not completed onboarding

A user that’s redirected to your return_url might not have completed the onboarding process. Retrieve the user’s account and check for charges_enabled. If the account isn’t fully onboarded, provide UI prompts to allow the user to continue onboarding later. The user can complete their account activation through a new account link (generated by your integration). You can check the state of the details_submitted parameter on their account to see if they’ve completed the onboarding process.

Next steps

Integrating with the Express Dashboard
Collect payments and then pay out, if you process payments with Stripe
Pay out money, if you add money from a bank account to pay out