Starting June 1, 2023, Stripe is making pricing changes for international card transactions, disputes, and sales tax. We are also making two payment optimization features available to you at no cost.
How can I calculate the impact of these fee changes to my business?
How will I know if a customer is using an international card?
Which products and services are impacted by the tax changes?
For businesses based in the United States, any card that is issued by a bank outside of the United States is considered an international card.
Over the past few years, card networks have increased the total fees that Stripe pays for card processing. Because of these costs, starting June 1, Stripe’s additional fee for international card transactions will change from 1.0% to 1.5%. There’s no change to our standard 2.9% + $0.30 pricing for US card transactions.
How you can reduce costs and grow globally
In many countries, customers prefer to pay with their bank, digital wallet, or other non-card methods, which may be cheaper than cards. Stripe makes it easy for you to accept more than 25+ ways to pay using Checkout, the Payment Element, or with the API, and you can choose the most effective payment methods for your business.
Our checkout experiences automatically show your customers the most relevant payment methods based on local preferences and are tailored to 30+ languages and 135+ currencies across web and mobile.
Whether you win or lose a dispute, card networks charge Stripe a fee in either case. To cover these costs, starting June 1, Stripe will no longer return the $15 dispute fee for successfully contested disputes. The dispute fee itself is not changing
How you can prevent chargebacks and win more disputes
Stripe Radar uses machine learning to help prevent fraudulent charges. Radar is typically a paid product, but it's free for users like you on our standard pricing.
We now recommend what to submit by analyzing millions of disputes, so you can fight the right ones with the best evidence.
Certain US states require us to collect sales tax on certain Stripe products. On June 1, we’ll begin collecting sales tax where applicable based on your business location, which you can review in the dashboard. Payment processing fees are generally not subject to sales tax. Learn more.
We’ve decided to make two payment optimization features free for businesses on standard pricing, starting June 1. Adaptive Acceptance and network tokens have increased revenue for businesses on Stripe by an average of 1.2%. There's nothing you need to do: we’ll turn them on for your account if they aren’t on already.
Adaptive Acceptance prevents customer card declines using machine learning to dynamically optimize the details of card network requests. In 2022, Adaptive Acceptance generated over $5 billion of incremental revenue for Stripe businesses.
Network tokens automatically update card details when old cards expire so your customers don't need to re-enter anything.
If you have a high volume of international card transactions, you can enable bank, digital wallet, or other non-card payment methods, which may be cheaper than cards, using Checkout or the Payment Element, or through the API. Below are few payment methods that might be relevant:
Bank redirects can be used to process large, one-off transactions (fee varies by payment method)
SEPA Direct Debit can be used for EU-based recurring payments for 0.8% + 30¢ per transaction
Stripe helps you automatically prevent chargebacks and win more disputes with Stripe Radar and ongoing improvements to the disputes process. You can also help reduce disputes by doing things like communicating your policies more clearly with your customers and improving your Stripe integration. You can read more about how to prevent disputes here.
International card fees: Over the past few years, card networks have increased the total fees that Stripe pays for card processing. Because of these costs, starting June 1, Stripe’s additional fee for international card transactions will change from 1.0% to 1.5%.
Disputes: Whether you win or lose a dispute, card networks charge Stripe a fee in either case. These costs have increased due to the introduction of several new fees from the card networks and increases in existing fees. To cover these costs, starting June 1, Stripe will no longer return the $15 dispute fee for successfully contested disputes.
The best way to calculate the impact these changes might have to your business is to use the Stripe dashboard.
To understand the impact of changes in international cards pricing:
Go to the Reports section of your Dashboard
Click on “Download” located at the top right hand of the “Balance change from activity” module
Export your activity to a .CSV file and ensure that “Card country” is selected as a column
Starting June 1, 2023, all transactions where “Card country” is not US would be subject to the new fees.
To understand the impact of changes in disputes pricing:
Go to the Payments section of your Dashboard
Click on “Disputes” on the side panel in the top left
Double click on “won” disputes
Export your activity to a .CSV file
Starting June 1, 2023, all these transactions will be subject to the pricing changes.
You can read more about how to download tax, VAT, or GST invoices for Stripe fees in our support page.
For businesses based in the United States, any card that is issued by a bank outside of the United States is considered an international card.
The best way to understand which customers and transactions use an international card is to use the Stripe dashboard. To see the number of transactions with international cards:
Go to the Reports section of your Dashboard
Click on “Download” located at the top right hand of the “Balance change from activity” module
Export your activity to a .CSV file and ensure that “Card country” is selected as a column
All transactions where “Card country” is not US would be impacted by the change in international cards pricing.
Stripe helps you automatically prevent chargebacks and win more disputes with Stripe Radar and ongoing improvements to the disputes experience. In addition, you can take steps to reduce your disputes costs by decreasing the number of disputes incurred by your business. These include things like:
Communicating clearly and effectively to your customers (e.g., using clear statement descriptors)
Improving your Stripe integration (e.g., shipping to a verified address only)
Identifying common fraud indicators and how to get around them (e.g., fake phone numbers or email addresses)
Using advanced tools to prevent fraud (e.g., Radar for Fraud Teams)
You can read more about how to prevent disputes in our docs
Stripe is required by law to charge U.S. sales tax on certain products and services. Your business address will determine whether the products and services you purchase are subject to U.S. state and local taxes, and the applicable tax rates. Learn more about Stripe’s tax policies for the US.
In the U.S., the taxability of products and services varies greatly by location. Payment processing services are generally not subject to U.S. sales tax. Certain software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) products which include revenue products like Billing, fraud prevention products like Radar, reporting products like Tax, and analytics products like Sigma, are generally subject to U.S. sales tax depending on the state.
In order for Stripe to charge tax accurately, please ensure that your business address under business settings in your Dashboard is up to date. Learn more about Stripe’s tax policies for the US.
If you use Connect with Standard accounts, these changes will apply to the Stripe fees for your connected accounts. Stripe will automatically notify your connected accounts about the changes that affect them. There’s no action needed from you.
If you use Connect with Custom accounts, you are responsible for any updates to your own pricing in line with these changes, and for communicating with your users.
This support page provides you with more details on the notice we sent you describing changes to certain fees. That notice is a legal notice sent to Stripe users, even those who have unsubscribed from optional marketing notices. You cannot unsubscribe from legal notices, but if you’d prefer not to receive any further legal notices from Stripe, you can close your account by following these steps.
Your continued use of Stripe's services after June 1, 2023 is subject to these fee changes. Any termination rights you have under your agreement with us are unaffected by this change.
There’s no action necessary for you at this time and these changes will automatically apply to your business and / or your connected accounts on June 1, 2023.