Set up an Issuing and Connect integration

To issue cards, each business entity must use a connected account. Issuing only supports connected accounts that don’t use a Stripe-hosted Dashboard, and where your platform is responsible for requirements collection and loss liability, also known as a Custom connected account. Learn how to create connected accounts that work with Issuing. All accounts must request the card_issuing and transfers account capabilities.

Create an account

Create a new connected account through the Dashboard or using the API with create Account.

In testing environments, connected accounts can’t receive or spend real money and can’t be used in live mode, but they’re identical in configuration and functionality.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d country=US \
  -d "capabilities[transfers][requested]"=true \
  -d "capabilities[card_issuing][requested]"=true \
  -d "controller[stripe_dashboard][type]"=none \
  -d "controller[fees][payer]"=application \
  -d "controller[losses][payments]"=application \
  -d "controller[requirement_collection]"=application

Enable Issuing on existing connected accounts

If your platform already has a Connect integration with connected accounts, you can request Issuing on those accounts through the Dashboard or through the API.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts/
{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}} \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d "capabilities[card_issuing][requested]"=true

If your platform already has connected accounts, make sure they have a supported configuration for Issuing or Financial Accounts for platforms. Issuing only supports connected accounts that don’t use a Stripe-hosted Dashboard, and where your platform is responsible for requirements collection and loss liability, also known as a Custom connected account. If this isn’t the case, you must create new accounts to use Issuing or Financial Accounts for platforms. You can see your existing account’s configuration on the Connected accounts page in your Dashboard.

You can also use the API to retrieve the account information and verify that the capabilities property has the Issuing capability requested. The capability won’t be active until all the requirements are fulfilled.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/accounts \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:"

{
  "object": "list",
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "acct_1234",
      "object": "account",
      ...
      "capabilities": {
        "card_issuing": "inactive",
        "transfers": "active",
      },
      ...
      "controller": {
        "stripe_dashboard": {
          "type": "none"
        },
        "fees": {
          "payer": "application"
        },
        "losses": {
          "payments": "application"
        },
        "is_controller": true,
        "type": "application",
        "requirement_collection": "application"
      },
    },
    ...
  ]
}

After you create a connected account, you need to provide more information about the account holder. The capability object has a requirements hash that contains currently_due identity verification requirements. The user must provide the details itemized in the requirements hash to enable Issuing capabilities.

If you create a test Account object and want to bypass onboarding requirements to test functionality, use the Accounts update API to provide test values that fulfill all the requirements.

Depending on the business type, the user provides details about the individual, company, non-profit organization, or government entity (Financial Accounts for platforms doesn’t support government entities).

Choose one of the following onboarding options:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/account_links \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d account={{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}} \
  --data-urlencode refresh_url="https://example.com/reauth" \
  --data-urlencode return_url="https://example.com/return" \
  -d type=account_onboarding

{
  "object": "account_link",
  "created": 1612927106,
  "expires_at": 1612927406,
  "url": "https://connect.stripe.com/setup/s/…"
}

Collect and verify required information

When you create a connected account and request capabilities, the response returns a list of all required information. To see the requirements specific to a capability, retrieve the account capability and look at requirements.past_due.

If you don’t intend to allow your connected accounts to pay out an Issuing balance to an external account, then you can ignore requirements past_due for external_account.

Here are the requirements to activate the card_issuing capability:

Representatives and beneficial owners

Companies and non-profit organizations must have at least one Representative that’s an executive (relationship.executive) or director (relationship.director) with significant responsibility to control, manage, or direct the company.

You must also provide information for any Beneficial Owner who ultimately owns more than 25% of the company.

The key distinction is that a Representative is always required, while the requirement to provide Beneficial Owners is conditional:

• If your company has owners with more than a 25% ownership, you must provide their information.
• If no individual owns more than 25% of the company, you don’t need to provide owner details. Instead, you must attest that you provided all applicable owners using the company.owners_provided parameter.

Learn more about beneficial owners, representatives, and directors.

Sometimes after providing all required information, an account might need to provide additional details or documents. These new requirements appear in the requirements.eventually_due array or in requirements.currently_due. Set up your integration to listen for changes to account requirements by using webhooks.

If the capability is already active and the account doesn’t satisfy new requirements due on that capability before the current deadline, the capability becomes inactive until the requirements are satisfied.

Document uploads

If an account’s information can’t be verified, Stripe might require a document to verify the identity of a person (for example, a Passport) or to verify information about the legal entity (for example, a letter from the tax authority). To satisfy document requirements, platforms can send the user to Connect Onboarding (where they’ll be prompted to upload the document), or collect the document from the account in another interface and upload it through the API.

Failure to verify identity within 29 days of the initial application

After an account submits all the required information for Issuing and accepts the Issuing terms of service, Stripe considers the application complete. If we can’t verify an account’s information, the capability remains inactive until the account provides additional information or uploads a document.

If the account remains inactive 29 days after completing the application, you must send an email notice to the account informing them that we couldn’t verify their identity (see the template).

Stripe monitors for completed applications with unverified identities, and takes the following action after 29 days in live mode and after 1 hour in testing environments:

• Generates an account notice
• Clears the Issuing terms of service acceptance hash so terms acceptance becomes a currently_due requirement

You can submit a new application at any time by updating the business information and recording a new acceptance of Issuing’s terms.

Stripe recommends that you present the terms of service as the last step of onboarding, which allows you to track the timing of application completion by referring to the term’s acceptance date.

Terms of service violations

If Stripe identifies a connect account that has violated Stripe’s terms of service, Stripe sets the Issuing capability on the account to inactive, deactivates any cards, and notifies the account (see the email template). This might happen when an account’s cards are used in relation to prohibited or restricted businesses, such as illegal activities, gambling, firearms, adult content, or cryptocurrencies, or in relation to prohibited activities for Issuing , such as consumer spending, primarily international use, lending, or other abusive or noncompliant use.

Accounts inactive for more than 395 days

Stripe disables issuing on accounts that haven’t completed any card transactions in the past 13 months (395 days). For accounts with additional capabilities, Stripe only disables Issuing if there have also been no payments or Financial Accounts for platforms transactions in the prior 395 days, and the Treasury balance is 9.99 USD or less. When Issuing is disabled for inactivity, the Connect account’s card_issuing capability status changes to inactive and the capability requirements show a disabled_reason of rejected.inactivity. Learn more about managing inactive accounts with Issuing.

A Cardholder object represents an individual or business entity that you can issue cards to. Each cardholder needs to be associated with a connected account to be issued a virtual or physical card. One connected account can have many cardholders.

Learn more about Cardholders and cards.

The Issuing balance is separate from the connected account’s main balance. When issued cards are used for transactions, they draw from the Issuing balance.

Before an issued card can be used for transactions, you must first allocate funds to the connected account’s Issuing balance associated with the card. An Issuing Balance holds funds reserved for the card and is safely separated from earnings, payouts, and funds from other Stripe products. Learn how to fund connected accounts for Issuing.