Use Sofort to set up future SEPA Direct Debit payments

Learn how to save bank details from a Sofort payment and charge your customers later with SEPA Direct Debit.

We recommend that you follow the Set up future payments guide. If you’ve already integrated with Elements, see the Payment Element migration guide.

Sofort is a single use payment method where customers are required to authenticate each payment. With this integration, Stripe charges your customer 1 EUR through Sofort in order to collect their bank details. After your customer authenticates the payment, Stripe refunds the payment and store your customer’s IBAN in a SEPA Direct Debit payment method. You can then use the SEPA Direct Debit PaymentMethod to accept payments or set up a subscription.

To use Sofort to set up SEPA Direct Debit payments, you must SEPA Direct Debit in the Dashboard. You must also comply with our Sofort Terms of Service and SEPA Direct Debit Terms of Service.

You can use Checkout in setup mode to collect payment details and set up future SEPA Direct Debit payments using Sofort.

Create or retrieve a Customer
Server-side

To set up future SEPA Direct Debit payments using Sofort, you must attach the SEPA Direct Debit payment method to a Customer.

Create a Customer object when your customer creates an account with your business. You can retrieve and use a customer’s stored payment method details later, if you associate the ID of the Customer object with your own internal representation of the customer.

Terminal

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers \
  -u sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -X "POST"

Set up future payments

This guide builds on the foundational set up future payments Checkout integration and walks you through enabling Sofort. It shows the differences between setting up future payments for cards and using Sofort.

Enable Sofort as a payment method

When creating a new Checkout Session, you need to add sofort to the list of payment_method_types.

Stripe::Checkout::Session.create({
  mode: 'setup',
  payment_method_types: ['card'],
  payment_method_types: ['card', 'sofort'],
  customer: customer.id,
  success_url: 'https://example.com/success',
  cancel_url: 'https://example.com/cancel',
})

Charge the SEPA Direct Debit PaymentMethod later
Server-side

When you need to charge your customer again, create a new PaymentIntent. Find the ID of the SEPA Direct Debit payment method by retrieving the SetupIntent and expanding the latest_attempt field where you will find the generated_sepa_debit ID inside of payment_method_details.

curl -G https://api.stripe.com/v1/setup_intents/{{SETUP_INTENT_ID}} \
  -u sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc: \
  -d "expand[]"=latest_attempt

Create a PaymentIntent with the SEPA Direct Debit and Customer IDs.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc: \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=sepa_debit \
  -d amount=1099 \
  -d currency=eur \
  -d customer="{{CUSTOMER_ID}}" \
  -d payment_method="{{SEPA_DEBIT_PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}}" \
  -d confirm=true

Test your integration

When testing your Checkout integration, select Sofort as the payment method and click the Pay button.