Ship cards

Stripe offers two options for how to ship your cards: individual and bulk.

• Individual: Each card is affixed to a carrier and shipped in an envelope addressed to the cardholder.
• Bulk: All cards issued to the same shipping address and shipment recipient name on a given day are batched together into a single box and are shipped without carriers or envelopes. There is a maximum of 2,000 cards per box. The recipient of a bulk issuance must meet all applicable PCI certification requirements. For more details, see Bulk issuance.

Select service type

Stripe offers a variety of shipping services with different cost points, shipping speeds, and tracking capabilities.

• Cards created are batched and sent to our printer for fulfillment at 6 am (UTC) the next day.

• Card orders have tracking numbers where indicated. These are available in the Dashboard 24 hours after card creation.

• You can ship card orders to any non-restricted country.

• After your card order ships, we deduct associated card fees directly from your Stripe balance. You can see all of your account’s card fees in the Dashboard.

Best practices for shipping cards

To make sure we successfully deliver your cards, follow the below recommendations. We also offer address validation features to avoid unsuccessful delivery attempts.

• Business name inclusion: Include the business name as part of address line 1 or line 2 when delivering to business addresses, especially when multiple businesses share a building.

• Apartment numbers: Always provide apartment numbers when applicable for residential addresses.

• Consignee phone number: When placing Express and Priority card orders, include a local phone number. In the event of delivery issues, the courier contacts you through this number.

• Shipping to an APO, FPO, or PO Box: When sending shipments to an army post office (APO), fleet post office (FPO), or PO Box, shipping must be through USPS.

• EORI numbers for UK and EU shipments: To expedite customs when shipping to the UK or European Union, provide an Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) reference number. The format is typically a two-letter country code followed by 12-15 numbers (for example, GB123456789123456). For bulk issuance, the EORI reference number is mandatory. For more information, see the shipping.customs.eori_number field.

• Canadian postal codes: Don’t include a space. For example, enter M5V 3L9 as M5V3L9.

• Validate the address: Use the address validation API to make sure your shipping address is deliverable.

Shipping country restrictions

You can ship a card to any country except for the following:

Update or cancel card shipments

You can update your card’s shipment even after issuing your card, including the shipping service and address, through the Dashboard and Update a card API. After the card is submitted to the third-party printer for fulfillment, you can no longer update your shipment.

You can cancel a card at any time to make it inactive and unusable. If it’s submitted to the vendor before the cancellation occurs, it’s still billed and shipped.

Bulk issuance

Stripe supports bulk issuance, allowing you to order a large number of physical cards and have them shipped to a single destination.

Before you place a bulk shipment, you must verify PCI compliance throughout the supply chain. The recipient of a bulk issuance must meet all applicable PCI certification requirements. For certain specific issuing use cases, Stripe can grant an exception that allows your business to receive its own bulk shipments. Check with your account team to confirm the recipient adheres to the appropriate PCI standards necessary for card possession.

Bulk card issuance

Stripe groups all cards with the same shipping destination that are placed on the same day into one bulk shipment.

• There’s no limit to the quantity of cards.
• If the quantity exceeds a few thousand, the shipment is split across multiple boxes.
• There is a maximum of 2,000 cards per box.
• Each box has its own tracking number.
• The bulk cost reflected in the pricing table is per box.

Select bulk issuance for a card:

1. Create a bulk-issued card: Set the shipping.type property to bulk in Create card call.
2. Track bulk shipments: After shipment of each box, Stripe updates the tracking number on the corresponding Card object. You can listen for the issuing_card.updated webhook to receive notifications when the tracking numbers are assigned.