Collect on-receipt tips
Learn how to allow customers to add tips to receipts.
Some business types allow customers to add a tip to a transaction after authorizing the card. This is most common for businesses in the dining and hospitality space (for example, a restaurant or bar), where a customer can add a tip onto the receipt.
In the US, after you confirm a PaymentIntent, you can collect a tip by capturing more than the authorised amount. This is known as over-capture. After you capture the PaymentIntent, your customer sees the full captured amount reflected on their statement.
To collect a tip, you must create and confirm a PaymentIntent following the steps outlined in collecting in-person payments. You can verify that a given PaymentIntent is eligible for over-capture by accessing overcapture_supported.
Next, capture more than the authorised amount by providing an amount_to_capture that’s equal to the sum of the confirmed PaymentIntent and tip amount.
Over-capturing updates the PaymentIntent amount to reflect the new total, inclusive of the tip. This doesn’t result in an additional authorisation, so your customer won’t see any immediate updates on their credit card statement. To see the original amount authorised, use the amount_authorized field in the PaymentIntent’s underlying Charge object.
Limits
You can over-capture up to 50% of the PaymentIntent’s authorised amount
, or 50 USD, whichever is greater. For example, if your PaymentIntent’s authorised amount
is 40 USD, you can capture up to 90 USD; if your PaymentIntent’s amount
is 100 USD, you can capture up to 150 USD.
If you need to capture more than these limits allow, there are two options:
- If your MCC is eligible, you can use incremental authorisation to increase the PaymentIntent’s
amount
. - You can create a new PaymentIntent to capture the tip amount using the generated_card payment method from the first PaymentIntent.
Availability
On-receipt tipping is available for United States businesses with eligible merchant category codes (MCCs), for payments using Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express card brands.
Businesses in the following categories are eligible to collect tips using over-capture:
- Taxicabs and limousines
- Eating places and restaurants
- Drinking places (alcoholic beverages)
- Fast food restaurants
- Beauty and barber shops
- Health and beauty spas
Merchant category codes (MCCs)
If you’re not sure about the eligibility of your merchant category, you can contact support. If you’re a Connect user, set the merchant category codes for your connected accounts to match their businesses.