Pending refunds due to insufficient or negative account balance

A pending refund status can occur when there is an insufficient or negative account balance to cover the refund. To avoid disputes and failed refunds, it is recommended that you pay into your Stripe account balance promptly. Remember that it may take a few days for funds to be reconciled to your Stripe account balance. You can view your pending refunds by filtering to 'Refund pending' in the Stripe dashboard on the Payments page.


A card refund may have a pending status when there is an insufficient or negative account balance to cover the refund amount.

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When it is pending, the refund will not be sent to your customer until the balance is recouped, and the full refund amount is available from:


Pending refunds can still be disputed by the cardholder’s bank and when it happens, the refund will fail and a dispute will be created.

Hence, it is important to ensure that the negative balance is handled in time to avoid disputes. We recommend that you pay into your Stripe account balance as soon as possible, so that refunds are successfully submitted to the card networks and you are protected from disputes. Please note it may take a few days for funds to be reconciled to your account balance.

You can view your pending refunds by filtering to 'Refund pending' in the dashboard on the Payments page.

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Additional Information

  • Please note that only card refunds can go to a pending state.
  • Handling negative balances in your Stripe account.
  • If there are multiple pending refunds and the available balance is insufficient to cover them, Stripe will typically process the refunds in the order they were initiated. This means that the first refund request made will be the first to receive payment, while any subsequent refunds may have to wait until more funds become available.
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