Nacha compliance for online consumer purchases

Effective March 20, 2026, the National Automated Clearing House Association (Nacha) requires you to label e-commerce purchases made through ACH debits by including PURCHASE in the Company Entry Description.

An ACH debit transaction qualifies as an e-commerce purchase when it meets both of the following conditions:

• A consumer authorizes it for the online purchase of physical or digital goods.
• It uses the SEC code WEB or TEL.

This requirement doesn’t apply to purchases of services, donations, or bill payments.

Implementation guidance

Configure how Stripe classifies your ACH debit transactions in either of the following ways:

• Stripe Dashboard setting: Configure your classification setting in the Stripe Dashboard. Choose between automatically classifying transactions, classifying all transactions as goods, or not classifying any transactions as goods.
• API configuration: If you use the Payment Intents API, control classification per transaction through the transaction_purpose field. For details, see the API documentation.

Stripe Dashboard setting

Stripe provides a Stripe Dashboard setting to configure how your ACH Direct Debit transactions are classified.

Classification option

• Automatically classify transactions: Stripe determines whether each transaction represents a purchase of goods based on available signals such as business information and transaction details.
• Classify all transactions as goods: Use this option if you exclusively sell physical or digital products. Stripe classifies all your ACH transactions as purchases of goods.
• Don’t classify any transactions as goods: Use this option if you provide services, accept donations, or collect bill payments instead of selling goods.

Configure transaction classification

For ACH Direct Debit:

1. Navigate to Settings → Payment methods → ACH Direct Debit.
2. Locate ACH classification.
3. Select a classification option.

Configure transaction classification for Connect platform

If you use Connect, configure the same options in your payment method settings. When you configure your ACH classification setting in the Stripe Dashboard, that setting applies to direct charges on your platform account and to destination charges and separate charges and transfers that don’t set on_behalf_of.

Configure a transaction through the API

Use transaction_purpose in payment_method_options.us_bank_account on the Payment Intents API for transaction-level classification.

To classify an individual transaction as an e-commerce purchase, set transaction_purpose to goods.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount=100 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d customer={{CUSTOMER_ID}} \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=us_bank_account \
  -d "payment_method_data[type]"=us_bank_account \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][account_number]"=000123456789 \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][routing_number]"=110000000 \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][account_type]"=checking \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][account_holder_type]"=individual \
  -d "payment_method_data[billing_details][name]"={{CUSTOMER_NAME}} \
  -d "payment_method_options[us_bank_account][verification_method]"=microdeposits \
  -d "payment_method_options[us_bank_account][transaction_purpose]"=goods

Transactions with this transaction_purpose include PURCHASE in the company entry description.

To classify a transaction as a purchase of services or as something other than goods, set transaction_purpose to services or other.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount=100 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d customer={{CUSTOMER_ID}} \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=us_bank_account \
  -d "payment_method_data[type]"=us_bank_account \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][account_number]"=000123456789 \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][routing_number]"=110000000 \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][account_type]"=checking \
  -d "payment_method_data[us_bank_account][account_holder_type]"=individual \
  -d "payment_method_data[billing_details][name]"={{CUSTOMER_NAME}} \
  -d "payment_method_options[us_bank_account][verification_method]"=microdeposits \
  -d "payment_method_options[us_bank_account][transaction_purpose]"=services

Transactions with either transaction_purpose don’t include PURCHASE in the company entry description.

This field is optional. If you don’t provide a value, Stripe uses your ACH classification setting in the Stripe Dashboard. If you don’t configure a Stripe Dashboard setting, Stripe classifies transactions automatically based on available signals such as business information and transaction details.

For more information, see the API documentation.