# India recurring payments

Learn how to update an integration to support RBI e-mandates.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a [directive](https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=11668) (amended subsequently in [December 2020](https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=12002) and [March 2021](https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=12051&Mode=0)) that introduces additional security measures for recurring payments on India issued cards. These measures include:

- Banks need to register cardholders and create an *e-mandate* (An e-mandate is a form of authorization provided by cardholders to issuing banks that grants permission for recurring payments on their card. Any recurring payment arrangements (for example, monthly subscriptions to OTT services) need an associated e-mandate to be successful. The e-mandate needs to be registered and then validated through AFA, such as 3DS) through a one-time process, using additional factor authentication (AFA) like *3D Secure (3DS)* (3D Secure (3DS) provides an additional layer of authentication for credit card transactions that protects businesses from liability for fraudulent card payments).
- Banks must alert cardholders at least 24 hours before charges take place and give them the ability to opt out of transactions.
- Recurring transactions over 15,000 INR (or equivalent in other currencies) must go through AFA each time.

If you’re an India-based Stripe user or an international (non-IN) Stripe user, your business is impacted if you have customers who use India cards for:

- *Off-session* (A payment is described as off-session if it occurs without the direct involvement of the customer, using previously-collected payment information) payments
- Subscriptions or Invoices where the `collection_method` is set to `charge_automatically`

## How payments work with an e-mandate 

Stripe has worked with a partner platform to support registering e-mandates and issuing pre-debit notifications to customers.

> We don’t currently offer the use of e-mandates to Stripe users in Mexico.

Depending on how you’ve integrated with Stripe, you might need to send Stripe additional information to set up a mandate. The customer must go through AFA (3DS) to register the mandate.

Subsequent off-session payments or auto-debits for a Subscription undergo a significant change. Customers need to receive a pre-debit notification at least 24 hours before the actual payment with the exact debit amount mentioned. The pre-debit notification contains information about the payment and an option to cancel the mandate. If the payment amount is above 15,000 INR or the mandate’s maximum amount, the pre-debit notification contains a link to perform AFA (3DS) to authorize the payment.

Because Stripe is integrating with a partner platform, we wait 26 hours before charging the customer after receiving a payment request (we add a buffer for possible downstream issues, which necessitates the 26 hours advance notification). This means that Stripe delays collecting payment by 26 hours.

Without a mandate for an off-session payment, the payment will be declined.

## Integration

The RBI regulations impact Subscriptions that use `collection_method=charge_automatically` to charge India issued cards.

> Stripe doesn’t support e-mandates for India recurring payments with `PaymentIntents` or `SetupIntents`. To manage mandates for recurring payments, use Subscriptions, as described below.

### Subscription creation  

#### Custom code

When creating a new Subscription with the API,

- If you have a default payment method set, the Subscription uses the latest SetupIntent on the payment method, and attempts to find a corresponding mandate.
- If no mandate is in place, Stripe automatically attempts to create one even if you don’t pass in the relevant parameters in [mandate_options](https://docs.stripe.com/api/subscriptions/create.md#create_subscription-payment_settings-payment_method_options-card-mandate_options). The customer then needs to authenticate the payment.

#### Stripe-hosted page

If you’re using Stripe [Checkout](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/checkout.md) with `mode=subscription` or [Payment Links](https://docs.stripe.com/payment-links.md) to allow customers to sign up for a Subscription, Stripe automatically creates a mandate by taking the relevant parameters from the Subscription. You can’t customize mandate parameters.

To learn how to create a new Subscription, see [Build a subscriptions integration](https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/build-subscriptions.md).

### Subscription Revenue Recovery  

Stripe provides a number of automated recovery features to help collect payments that might’ve been unsuccessful. If you want to handle these payment failures on your own, refer to [Build your own handling for recurring charge failures](https://docs.stripe.com/india-recurring-payments.md#handle-recurring-charge-failures) for guidance. Otherwise, some recommendations are listed below.

> Payments from India issued cards are attempted only once. This behavior is independent of your payment retry settings. If the payment from an India issued card fails, your Subscription and Invoice status will still be updated based on what you configured in your [Subscriptions and emails settings](https://dashboard.stripe.com/settings/billing/automatic) for “If all retries for a payment fail”.

#### 3D Secure emails 

If a mandate doesn’t exist on the default payment method during Subscription renewals or updates, Stripe attempts to create a new one. To register the mandate, the customer needs to complete AFA (3DS). Enable the [Subscriptions and emails settings](https://dashboard.stripe.com/settings/billing/automatic) to `Send a Stripe-hosted link for customers to confirm their payments when required` so that customers can be brought back on-session to complete authentication if required.

> Stripe doesn’t attempt to create a new mandate if the current mandate used by the Subscription is `inactive`.

#### Manage failed payments 

We recommend enabling notifications to your customers if their Subscription payments fail and their Subscription is paused. Stripe can send emails to customers to update failed card payment methods if you enable it in the [Subscriptions and emails settings](https://dashboard.stripe.com/settings/billing/automatic).

### Mandate creation 

If you rely on Stripe to automatically create the mandate, the mandate details are returned in the Invoice’s underlying PaymentIntent and corresponding Charge, or the SetupIntent if you’re creating the Subscription with a trial.

Stripe doesn’t return a mandate ID if any of the following is true:

- A card isn’t an India issued card.
- The currency for the mandate isn’t supported by either the issuer or for the Stripe account’s country.
- The India issued card is neither Visa nor Mastercard. Stripe only supports mandates for these two card brands.

Stripe supports INR mandates for all businesses. The following currencies are supported only for international (non-IN) businesses:

- AUD
- USD
- EUR
- GBP
- SGD
- CAD
- CHF
- SEK
- AED
- JPY
- NOK
- MYR
- HKD

There are over 100 issuing banks in India and the process of fully adapting to the new requirements is expected to take some time. An issuer might not support e-mandates for a particular currency yet. If so, Stripe doesn’t return a mandate ID.

If your customer initiates a subscription with [Adaptive Pricing](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/currencies/localize-prices/adaptive-pricing.md), and mandates support the selected currency, Stripe automatically creates an e-mandate in that currency.

### Mandate status and troubleshooting 

If Stripe can’t create a mandate, you can suggest using a different card, or you can offer alternative options such as setting [collection_method](https://docs.stripe.com/api/subscriptions/object.md#subscription_object-collection_method) as `send_invoice` for the Subscription instead.

Also, a previously active mandate can become inactive, for instance if the customer cancels it. In that case, the mandate becomes `inactive` and Stripe sends a `mandate.updated` event.

For more information on receiving webhooks, see [Steps to receive webhooks](https://docs.stripe.com/webhooks.md#webhooks-summary).

### Subscription updates  

The pre-debit notification that the bank sends tells the cardholder, at minimum, about the name of the business, the transaction amount, the date or time of the debit, the reference number of the mandate, and the reason for debit. Make sure that your mandate details match what you’re actually debiting the customer for to avoid confusion or declines.

If you depend on Stripe to automatically create mandates for your Subscription and want to update a Subscription, we recommend that you bring the customer back on-session to cancel the original Subscription. Doing so creates a new subscription in the following scenarios, and creates a new mandate that reflects the Subscription details accurately:

- Changes to the billing interval of a Subscription
- Upgrades to a Subscription where the customer wants to avoid having to authorize the payment each renewal. For context, Stripe creates the mandate with `amount_type=maximum` by default. A customer can still be charged more than the maximum amount with `amount_type=maximum`. However, the customer must authorize payments for amounts more than the `mandate_options[amount]` or 15,000 INR (whichever is less).

Examples:

- If you have `amount_type=maximum`, `amount=100000`, the customer would need to authenticate for amounts over 1,000 INR.
- If you have `amount=2000000`, the customer would need to authenticate for amounts over 15,000 INR.

### Pre-debit notification  

When the off-session PaymentIntent is [confirmed](https://docs.stripe.com/api/payment_intents/confirm.md), the issuing bank sends the customer the pre-debit notification. The PaymentIntent transitions to a `processing` state for the entire duration of the pre-debit notification period (26 hours) and can’t be canceled.

```json
{
  "object": "payment_intent",
  ...
  "processing": {
    "card": {
      "customer_notification": {
        "approval_requested": true,
        "completes_at": 1677307005
      }
    },
    "type": "card"
  },
  ...
  "status": "processing",
  ...
}
```

If [processing.card.customer_notification.approval_requested](https://docs.stripe.com/api/payment_intents/object.md#payment_intent_object-processing-card-customer_notification-approval_requested) is `true`, the customer needs to authenticate the payment using the pre-debit notification sent to them by the issuing bank.

The [processing.card.customer_notification.completes_at](https://docs.stripe.com/api/payment_intents/object.md#payment_intent_object-processing-card-customer_notification-completes_at) attribute specifies the time that the Stripe attempts to charge the card. If successfully processing the payment requires customer approval, they need to authenticate the payment by the specified time.

### Error and decline codes  

We return error [codes](https://docs.stripe.com/api/payment_intents/object.md#payment_intent_object-last_payment_error-decline_code) for the following scenarios:

| Error code                                 | Description                                                                                                                                                   |
| ------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `payment_intent_mandate_invalid`           | Attempting a recurring payment using an inactive mandate returns this code. You can prevent this by checking the mandate status before attempting to charge.  |
| `india_recurring_payment_mandate_canceled` | Attempting a recurring payment using a canceled mandate returns this code. This can happen when we only learn that a mandate has been canceled at this point. |
| `processing_error`                         | Discovery of a (usually transient) processing error returns this code.                                                                                        |

In the context of e-mandates, certain [decline codes](https://docs.stripe.com/api/payment_intents/object.md#payment_intent_object-last_payment_error-decline_code) have potentially more specific explanations than [in general scenarios](https://docs.stripe.com/declines/codes.md):

| Decline code               | Description                                                                                                                                                       |
| -------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `transaction_not_approved` | Attempting a subsequent payment when the customer has paused permissions to auto-debit, or doesn’t authenticate the payment when it’s required returns this code. |

## Testing 

You can use these [test card numbers](https://docs.stripe.com/testing.md#testing-interactively) to simulate different scenarios.

In a *sandbox* (A sandbox is an isolated test environment that allows you to test Stripe functionality in your account without affecting your live integration. Use sandboxes to safely experiment with new features and changes), it takes approximately 15 minutes for an off-session PaymentIntent to transition out of the `processing` state. The on-session PaymentIntent for an initial payment never enters the `processing` state.

#### Card numbers

| Number           | Scenario                                                                                                                                                  |
| ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 4000003560000123 | Simulates successful mandate setup and renewals.                                                                                                          |
| 4000003560000297 | Simulates a cardholder receiving a pre-debit notification for an off-session payment either canceling or pausing the payment for a mandate of any amount. |
| 4000003560000248 | Simulates the issuing bank’s failure to send a pre-debit notification to the cardholder during off-session payment for a mandate of any amount.           |
| 4000003560000263 | Simulates a cardholder canceling a mandate of any amount.                                                                                                 |

#### PaymentMethods

| PaymentMethod                                                      | Scenario                                                                                                                                                  |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `pm_card_indiaRecurringMandateSetupAndRenewalsSuccess`             | Simulates successful mandate setup and renewals.                                                                                                          |
| `pm_card_indiaRecurringPaymentFailureAfterPreDebitNotification`    | Simulates a cardholder receiving a pre-debit notification for an off-session payment either canceling or pausing the payment for a mandate of any amount. |
| `pm_card_indiaRecurringPaymentFailureUndeliveredDebitNotification` | Simulates the issuing bank’s failure to send a pre-debit notification to the cardholder during off-session payment for a mandate of any amount.           |
| `pm_card_indiaRecurringPaymentFailureCanceledMandate`              | Simulates a cardholder canceling a mandate of any amount.                                                                                                 |

## Limitations 

Keep in mind the following limitations:

- Stripe attempts to automatically create mandates only on Subscriptions created after October 1, 2021. If you have a Subscription created before then, cancel and create a new Subscription to make sure a mandate is created.
- You can’t create a mandate using the [Charges](https://docs.stripe.com/api/charges.md) and [Sources](https://docs.stripe.com/api/sources.md) APIs.
- For Subscriptions with a non-INR currency, mandates are only registered if an India payment method is attached to the Customer at the time of Subscription creation. If you create a non-INR Subscription without a Payment Method and later add an India card, no mandate will be created. To ensure proper mandate creation, attach an India credit card before creating the Subscription.
- You can’t pass an existing mandate to a Subscription.
- You can’t cancel or update a mandate.