Add funds to your Stripe balance

To maintain stability in your business when your account has a negative balance or when you expect an increase in customer refunds or disputes, you can add funds directly to your Stripe balance using a wire or bank transfer.

Payment method availability

In several markets, funds are added to a Stripe VBAN (which helps reconciliation speed) using a local bank credit transfer. These include: AMER (United States), EMEA (United Kingdom, EUR Currency markets) and APAC (Japan).

In other markets, funds are added using a wire transfer, which follows slightly different times and processes. Only wire transfers are available in the following regions and countries: AMER (Canada), EMEA (Non-EUR Currency markets: BG, CZ, HU, LI, GI, RO), APAC (AU, NZ, SG, HK, IN, TH, MY), and LatAm (BR, MX). Stripe VBAN isn’t available in these regions and countries.

Selecting where to add funds

Payments balance

In the US, UK, and JP, you can add funds directly to the payments balance. We recommend this option for most businesses because it avoids transiting funds through a separate balance.

For businesses using automatic payouts, funds added to the payments balance in excess of the minimum balance are paid out in the next payout. You can configure your payout schedule and minimum balance settings in your Payout settings.

Refunds and disputes balance

You can also add funds to the Future refunds or disputes balance (refund_and_dispute_prefunding), which is a separate balance. These funds are never included in an automatic payout, but you can initiate a manual payout at any time.

Stripe first attempts to process refunds and disputes from your available payments balance. If your payments balance is insufficient, Stripe uses these reserved funds. If these reserved funds are also insufficient, then your payments balance might go negative.

Add funds

This section outlines the steps to send funds from your bank using the Dashboard to add them to your Stripe balance.

Before you send funds

1. Go to the Balances page and click Add to balance.
2. Select a balance to add funds to and specify the amount.
3. Choose whether to use a wire or local bank transfer, review the necessary Stripe bank information for the transfer, then click Done.
4. Open your banking portal and initiate the transfer from your bank account.
5. If you’re sending funds from a country that uses wire transfers, make sure that you include your Stripe unique reference code in the transfer memo to avoid delays in settling the funds to your account.

After you send funds

1. After your bank has sent the funds, navigate back to the Balances page, and click Add to balance.
2. If the modal prompts you for a receipt, upload a screenshot or document that confirms your bank transferred the funds. To fund your Stripe balance faster, you might need to provide a screenshot or PDF of your bank’s transfer or wire confirmation.
3. Click Confirm transfer.

View your funds

After Stripe receives the funds, we show the added funds in the Balances page.

You also receive a balance.available webhook. The following example event shows a balance snapshot with details of refund_and_dispute_prefunding balances:

{
  "id": "{{EVENT_ID}}",
  "object": "event",
  "type": "balance.available",
  "data": {
    "object": {
      "object": "balance",
      //...
      "available": [
        {
          "amount": 1000,
          "currency": "usd",
          "source_types" : {
            "bank_account": 100,
            "card": 900,
          },
        },
        {
          "amount": 0,
          "currency": "eur",
          "source_types" : {
            "bank_account": 0,
            "card": 0,
          },
        }
      ],
      "pending": [
        //...
      ],
      "refund_and_dispute_prefunding": {
        "available": [
          {
            "amount": 1000,
            "currency": "usd",
          },
          {
            "amount": 0,
            "currency": "eur",
          }
        ],
        "pending": [
          {
            "amount": 1000,
            "currency": "usd",
          },
          {
            "amount": 0,
            "currency": "eur",
          }
        ],
      }
      // ...
    }
  }
}

Settlement timing

This table provides the expected timing for fund settlement based on the region and payment transfer method, and can help you understand how long it typically takes for payments to process.