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Stripe ACH FAQs
Stripe ACH FAQs
Catherine avatar
Written by Catherine
Updated this week

This article will cover:

  1. Timings of deposit transactions.

  2. Addressing and understanding transaction failures.

Timing


With ACH Direct Debit, it can take time for funds to become available in your Stripe balance. The amount of time it takes for funds to become available is referred to as the settlement timing. The following tables describe the settlement timings for ACH Direct Debit payments that Stripe offers.

Initial payments made from select bank accounts that use temporary account numbers with Financial Connections might be subject to settlement delays.

SETTLEMENT TYPE

TIMING

CUTOFF TIME

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Standard settlement (T+4)

4 business days from payment creation

18:00 US/Eastern

After ACH Direct Debit payments settle to your Stripe account balance, we make payouts to your bank account according to your set payout schedule.

Faster settlement (T+2)

2 business days from payment creation

14:00 US/Eastern

This option is available only to eligible users. You can check your eligibility and activate this option on the Payment methods settings. For more information on faster settlement, see the Support page.

ACH transaction failures

ACH Direct Debit transactions can fail any time after the payment is initiated through payment confirmation. These failures can occur for a number of reasons, such as:

  • Insufficient funds

  • An invalid account number

  • A customer disabling debits from their bank account

If a payment fails after funds have been made available in your Stripe balance, Stripe immediately removes funds from your Stripe account.

In rare situations, Stripe might receive an ACH failure from the bank after a PaymentIntent has transitioned to succeeded. If this happens, Stripe creates a dispute with a reason of:

  • insufficient_funds

  • incorrect_account_details

  • bank_cannot_process

Stripe charges a failure fee in this situation, similar to bounce checks where there's a corresponding fee for failed ACH transactions.

For failed ACH Direct Debit payments, Stripe charges $4.00, and for disputed ACH Direct Debit payments, the fee is $15.00.

ACH Micro Deposit

Q: How long does a micro-deposit take to appear?

A: Micro-deposits take 1-2 business days to appear on the customer's online statement.
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Q: Can you delete a bank that is pending verification?
A: I am afraid that you cannot delete pending ACH verifications.
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In order to comply with NACHA rules and ensure the security of ACH payments, bank accounts must be verified before initiating any debits. The verification process confirms the existence of the bank account and ensures that the person providing the account information is the owner of the account. Stripe automatically sends two small deposits to the customer's bank account, which the customer must verify

If the verification fails or is not completed within the allowed three attempts, the bank account cannot be verified, and the debit cannot be made. Therefore, pending ACH verifications cannot be deleted. For more information about ACH verification and the verification process, see the ACH with Charges and Sources documentation.

Q: You mentioned that there are 3 attempts. What about expiration, does the verification expire after a certain date after the deposit?

A: There is no expiration with the micro deposit verification. Stripe based its success on the 3 attempts. If a customer exceeds this limit, that'd be the time that Stripe will not verify the bank account.

Q: If the micro deposit were sent successfully, will the micro deposit stay on the customer's statement or does it expire and get deleted after a certain period?

A: The micro-deposit verification for ACH payments will not be removed from the customer's bank statement. However, please note that their issuing bank also plays a vital factor in what they will show on a customer's bank statement. They can drop or keep it as a record on their end, but on Stripe, this remains on the customer's profile.

Q: What is the customer looking for when we say micro-deposit?

A: Ask the customer to check their bank account. It is a 0.01 deposit, the verification code appears in the description and under the merchant name, starting with "SM" followed by a 4-digit code.
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Example:

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