Billing for a multi-entity business

Stripe requires you to have a separate account for each legal entity. Businesses might need to create different legal entities to accommodate international operations, set up financial isolation for different business units, or handle acquisitions. Use this guide to learn how to set up multiple Stripe accounts for a business that has multiple legal entities.

Multiple entities architecture

To manage multiple legal entities in a scalable way, we recommend using Stripe Connect with connected accounts that have full access to the Stripe Dashboard, where you have a platform account that serves as a single entry point, and multiple connected accounts for each line of business.

With this account configuration, each account maintains its own customers, subscriptions, and product catalogue. The platform account provides a single integration point and a single, shared API key that you can use to manage multiple connected Stripe accounts.

You create a service on your app to route customers to the right account when they check out. On the back end, your integration passes in the correct account ID to make a direct charge for the relevant connected account, which settles funds to that entity’s bank account.

Metrics and analytics

To get a consolidated view of metrics for multiple Stripe accounts, use the Stripe Data Pipeline to sync your Stripe account with an external system. You can export the data for all your accounts to your data warehouse, where you can apply analytical tools to get business insights.

Accounting reports

Use Revenue Recognition to export and consolidate accounting reports. You can also import data into a single account and get a comprehensive view that way.

Product catalogue

With direct charges, each connected account should have its own product catalogue. In the example above, the company has a separate connected account for the US and the EU, each with its own product catalogue to help maintain local prices.

Lookup keys

To efficiently manage product catalogues for connected accounts, use lookup keys. Product IDs and lookup key names only need to be unique for each connected account.

Entitlements

To correctly associate a customer with a Stripe account, store the customer ID and Stripe account ID in your database so that when you check the statuses of invoices and subscriptions for entitlements, you know you’re referencing the correct Stripe account.

Tax

If you want to report taxes as a single entity for two Stripe accounts, you can merge the tax reports of those accounts. Export the data then combine the reports in a spreadsheet or with a partner such as TaxJar or Avalara.

Revenue recovery

To enable revenue recovery, configure invoice templates, subscription lifecycles, and dunning emails for each individual Stripe account.

Payment methods

To correctly associate a customer with a Stripe account, store the customer ID and Stripe account ID in your database. Doing so means that when you check the statuses of invoices and subscriptions for entitlements, you know you’re referencing the correct Stripe account.

To transition to multiple Stripe accounts, we recommend setting up a platform account and a connected account when you first get started.

Limitations

Payment method cloning currently has the following limitations:

• You can only clone payment methods that have the type set to card or us_bank_account.
• You can’t clone payment methods from one connected account to another connected account.
• You can’t clone payment methods from a connected account to a platform account.