# Fix your pending refund

A refund may be pending for the following reasons:
* Our financial partner needs to finish processing the refund.
* The refunding payment has not been settled.
* Your Stripe account has a negative balance that you need to fix by manually topping up your balance, or allowing Stripe to automatically debit your bank account.
Stripe automatically fails a pending refund after 45 days.
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### Why is my refund pending?
To determine if you need to take action, hover over the **Refund Pending** status on the Dashboard Payments tab.
Your refund is pending because of one of these reasons:
* The customer’s bank or our financial partner is still processing the refund. No action is required from you.
* The refunding payment has not been settled. No action is required from you.
* There is an insufficient balance in your Stripe account. You'll need to address this issue.
Learn more about refund statuses.
### How do I fix my pending refunds?
Normally, your pending refunds are automatically released when future payments are processed and offset your negative balance. However, your future payment volume may not always be sufficient cover the negative balance. Follow the steps to fix the negative balance on your account to proactively top up your account, set up auto debit, or, if you’re in a country where you can’t directly top up your payment balance, wait for Stripe to move funds from your **Future refunds or disputes** (FROD) balance.
### How do I avoid pending refunds?
Set up a [minimum balance](https://docs.stripe.com/payouts/minimum-balances-for-automatic-payouts) to avoid negative balances.
### Why hasn’t my refund been released after top-up or auto debit?
**Funds availability timing.** Funds typically become available and show up in your balance within 3 to 7 business days, depending on the method used to add funds. Note that after the refund is released, it takes 5-10 additional days for the banks to settle refunds with the end customers.
**Pending refunds in different currencies.** A pending refund will not be released unless the balance of the refund settlement currency is sufficient **and** the overall balance is sufficient. If the refund is settled in the non-default currency, you must also fix the negative balance on your account.
### What happens if a pending refund does not get released?
Stripe automatically fails a pending refund after 45 days.
### How do pending refunds work with Connect?
Whether a refund is put into `pending` depends on [the type of Connect set-up](https://docs.stripe.com/connect/charges#refund-creation). Read about [Connect account balances](https://docs.stripe.com/connect/account-balances#accounting-for-negative-balances) to determine responsibility and take the right actions to manage your connected accounts' negative balances.