Payouts and top-ups from Stripe Payments

You can move money from Stripe Payments to Financial Accounts for platforms with payouts, and from Financial Accounts for platforms back to Stripe Payments with top-ups.

Financial accounts as external accounts

Before you can send payouts to a financial account or receive top-ups from a financial account, you must set the financial account as an external account (BankAccount object) connected to the relevant Stripe account.

• Connected accounts: Use POST /v1/accounts/{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}/external_accounts with the financial account routing_number and account_number to create a BankAccount object you can use for payouts from a connected account
• Platform accounts: Use the Stripe Dashboard to create a BankAccount object you can use for payouts from, or top-ups to, your platform account

If there isn’t a default external account set for the usd currency, the financial account becomes the account’s default payout destination. If there is one, you can make the financial account the default for a connected account by setting default_for_currency to true, as in the following example. If you have an automatic payout schedule enabled, that changes the target of the payouts to the financial account.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts/{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}/external_accounts \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
: \
  -d "external_account[object]"="bank_account" \
  -d "external_account[routing_number]"="{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ROUTING_NUMBER}}" \
  -d "external_account[account_number]"="{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}}" \
  -d "external_account[country]"="US" \
  -d "external_account[currency]"="usd" \
  -d "default_for_currency"="true"

If successful, the response returns the newly created BankAccount object.

{
  "id": "{{BANK_ACCOUNT_ID}}",
  "object": "bank_account",
  "account": "{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}",
  "account_holder_name": null,
  "account_holder_type": null,
  "available_payout_methods": [
    "standard",
    "instant"
  ],
  ...
  "default_for_currency": true,
  ...
}

Fifth Third financial accounts as external accounts

You now have the option to set up an external account by specifying the financial account id. You must also request the intra_stripe_flows feature on your Financial Account.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts/{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}/external_accounts \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
: \
  -d "external_account[object]"="bank_account" \
  -d "external_account[financial_account]"="{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}}" \
  -d "external_account[country]"="US" \
  -d "external_account[currency]"="usd" \
  -d "default_for_currency"="true"

Payouts

Every Stripe platform account and connected account has an account balance (also called a payments balance or acquiring balance) that stores their money. Those funds aren’t directly accessible for use outside Stripe. Payouts move funds from an account balance to an externally accessible financial account balance or external bank account.

You can fund a financial account using automatic or manual payouts. Learn more about financial accounts.

To learn more about how payouts work with Connect, see the Pay out money guide.

Automatic payouts

If you have connected accounts on your platform with an automatic payout schedule, you can change the target of direct payouts from their external bank accounts to their financial accounts. It requires the financial account to be set up as a BankAccount object; see the Financial accounts as external accounts section for more information.

Automatic payout speeds

By default, when using automatic payouts, funds from incoming card payments become available in the financial account balance two business days after the payment is received (T+2 schedule). Other payment types, such as ACH payments take longer.

After a platform-level credit approval, you can enable T+1 faster payouts on a per-account basis for connected accounts. You can set the interval and delay_days parameters with POST /v1/accounts to accelerate payout schedules automatically (or you can manually trigger faster payouts as described below). Contact treasury-support@stripe.com if you want to request access to faster payouts (manual, automated, or both) for the connected accounts on your platform.

T+1 faster payout schedules apply to all payment types, including card payments and ACH payments.

T+1 automatic payout schedule

To have incoming payments automatically available in the financial account on the next business day, send a request with interval set to daily and delay_days set to 1.

Use POST /v1/accounts/{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}} to update the payout schedule.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts/{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}} \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d "settings[payouts][schedule][interval]"=daily \
  -d "settings[payouts][schedule][delay_days]"=1

The response confirms the updated settings.

{
  ...
  "settings": {
    "payouts": {
      "schedule": {
        "interval": "daily",
        "delay_days": 1,
      },
    },
    ...
  }
  ...
}

Manual payouts

You can use manual payouts to send specific portions of an account balance to that account’s financial account.

Use POST /v1/payouts with the bank account id associated with your financial account specified as the destination parameter value. If you don’t have a BankAccount object associated with your financial account yet, see the Financial accounts as external accounts section for more information.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payouts \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d method=standard \
  -d amount=1000 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d destination={{BANK_ACCOUNT_ID}}

If successful, the response returns the newly created Payout object.

{
  "id": "{{PAYOUT_ID}}",
  "object": "payout",
  "amount": 1000,
  ...
  "currency": "usd",
  "destination": "{{BANK_ACCOUNT_ID}}",
  ...
  "method": "standard",
  ...
}

Manual payout speeds

Two speed methods are available for manual payouts - standard and instant.

Manual payouts using standard speed can only draw on the available balance and funds will generally arrive in the financial account within 2 hours.

If your platform is enabled for faster payouts, you can use instant manual payouts to move funds to a connected account’s financial account within 30 minutes. You can request instant manual payouts at any time, including weekends and holidays and instant manual payouts can draw on the instant_available balance of a Stripe account. If your platform is not enabled for faster payouts and you’re interested in adding the ability, contact treasury-support@stripe.com to request the feature.

To request an instant manual payout rather than a standard manual payout, change the method parameter in the payout request from standard to instant.

Testing payouts

You can simulate a payout to a connected account financial account using API keys from a testing environment.

You can only simulate a payout to a platform financial account using the Dashboard in testing environments. Click the Add money button in the upper right of the Balances view of your Dashboard to open the Add Money window. Follow the prompts to simulate sending money from your platform account balance to your financial account balance.

Top-ups

As the owner of a Connect platform, you can use an eligible financial account balance to top up your platform account balance instead of using an external bank account. Your financial account must have the financial_addresses.aba feature active to be eligible. To top up a platform account balance, you must set the platform’s financial account as the platform’s default external BankAccount using the Stripe Dashboard as described in the Adding funds to your platform balance guide.

Unlike true external bank accounts, new BankAccount objects with financial account details owned by the merchant with the BankAccount object are automatically verified upon creation so they don’t require verification with microdeposits.

After you set the financial account as your platform’s default external bank account, use POST /v1/topups to create the top-up.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/topups \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount=2000 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d description=Top-up \
  -d statement_descriptor=Top-up

If successful, the response returns the Top-Up object.

{
  "id": "{{TOP_UP_ID}}",
  "object": "topup",
  "amount": 2000,
  "currency": "usd",
  "description": "Top-up",
  ...
}

Learn more about adding funds to your platform account balance with Stripe Connect.