Customize invoices

Stripe allows you to customize (as well as preview) email receipts, hosted invoices, invoice PDFs, and more, in your Branding settings.

• Icon—A square, digital-friendly icon or logo.
• Logo—A non-square logo to override some uses of the icon.
• Brand color—Used on receipts, invoices, and the customer portal.
• Accent color—Used as a background on emails and pages.

Apply brand settings

Brand settings apply to your whole account and take effect in many places.

Stripe automatically generates invoice numbers to help track and reconcile invoices. Invoice numbers have a prefix and suffix, such as 586A2E-0139 or MYSHOP-1203. (​​The full invoice number is always unique across your account in both schemes.) ​​Stripe supports two invoice numbering schemes:

• ​​Sequentially for each customer (customer-level)—Uses a unique prefix for each customer and assigns invoice numbers sequentially for a given customer.
• ​​Sequentially across your account (account-level)—Uses the same prefix for every customer and assigns invoice numbers sequentially across your entire account.

Stripe chooses a default behavior based on the country your Stripe account is based in. European Union member countries and the United Kingdom typically require account level sequencing. All other countries default to customer level sequencing because it doesn’t expose the total number of invoices. When switching between schemes or updating prefixes, only future invoices use the new settings. This doesn’t impact existing invoices.

Customer level prefixes

When you configure an invoice to use customer-level numbering, each invoice number begins with the customer’s unique invoice prefix.

For example, if one of your customers is a business named Typographic, you might set the prefix to TYPGRA. The first invoice number for Typographic would be TYPGRA-0001, the second would be TYPGRA-0002 and so on.

​​You can override prefixes so that you can trace invoices back to your customers. You can set prefixes on the Customers page in the Dashboard or with the API by using the invoice_prefix parameter. Prefixes have to be between 3 and 12 characters and they can’t match any other customer prefix, including prefixes that are no longer in use.

Account level prefixes

When you configure an invoice to use account-level numbering, each invoice number starts with a common prefix and has a sequential number.

For example, if your business is named Rocket Rides, you might set the prefix to RKTRIDE. Your first invoice would be RKTRIDE-0001, a second invoice to a different customer would be RKTRIDE-0002, another invoice to the first customer would be RKTRIDE-0003, and so on.

Stripe automatically assigns the account-wide prefix, but you can override it to make it clearer that these invoices come from you. If you want to modify the prefix for your account, you can change it in the Invoice template. This requires that your account’s default API version is at least 2020-03-02. Prefixes have to be between 3 and 12 characters and they can’t match any customer prefix, including prefixes that are no longer in use.

Connect account prefixes

For connected accounts that aren’t currently managed with the on_behalf_of parameter, sequential invoice numbering—at the customer and merchant level—will begin at 0001 if the parameter is used in the future.

Set the next invoice number

By default, invoice numbers start at 0001. If you’d like to use a different starting invoice number, however, you can change it. For example, some users—when migrating existing customers to Stripe Invoicing—want their invoice numbers to continue where their old system left off. If the user left off at invoice number 123 in their old system, Stripe allows them to resume the invoice number at 124.

​​Set the number on the Customer details page or with the API by using the next_invoice_sequence parameter. If you’re using account-level prefixes, set the next invoice number in the Next invoice sequence field in the Invoice template.

You can only set the next invoice number to numbers greater than any numbers used on an invoice. The maximum allowed invoice number is 1,000,000,000 regardless of how you set it. Use the lowest value possible so that you don’t reach this limit.

Learn more about the different Invoice fields, including memo, footer, and custom fields.

Default memo

A memo is included in invoice PDFs, invoice emails, and the Hosted Invoice Page. Memos are commonly used as a notes section, thanking the invoiced customer for their business, or giving more context around the invoice (such as a note from the salesperson who talked to the customer).

You can set a default memo field for your account on the Invoice template. ​​Any new invoices use this value. You can adjust the default memo on a per-invoice basis in the Dashboard or by using the API.

Default footer

​​Invoice PDFs can include an optional footer text block. The footer field is often used for contractual or legally required text. A common use case is displaying legally required company registration information, such as a UK Companies House registration number.

Like the memo field, you can set the default value for the footer on the Invoice template. ​​Any new invoices use this value. You can adjust the footer on a per-invoice basis through the Dashboard or API. If the invoice has been finalized, you can’t update the footer field.

Default item prices

You can issue invoices with line item prices that exclude inclusive tax. Tax-exclusive prices are only shown in the invoice PDF. That means, when using inclusive tax, the Hosted Invoice Page and invoice emails show tax-inclusive prices. You can define the settings for net prices in the Dashboard or API.

• Include inclusive tax—The invoice PDF displays line item prices including the inclusive tax. (This is the default.)
• Exclude tax—The invoice PDF displays line item prices excluding tax.

Custom fields

Add custom fields to enhance your invoice PDF documents and help you comply with your business practice and tax reporting obligations. Custom fields allow you to provide up to four key-value pairs ​​that display in the invoice header. You can set up to four custom field key-value pairs in the Invoice Editor or with the Invoices API.

Some common uses for custom fields are:

• Purchase Order (PO) numbers
• Contractor numbers
• Tax compliance

Custom field inheritance

You can set custom invoice fields on the Customer object. Any custom fields you set at the customer level apply to all of the draft invoices you generate for that customer. You can always modify these inherited custom fields while the invoice is still a draft. After the invoice finalizes, you can’t update the custom fields.

You can set the size for your invoice PDF, including finalized invoices, to A4 (8.27 x 11.69 inches) or Letter (8.5 x 11 inches) using the API.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/invoices \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d customer="customer" \
  -d rendering["pdf"]["page_size"]="a4" | "letter"

When you create a customer, use the Language dropdown to add their preferred language. (You can also add or edit a customer’s preferred language in the Customer details page or when creating an invoice.) Stripe uses the chosen language to localize invoice emails and PDFs, receipt emails and PDFs, as well as credit note PDFs. To update the language through the API, use the preferred_locales field.

Stripe Invoicing supports the following languages:

• Bulgarian
• Chinese (Hong Kong)
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Taiwan)
• Croatian
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English (United Kingdom)
• English (United States)
• Estonian
• Filipino
• Finnish
• French (Canada)
• French (France)
• German
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Malay (Malaysia)
• Maltese
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Portuguese (Portugal)
• Romanian
• Russian
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Spanish (Latin America)
• Spanish (Spain)
• Swedish
• Thai
• Turkish
• Vietnamese

Invoices include any public information that you specified under Public business information, such as your support email address or business website. Using these settings, you can also choose to include a support phone number in customer-facing documents—like invoice PDFs and emails—or default to your business address.