Accept an ACH Direct Debit payment

By default, ACH Direct Debit payments allow your customers to use instant bank account verification or microdeposits. You can optionally require instant bank account verification only using the payment_method_options[us_bank_account][verification_method] parameter when you create the Checkout session.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/checkout/sessions \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d mode=payment \
  -d customer={{CUSTOMER_ID}} \
  -d "payment_method_types[0]"=card \
  -d "payment_method_types[1]"=us_bank_account \
  -d "payment_method_options[us_bank_account][verification_method]"=instant \
  -d "payment_method_options[us_bank_account][financial_connections][permissions][0]"=payment_method \
  -d "line_items[0][price_data][currency]"=usd \
  -d "line_items[0][price_data][unit_amount]"=2000 \
  -d "line_items[0][price_data][product_data][name]"=T-shirt \
  -d "line_items[0][quantity]"=1 \
  --data-urlencode success_url="https://example.com/success" \
  --data-urlencode cancel_url="https://example.com/cancel"

You can only access Financial Connections data if you request additional data permissions when you create your PaymentIntent .

After your customer successfully completes the Checkout flow, the us_bank_account PaymentMethod returned includes a financial_connections_account ID that points to a Financial Connections Account. Use this ID to access account data.

To determine the Financial Connections account ID, retrieve the Checkout Session and expand the payment_intent.payment_method attribute:

curl -G https://api.stripe.com/v1/checkout/sessions/
{{SESSION_ID}} \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d "expand[]"="payment_intent.payment_method"

{
  "id": "{{CHECKOUT_SESSION_ID}}",
  "object": "checkout.session",
  // ...
  "payment_intent": {
    "id": "{{PAYMENT_INTENT_ID}}",
    "object": "payment_intent",
    // ...
    "payment_method": {
      "id": "{{PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}}",
      // ...
      "type": "us_bank_account",
      "us_bank_account": {
        "account_holder_type": "individual",
        "account_type": "checking",
        "bank_name": "TEST BANK",
        "financial_connections_account": "{{FINANCIAL_CONNECTIONS_ACCOUNT_ID}}",
        "fingerprint": "q9qchffggRjlX2tb",
        "last4": "6789",
        "routing_number": "110000000"
      }
    }
    // ...
  }
}

Learn more about using additional account data to optimize your ACH integration with Financial Connections.

Customers can generally dispute an ACH Direct Debit payment through their bank for up to 60 calendar days after a debit on a personal account, or up to 2 business days for a business account. In rare instances, a customer might be able to successfully dispute a debit payment outside these standard dispute timelines.

When a customer disputes a payment, Stripe sends a charge.dispute.closed webhook event, and the PaymentMethod authorization is revoked.

In rare situations, Stripe might receive an ACH failure from the bank after a PaymentIntent has transitioned to succeeded. If this happens, Stripe creates a dispute with a reason of:

• insufficient_funds
• incorrect_account_details
• bank_can't_process

Stripe charges a failure fee in this situation.

Future payments reusing this PaymentMethod return the following error:

{
  "error": {
    "message": "This PaymentIntent requires a mandate, but no existing mandate was found. Collect mandate acceptance from the customer and try again, providing acceptance data in the mandate_data parameter.",
    "payment_intent": {
      ...
    }
    "type": "invalid_request_error"
  }
}

This error contains a PaymentIntent in the requires_confirmation state. To continue with the payment, you must:

1. Resolve the dispute with the customer to ensure future payments will not be disputed.
2. Confirm authorization from your customer again.

To confirm authorization for the payment, you can collect mandate acknowledgement from your customer online with Stripe.js or confirm authorization with your customer offline using the Stripe API.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents/{{PAYMENT_INTENT_ID}}/confirm \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d "mandate_data[customer_acceptance][type]"=offline

The payment reference number is a bank-generated value that allows the bank account owner to use their bank to locate funds. When the payment succeeds, Stripe provides the payment reference number in the Dashboard and inside the Charge object.

In addition, when you receive the charge.succeeded webhook, view the content of payment_method_details to locate the payment_reference.

The following example event shows the rendering of a successful ACH payment with a payment reference number.

{
  "id": "{{EVENT_ID}}",
  "object": "event",
  // omitted some fields in the example
  "type": "charge.succeeded",
  "data": {
    "object": {
      "id": "{{PAYMENT_ID}}",
      "object": "charge",
      //...
    "paid": true,
    "payment_intent": "{{PAYMENT_INTENT_ID}}",
    "payment_method": "{{PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}}",
    "payment_method_details": {
      "type": "us_bank_account",
      "us_bank_account": {
        "account_holder_type": "individual",
        "account_type": "checking",
        "bank_name": "TEST BANK",
        "fingerprint": "Ih3foEnRvLXShyfB",
        "last4": "1000",
        "payment_reference": "091000015001234",
        "routing_number": "110000000"
        }
      }
      // ...
    }
  }
}

View the contents of the destination_details to locate the refund reference associated with the refunded ACH payments.

The following example event shows the rendering of a successful ACH refund with a refund reference number. Learn more about refunds.

{
  "id": "{{EVENT_ID}}",
  "object": "event",
  "type": "charge.refund.updated",
  "data": {
    "object": {
      "id": "{{REFUND_ID}}",
      "object": "refund",
      //...
    "payment_intent": "{{PAYMENT_INTENT_ID}}",
    "destination_details": {
      "type": "us_bank_transfer",
      "us_bank_transfer": {
        "reference": "091000015001111",
        "reference_status": "available"
        }
      }
      // ...
    }
  }
}

You can control the date that Stripe debits a customer’s bank account using the target date. The target date must be at least three days in the future and no more than 15 days from the current date.

The target date schedules money to leave the customer’s account on the target date. You can cancel a PaymentIntent created with a target date up to three business days before the configured date.

Target dates that meet one of the following criteria delay the debit until next available business day:

• Target date falls on a weekend, a bank holiday, or other non-business day.
• Target date is fewer than three business days in the future.

This parameter operates on a best-effort basis. Each customer’s bank might process debits on different dates, depending on local bank holidays or other reasons.