Incremental authorizations

When you create a PaymentIntent, you can request the ability to capture increments of the payment. Set the request_incremental_authorization_support field to true and the capture_method to manual. This updates the text from Total to Pre-authorization in the payment collection screen.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount=1000 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=card_present \
  -d capture_method=manual \
  -d "payment_method_options[card_present][request_incremental_authorization_support]"=true

Check the incremental_authorization_supported field in the confirm response to determine if the PaymentIntent is eligible for incremental authorization.

You can only perform incremental authorizations on uncaptured payments after confirmation. To adjust the amount of a payment before confirmation, use the update method instead.

async () => {
  const result = await terminal.processPayment(paymentIntent);
  if (result.error) {
    // Placeholder for handling result.error
  } else if (result.paymentIntent) {
    // Now you're ready to increment the authorization using your backend
  }
}

To increase the authorized amount on a payment, use the increment_authorization endpoint and provide the updated total amount to increment to, which must be greater than the original authorized amount. This attempts to authorize for the difference between the previous amount and the incremented amount. Each PaymentIntent can have a maximum of 10 incremental authorization attempts, including declines.

A single PaymentIntent can call this endpoint multiple times to further increase the authorized amount.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents/{{PAYMENT_INTENT_ID}}/increment_authorization \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount=1500

An authorization can either:

• Succeed – Returns the PaymentIntent with the updated amount.
• Fail – Returns a card_declined error, and the PaymentIntent remains authorized to capture the original amount. Updates to other PaymentIntent fields (for example, application_fee_amount) aren’t saved.

To capture the authorized amount on a PaymentIntent that has prior incremental authorizations, use the capture endpoint. To increase the authorized amount and simultaneously capture that updated amount, provide an updated amount_to_capture.

Providing an amount_to_capture that’s higher than the currently authorized amount results in an automatic incremental authorization attempt.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents/{{PAYMENT_INTENT_ID}}/capture \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount_to_capture=2000

The possible outcomes of an incremental authorization attempt are:

• Succeed – Returns the captured PaymentIntent with the updated amount.
• Fail – Returns a card_declined error, and the PaymentIntent remains authorized to capture the original amount. Updates to other PaymentIntent fields (for example, application_fee_amount) aren’t saved.

Regardless, when using amount_to_capture we recommend that you always check for potential failures.