Partial authorisation

Use partial authorisations to request approval for a portion of the originally requested amount for a card transaction when the available balance is insufficient to cover the full amount. This allows your customers to use the available balance on their card (such as a debit card), then use an alternative payment method to pay the remaining balance.

Before you begin

First, decide how you want to handle the portion of the originally requested amount that isn’t covered by the partial authorisation. You can create a separate PaymentIntent for another form of payment, cancel the entire PaymentIntent, or capture only up to the partially authorised amount. Make sure you clearly communicate with your customer about how you’re proceeding with the transaction and any potential impact on them.

Availability

Partial authorisations have the following restrictions:

• You can only use partial authorisations for online card payments.
• Only Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Amex support partial authorisations.
• The issuer and card type determine whether they’re supported.
• Due to network restrictions, you can’t capture more than the authorised amount using overcapture if a transaction amount has been partially authorised.
• If you process charges on behalf of your Connect account using a transfer_amount, Stripe limits it to the partially authorised amount when the transfer_amount is greater than the partially authorised amount.
• Stripe enforces a minimum charge amount on partially authorised charges, declining any PaymentIntent that falls short.

Use manual capture to create and confirm PaymentIntents

To enable partial authorisation for specific PaymentIntents, set if_available to the request_partial_authorization parameter.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount=10000 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d payment_method=pm_card_debit_partialAuthorization \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=card \
  -d "payment_method_options[card][request_partial_authorization]"=if_available \
  -d capture_method=manual \
  -d confirm=true \
  -d "expand[]"=latest_charge

Verify partial authorisation status

Review the payment_method_details field on the latest_charge in the PaymentIntent confirmation response to determine whether the networks applied partial authorisation for the payment:

• partial_authorization.status: Displays one of the following authorisation statuses: partially_authorized, fully_authorized, declined, or not_requested.
• amount_requested: Confirms your originally specified request amount.
• amount_authorized: Determines the authorised amount.

The example response below shows that the transaction is partially authorised for 70 USD, which is less than the originally requested 100 USD.

{
  "id": "pi_foo",
  "amount": 7000,
  "amount_capturable": 7000,
  "amount_received": 0,
  "capture_method": "manual",
  ...
  // if latest_charge is expanded
  "latest_charge": {
    "id": "ch_foo",
    "object": "charge",
    "amount": 7000,
    "captured": false,
    "payment_method_details": {
      "card": {
        "amount_authorized": 7000,
        "amount_requested": 10000,
        "partial_authorization": {
          "status": "partially_authorized",
        }
      }
    }
  },
  ...
  "status": "requires_capture"
}

If the card issuer declines the authorisation, this response returns a card_declined error.

Capture the partially authorised PaymentIntent

You can capture an authorised PaymentIntent up to the amount (or amount_capturable) that’s returned in the confirmation response.

curl -X POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents/pi_foo/capture \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:"

A successful capture returns the PaymentIntent object with updated fields:

{
  "id": "pi_foo",
  "amount": 7000,
  "amount_capturable": 0,
  "amount_received": 7000,
  "capture_method": "manual",
  "latest_charge": "ch_foo",
  ...
  "status": "succeeded",
}

Test your integration

To trigger a partial authorisation while testing, use the partial authorisation Stripe test card with any CVC, postal code, and future expiry date. Make sure you set request_partial_authorization to if_available to trigger partial authorisation with the test card.