Relink Financial Connections accounts used for payments or payouts.Public preview

Reactivate inactive accounts to retrieve data, reactivate tokenized account numbers, and update data permissions.

Your customers might need to reauthorize a previously linked Financial Connections account for multiple reasons, such as reactivating an account to restore data access or refreshing deactivated tokenized account numbers.

When using Financial Connections accounts to verify bank account details for payments or payouts, configure a relink session to collect a single eligible account. You can:

Relink a specific Financial Connections account
Relink any eligible Financial Connections account at the same institution

Understand when an account becomes inactive
Server-side

Your customer’s linked Financial Connections Accounts might become inactive for several reasons, including:

The OAuth token provided to Stripe by their financial institution expires after a set period of time or because of inactivity.
The financial institution changes their authentication requirements, such as requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA), or the customer changes their username and password.
The customer revokes access through their online banking portal.
The customer closes their account at their financial institution.

We notify you when a Financial Connections Account becomes inactive with the financial_connections.account.deactivated webhook. Inactive Financial Connections Accounts include additional status metadata in the status_details.inactive subhash.

You can’t repair every underlying cause for an inactive account. For example, you can’t repair a closed account unless your customer reopens it. Accounts that you can’t repair have a status_details.inactive.action of none.

You can retrieve a Financial Connections Account at any time to check its status.

The status_details.inactive.cause property includes a high-level reason why a Financial Connections Account is inactive. For example, when an account’s OAuth connection expires, its status is access_expired.
The status_details.inactive.action property includes the action to take, if any, to reactivate the account. If your customer can reactivate the account by completing a relink authentication flow, its status is relink_required.

When status_details.inactive.action is relink_required, prompt your customer to complete the authentication flow to reactivate the account.

For example, you might create a webhook handler like the one below to process webhook events:

The status and status_details of an account are also available when you retrieve a Financial Connections Account.

{
  "id": "{{ACCOUNT_ID}}"
,
  "object": "financial_connections.account",
  //...,
  "authorization": "{{AUTHORIZATION_ID}}"
,
  "status": "inactive",
  "status_details": {
    "inactive": {
      "action": "relink_required",
      "cause": "access_expired"
    }
  }
}

Relink a specific Financial Connections account
Server-sideClient-side

Create a relink session that specifies relink_options.authorization and relink_options.account that requires your customer to pick the Financial Connections account identified by relink_options.account in the authentication flow. The session succeeds with a linked account only if your customer relinks that exact account. Resources created using the existing Financial Connections account automatically update with the relinked account details, including new tokenized account numbers. If your integration doesn’t require the same account, you can allow your customer to link a new account at the same institution.

Create a Financial Connections session and specify the following:

Set account_holder to the same value of the Financial Connections account’s account_holder field. If you have a two-step confirmation flow or collect payment details before creating an Intent, the Financial Connections account won’t have an account_holder. In this case, set account_holder to null when creating the session.
Set the data permissions parameter to include payment_method, and any data you want to retrieve on the account. The permissions parameter is an array containing values, which might include any of payment_method, balances, ownership, or transactions. To protect the privacy of your user’s data, you can only access the data you specified in the permissions parameter. Carefully consider the data required to fulfill your use case, and request permission to access only the data you require. When completing the authentication flow, your user sees the data you specified from the permissions parameter, and provides their consent to share this data. The following code example demonstrates how to collect balances and payment_method.
Set the relink_options.authorization parameter to the same value as the Financial Connections account’s authorization ID.

Set the relink_options.account parameter to the Financial Connections account’s ID.

This request returns a response similar to the following:

{
  "id": "fcsess_abcd",
  "object": "financial_connections.session",
  "livemode": true,
  "account_holder": {
    "customer": "cus_NfjonN9919dELB",
    "type": "customer"
  },
  "accounts": [],
  "client_secret": "fcsess_client_secret_UsESkKYzeiRcivgDJZfxZRFh",
  "filters": {
    "account_subcategories": ["checking", "savings"]
  },
  "limits": {
    "accounts": 1
  },
  "permissions": ["payment_method", "balances"],
  "relink_options": {
    "authorization": "{{AUTHORIZATION_ID}}",
    "account": "{{ACCOUNT_ID}}"
  }
}

Use the returned client_secret with client-side Stripe SDKs to allow your user to relink their account. A client_secret allows client-side Stripe SDKs to make changes to the Financial Connections session. Don’t store it, log it, embed it in URLs, or expose it to anyone other than your end user. Make sure that you have TLS enabled on any page that includes the client secret.

In Stripe.js, use collectFinancialConnectionsAccounts to collect an account. The return value of collectFinancialConnectionsAccounts is a Promise. When the user completes the authentication flow, the Promise resolves with an object that contains a relink_result sub-object. If successful, it also contains the list of relinked accounts.

const {financialConnectionsSession, error} = await stripe.collectFinancialConnectionsAccounts({ clientSecret: "fcsess_client_secret_UsESkKYzeiRcivgDJZfxZRFh" });

if (financialConnectionsSession) {
  if (financialConnectionsSession.relink_result.account) {
    // relink successful
    const relinkedAccount = financialConnectionsSession.accounts[0];
  } else {
    switch (financialConnectionsSession.relink_result.failure_reason) {
      case 'no_account':
        // user successfully authenticated with their bank, but did not link the expected account
        break;
      case 'no_authorization':
        // user did not successfully authenticate with their bank
        break;
      case 'other':
        // unexpected failure
        break;
    }
  }
}

Your customer might authenticate with their financial institution successfully, but see an error in the Financial Connections authentication flow. In this case, relink_result.account isn’t set because we can’t match the selected account to the account given in relink_options.account. When this happens, we suggest either:

Asking your customer to set up a new payment method or external bank account.
Asking your customer to try again using a Financial Connections session that allows any eligible account at the same institution.

OptionalRelink any eligible Financial Connections account at the same institution
Server-sideClient-side

The relink_options.account parameter used in the previous section requires the customer to link a specific Financial Connections account. If the customer links a different account, they see an error message in the authentication flow.

You can instead create a relink session using only relink_options.authorization. This asks your customer to authenticate at the same institution as the authorization, without requiring them to select a particular account. Use filters.account_subcategories to specify that your customer can only select checking or savings accounts, and use limits.accounts to limit them to select a single account.

If your customer selects an existing Financial Connections account, its status, permissions, and account_numbers are updated. Resources created using the existing Financial Connections account automatically update with the relinked account details, including new tokenized account numbers. If your customer links a new account, you can use it to create a payment method. Existing payment methods are not updated automatically when a new account is selected in the relink authentication flow.

To allow your customer to link one payments- or payouts-eligible Financial Connections account at the same institution as their inactive account:

Create a Financial Connections session with relink_options.authorization set to the Financial Connections authorization ID you want to repair, limits.accounts set to 1 and filters.account_subcategories set to ["checking", "savings"]

Use the returned client_secret with client-side Stripe SDKs to allow your user to relink their account. A client_secret allows client-side Stripe SDKs to make changes to the Financial Connections session. Don’t store it, log it, embed it in URLs, or expose it to anyone other than your end user. Make sure that you have TLS enabled on any page that includes the client secret.
In Stripe.js, use collectFinancialConnectionsAccounts to collect an account. The return value of collectFinancialConnectionsAccounts is a Promise. When the user completes the authentication flow, the Promise resolves with an object that contains a relink_result sub-object. If successful, it also contains the list of relinked accounts.

Pass a list of linked accounts to the client-side to determine whether the customer linked a new account in the relink authentication flow.

// Fetch existing accounts, or embed them in the server-rendered HTML
const existingAccountIds = await fetchExistingAccounts();

const {financialConnectionsSession, error} = await stripe.collectFinancialConnectionsAccounts({
  clientSecret: "fcsess_client_secret_UsESkKYzeiRcivgDJZfxZRFh"
});

const linkedAccount = financialConnectionsSession?.accounts?.[0]

if (linkedAccount) {
  const isNew = existingAccountIds.includes(linkedAccount.id);
} else {
  // user linked no accounts
}

We recommend allowing a customer to link a new account to handle the following edge cases when passing relink_options.account:

Stripe sometimes doesn’t recognize any of the accounts available after the customer authenticates with their financial institution. When this happens and relink_options.account is set, the authentication flow shows an error message. When only relink_options.authorization is set, the customer can choose from the available accounts and proceed with the account linking flow.
In OAuth flows, the customer can select a different account than the one initially linked in their financial institution’s OAuth modal.

OptionalCreate a payment method
Server-sideClient-side

Relink sessions that don’t specify relink_options.account might create new Financial Connections accounts. When this happens, payment methods created from existing Financial Connections accounts won’t be updated.

Use a SetupIntent to create a PaymentMethod using the Financial Connections account. Set the customer property to the same value as the Financial Connections account’s account_holder.customer. If your Financial Connections account doesn’t have an account_holder value, don’t set the customer property.

This creates a SetupIntent with a status of requires_confirmation. Show your customer an ACH mandate and use a Stripe client library to confirm the SetupIntent and collect mandate data.

// server-rendered HTML
<form id="confirmation-form" data-secret="seti_..._secret_...">
  <!-- mandate agreement text -->
  <button type="submit">Agree</button>
</form>



// client-side JS
const confirmationForm = document.getElementById('confirmation-form');

const acceptMandate = async (ev) => {
  // prevent default form submission behavior, and duplicate form submissions
  ev.preventDefault();
  confirmationForm.setAttribute('disabled', true);

  try {
    const clientSecret = ev.target.dataset.secret;

    await stripe.confirmUsBankAccountSetup(clientSecret).then(({setupIntent, error}) => {
      if (setupIntent) {
        // setupIntent was confirmed, and its payment_method is ready to use
      } else {
        // inspect error to determine what went wrong
      }
    });
  } finally {
    confirmationForm.removeAttribute('disabled');
  }
}

confirmationForm.addEventListener('submit', acceptMandate);

OptionalRetrieve a Financial Connections authorization

Financial Connections accounts have an authorization property that corresponds to a Financial Connections authorization resource. The authorization resource describes the overall status of the data connection for all accounts on the authorization. When several accounts reference the same authorization, relinking one account might reactivate other accounts on the same authorization. This is expected, and only affects your integration if you:

Have a webhook endpoint that listens to financial_connections.account.reactivated events.
Have business logic that assumes a relink session which requires the user to select a single account will reactivate exactly one account.

Retrieve an authorization to see its status:

{
  "id": "{{AUTHORIZATION_ID}}"
,
  "object": "financial_connections.authorization",
  "account_holder": {
    "customer": "cus_TnvzdXv6VwjyrN",
    "type": "customer"
  },
  "institution": "fcinst_Qn1a6jqpI0Gb84",
  "institution_name": "StripeBank",
  "livemode": false,
  "status": "active",
  "status_details": {}
}

Testing

Follow the testing guide to learn how to connect a test bank account through Financial Connections. To test with a deactivated account, search for the Inactive accounts institution in the authentication flow, and connect any of the provided bank accounts. To test tokenized account number refresh behavior, search for the Tokenized Account Numbers institution in the authentication flow, and connect any of the provided bank accounts.

Relink Financial Connections accounts used for payments or payouts.Public preview

Reactivate inactive accounts to retrieve data, reactivate tokenized account numbers, and update data permissions.

Understand when an account becomes inactiveServer-side

Relink a specific Financial Connections accountServer-sideClient-side

OptionalRelink any eligible Financial Connections account at the same institutionServer-sideClient-side