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Overview
Products
Issuing cards
Manage money

Testing Issuing

Learn how to test your integration and simulate purchases.

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You can issue cards and simulate purchases using your own Stripe integration in a sandbox environment. This allows you to test your integration before you go live without having to make real purchases. You can only use these cards for testing within your Stripe account and not for external purchases.

Caution

When testing your authorisation endpoint, make sure that you have set the test endpoint in your Issuing settings. You can view test data by switching into your sandbox environment.

Fund your test Issuing balance

Before you create test transactions, you must add test funds to the Issuing balance on your account. These aren’t real funds, and you can only use them for simulating test purchases.

Issuing users in the US

Issuing users in the US use “pull” funding, and use Top-ups to fund their Issuing balance. You can create test top-ups in the Dashboard, or with the Top-ups API. Learn more about funding Issuing balances for US users.

Issuing users in the UK and euro area

To top up their balance, Issuing users in the UK and Europe “push” funds using Funding Instructions. You can do this in your sandbox environment, which you access from the Dashboard, or with the Funding Instructions API. Learn more about funding Issuing balances for UK and euro area users.

Create a card
Server-side

Create a cardholder with a name, billing address, and entity type. You can also provide additional information, if necessary.

Command Line
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/issuing/cardholders \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d name="Jenny Rosen" \
  --data-urlencode email="jenny.rosen@example.com" \
  --data-urlencode phone_number="+18008675309" \
  -d status=active \
  -d type=individual \
  -d "individual[first_name]"=Jenny \
  -d "individual[last_name]"=Rosen \
  -d "individual[dob][day]"=1 \
  -d "individual[dob][month]"=11 \
  -d "individual[dob][year]"=1981 \
  -d "billing[address][line1]"="123 Main Street" \
  -d "billing[address][city]"="San Francisco" \
  -d "billing[address][state]"=CA \
  -d "billing[address][postal_code]"=94111 \
  -d "billing[address][country]"=US

Next, create a Card for the cardholder.

Command Line
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/issuing/cards \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d cardholder=
{{CARDHOLDER_ID}}
 \
  -d type=virtual \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d status=active

Create an authorisation
Server-side

An Authorisation represents a cardholder’s attempt to make a purchase on a card. You can simulate the creation of an authorisation in test-mode with the Authorisation test helpers API.

Command Line
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/test_helpers/issuing/authorizations \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d card=
{{CARD_ID}}
 \
  -d amount=1000 \
  -d authorization_method=chip \
  -d "merchant_data[category]"=taxicabs_limousines \
  -d "merchant_data[city]"="San Francisco" \
  -d "merchant_data[country]"=US \
  -d "merchant_data[name]"="Rocket Rides" \
  -d "merchant_data[network_id]"=1234567890 \
  -d "merchant_data[postal_code]"=94107 \
  -d "merchant_data[state]"=CA

After you configure real-time authorisations, Stripe sends the issuing_authorization.request webhook event. You can respond to this event directly to approve or decline it. Learn more about the real-time authorisation endpoint builder.

Capture an authorisation
Server-side

After approval, an Authorisation is in a pending state while it waits for capture. You can simulate capture of the authorisation with the API.

Command Line
curl -X POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/test_helpers/issuing/authorizations/
{{AUTHORIZATION_ID}}
/capture \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:"

This generates a new Transaction resource and the Authorisation status updates to closed.

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