ACH Credit Transfer payments with SourcesBeta
Caution
- ACH credit transfers are only supported in USD.
- ACH credit transfers are now in legacy mode, which means we won’t add new functionality to the ACH Credit Transfers product going forward. To stay up to date, we recommend following the USD bank transfer integration instead.
- If you want to learn how to migrate from an existing ACH integration to USD bank transfers, see Migrating from Sources-based Credit transfers.
Stripe users in the United States can receive ACH Credit Transfers directly from customers using Sources—a single integration path for creating payments using any supported method.
During the payment process, a Source object is created and your customer is provided with bank account information to send the required amount to. Your customer uses this information to make a transfer from their bank account using the US ACH system (the customer-facing transfer portal is referred to as Bill Pay by many banks) or domestic wire transfer. After the transfer is received, your integration uses the source to make a charge request and complete the payment.
ACH Credit Transfers is a push-based and reusable method of payment. This means your customer must take action to send funds to you, which can take a few days to arrive. After the funds arrive, there is synchronous confirmation of any charge request made.
Create a Source object
You can create a Source object server-side using the Source creation endpoint. Stripe returns a Source object containing the relevant details for the method of payment used. Information specific to ACH is provided within the ach_credit_transfer subhash. The following parameters should be passed to create a Source object:
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
type | ach_credit_transfer |
currency | usd (ACH Credit Transfer payments must be in US Dollars) |
owner[email] | the full email address of the customer |
{ "id": "src_18cPLvAHEMiOZZp1YBngt6En", "object": "source", "currency": "usd", "flow": "receiver", "livemode": false, "receiver": { "address": "121042882-38381234567890123", "amount_received": 0, "amount_charged": 0,
Error codes
Source creation for ACH Credit Transfer payments may return any of the following errors:
| Error | Description |
|---|---|
payment_method_not_available | The payment method is currently not available. You should invite your customer to fallback to another payment method to proceed. |
processing_error | An unexpected error occurred preventing us from creating the source. The source creation should be retried. |
Have the customer push funds
When creating a source, its status is initially set to pending and can’t be used yet to make a charge request. In addition, receiver[amount_received] is set to zero since no funds have yet been transferred. Your customer must transfer the amount you request so that the necessary funds are available.
After creating a source, provide the following two pieces of information to your customer:
ach_credit_transfer[routing_number]: The routing number of the account to transfer funds toach_credit_transfer[account_number]: The account number to transfer funds to
In addition, specify an amount that you need the customer to send. Customers create a transfer with their bank, using the information you provide. Bank transfers can take up to five days to complete. Domestic wires typically arrive within 1-2 days.
ACH Credit Transfer sources are reusable and can be used for recurring payments. The information provided to the customer can be reused whenever they need to send additional funds.
Charge the Source
After the customer makes a transfer, receiver[amount_received] is updated to reflect the total amount of all received transfers, and the status of the source changes to chargeable. Your customer can transfer any amount across multiple transfers. Each transfer is represented by a source transaction.
Since these transfers happen asynchronously (and can take days), your integration must rely on webhooks to determine when the source becomes chargeable in order to create a charge. Refer to our best practices for more details on how to best integrate payment methods using webhooks.
The following webhook events notify you about changes to the status of an ACH Credit Transfer source:
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
source.chargeable | A Source object becomes chargeable once it has received funds. |
source.transaction.created | Your customer has sent a transfer and a new source transaction has been created. |
After the Source becomes chargeable, and before creating a charge request to complete the payment, attach it to a Customer for later reuse.
Attaching the Source to a Customer
Attaching the Source to a Customer is required for you to reuse it for future payments. Refer to our Sources & Customers guide for more details on how to attach Sources to new or existing Customers and how the two objects interact together. The following example attaches the Source to a new Customer:
Making a charge request to finalize the payment
As soon as it’s attached, you can use the Source object’s ID along with the Customer object’s ID to perform a charge request and finalize the payment.
When a charge request is made, the source’s receiver[amount_charged] is updated with the amount that has been used. The receiver[amount_received] does not change. The available amount left to charge is the difference between these two values.
For example, if the value for receiver[amount_received] is initially 2500 (25 USD) and two charges of 1100 (11 USD) and 900 (9 USD) are created at separate times, the value for receiver[amount_charged] is 2000 (20 USD). The remaining amount available for charges is 500 (5 USD).
when all the funds have been used, the two amounts are the same. When this occurs, the status of the source changes back to pending. If the customer makes any additional transfers, the source again changes to chargeable.
Confirm that the charge has succeeded
Because the customer has already pushed the funds at the time the Source becomes chargeable, unless there is an unexpected error, the Charge immediately succeeds.
You also receive the following webhook event as the charge is created:
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
charge.succeeded | The charge succeeded and the payment is complete. |
We recommend that you rely on the charge.succeeded webhook event to notify your customer that the payment process has been completed and their order is confirmed. Refer to our best practices for more details on how to best integrate payment methods using webhooks.
Disputed payments
Unlike traditional ACH debit payments, ACH Credit Transfer payments can be reversed only within a narrow window of 5 business days for very specific reasons (see FAQ). After that a customer may request their funds back, at which point Stripe reviews each request and takes action if necessary.
Refunds
Payments made with ACH Credit Transfer can only be submitted for refund within 180 days from the date of the original charge. After 180 days, it’s no longer possible to refund the charge.
Caution
You can only make refunds to US domiciled bank accounts. If your customer’s bank account is outside the US, you must handle the refund outside of Stripe.
ACH Credit Transfer payments can be refunded through either the Dashboard or API. However, the account information to return the funds needs to be provided by the customer. By default, we automatically contact the customer at the email address provided during source creation when a refund is created. When the customer provides us with their account information, we process the refund automatically.
Some users may want to manage the collection of the refund details themselves. Refunds for ACH credit transfer require the customer’s account and routing numbers, and the account holder name. Please contact us to learn more about this option.
The refund’s initial status is pending. If it fails, the charge.refund.updated event is sent and its status changes to failed. This means that we have been unable to process the refund, and you must return the funds to your customer outside of Stripe. This is a rare occurrence and can happen if the account the refund is being sent to has been frozen. Refunds that have been completed have the status succeeded.
Testing ACH Credit Transfer payments
When creating a Source object using your test API keys, a transaction is automatically created on the source. A source.chargeable and a source.transaction.created webhook event are sent immediately.
The amount included in the test transaction defaults to 10 USD. You can customize this amount by providing an email address of amount_{CUSTOM_AMOUNT}@example.com as the value for owner[email]. For example, to create a test transaction of the amount $42.42, use amount_4242@example.com.
You can also test multiple pushes to a given source by updating the owner[email] property using the API in a similar way.
This example creates a SourceTransaction for the specified source, with the amount property set to 4242.
Source transactions
Unlike other push-based payment methods, an ACH Credit Transfer source has no required amount that your customer must send. You can instruct your customer to send any amount, and it can be made up of multiple transfers. Your customers can also send additional amounts when necessary (for example, recurring payments). As such, sources can have multiple associated transactions. After receiving a transfer from the customer of any amount, the source becomes chargeable and is ready to use.
For example, if you request your customer to send 100 USD, they can send the full amount in a single transfer or multiple transfers of smaller amounts (for example, four transfers of 25 USD). In the case of recurring payments, your customer could create a recurring transfer with their bank for a specified amount, ensuring that the source always has the correct amount of funds for you to create the necessary charge requests. If the recurring amount varies, your customer can send the correct amount whenever necessary.
When a transfer has been received, the source’s receiver[amount_received] value represents the total that has been received. receiver[amount_received] - receiver[amount_charged] gives the amount available for creating a charge with. Further transfers result in additional transactions being created, and the amount is added to the available value for receiver[amount_received].
For the purposes of a refund, the receiver[refund_attributes_status] attribute is set to available when there are available funds and the customer has provided the necessary account information.
... "receiver": { "address": "121042882-38381234567890123", "amount_received": 1000, "amount_charged": 0, "amount_returned": 0, "refund_attributes_status": "available", "refund_attributes_method": "auto" }, ...
Retrieving transaction history
You can retrieve a list of all transactions associated with a specific source using the following API request:
Each transaction is listed with the amount that the customer transferred, along with additional information about the transfer.
{ "object": "list", "url": "/v1/sources/src_18cPLvAHEMiOZZp1YBngt6En/source_transactions", "has_more": false, "data": [ { "id": "srctxn_ldfj129843jhs09u09", "object": "source_transaction", "amount": 1000, "created": 1472746608, "customer_data": "some customer defined string", "currency": "usd", "type": "ach_credit_transfer", "ach_credit_transfer": { "last4": 7890, "routing_number": "121042892", "fingerprint": "FX76YHN", }, } ], }