Choose a cardholder type

Learn how to select the best cardholder type for your use case.

When creating a Cardholder object, you can specify a type: either individual or company—you can’t change the type after you create the cardholder. Setting a type is optional and defaults to individual if none is specified.

You might have to collect additional information, depending on the cardholder type you choose. For individual cardholders, you must provide first name and last name, and proof of acceptance of Authorized User Terms (only applicable for Celtic Spend Cards). This data isn’t required for company cardholders.

Find your use case

Choosing a cardholder type depends on your use case. View your use case and other program details from the Card programs page in the Dashboard.

Individual cardholders

Create individual cardholders if you’re issuing the card to an employee or contractor of your business or to an owner, employee, or contractor of one of your connected accounts.

This is the default and most common type.

Some example use cases for individual cardholders include:

Building a new expense management product for small businesses where the platform issues cards to employees or contractors of those small businesses
Giving cards to your own employees to make purchases for your company
Building a fleet card product that issues cards to drivers
Running a platform that enables businesses to give cards to their employees for disbursing employee benefits or perks

Company cardholders

Create company cardholders if you’re issuing the card directly to an entity.

This type is less common, and may not be available depending on the use-case you provided at onboarding. If you’re restricted, Stripe returns the Cardholder type must be individual error.

Here are some example use cases for company cardholders:

A platform that creates virtual cards to use programmatically for online purchases with company funds and for its benefit. For example, purchasing inventory for resale or paying for cloud services. The cards are not given to individual employees for individual expenses (for example, expensing a business lunch).
A platform that creates cards assigned to a vehicle (like a rental car or semi-truck). The cards stay with the vehicle at all times. Alternating drivers use the card to refuel the vehicle. The card does not belong to any one individual.

Caution

In some cases, you may not be able to create company cardholders, depending on Stripe’s review of your use case at onboarding. If this restriction applies to you, Stripe notifies you. You receive an error message if you try to create a company cardholder and your account has this restriction.

Changing cardholder type

After a cardholder has been created, you can’t change its type.

If you have linked a card to the cardholder, you can’t change who the cardholder is.

If you haven’t linked any cards to the cardholder, you can create a new cardholder with the correct type. In most cases, you don’t need to delete the existing cardholder. But make sure that you assign the appropriate type to new cardholders to avoid any potential disruption in service.