Stripe empowers businesses to process payments in over 135 currencies, allowing you to present prices in your customers’ local currency. This approach can significantly boost sales and eliminate currency conversion fees for your international clientele. To display prices in your customer’s currency, simply specify the transaction currency when creating a PaymentIntent.
Payments are automatically converted to your default settlement currency. Stripe uses the exchange rate at the time of payment to shield your revenue from exchange rate fluctuations between the payment and payout dates.
In certain regions, Stripe supports payment processing in additional currencies. If you require liquidity in more currencies, you can activate processing for these currencies and add a bank account in your payout settings of your Dashboard.
Adaptive Pricing for Global Markets
For Payment Links and integrations utilizing the Checkout Sessions API, prices can be automatically converted to international customers’ local currencies based on their location. Discover more about Adaptive Pricing and how it can streamline your global sales strategy. Imagine a customer sees a price displayed in USD, perhaps $250. Stripe’s adaptive pricing can seamlessly show this as the equivalent in EUR, for example, making the purchase process clearer and more appealing to European customers. This smart conversion helps avoid confusion and builds trust with international buyers.
Decoding Exchange Rates
When Stripe handles currency conversion for transactions, we generally apply the mid-market rate, derived from third-party pricing data. The mid-market rate represents the average of the buy and sell prices for a currency. Currency conversion with Stripe involves fees, detailed on our pricing page.
In specific situations, Stripe might use the exchange rate at which we obtain the currency owed to you. This could occur if a government mandates a new exchange rate or if there are substantial discrepancies between our service providers. Stripe takes these measures to mitigate exchange rate risk for both you and Stripe. In rare instances, Stripe may implement other risk mitigation strategies, and we will inform you of such cases.
You can check the current exchange rate for Stripe currency conversions on our estimation page. Furthermore, the actual exchange rate applied to a transaction is accessible via the Balance Transactions API or in your Dashboard. Note that the estimation page only displays the base exchange rate; Stripe’s currency conversion fees are additional to this rate but are incrementally applied.
Conversions for Disputed Payments and Refunds
Alt text: Vector graphic illustrating currency conversion arrows, symbolizing the exchange process.
When a payment converted to another currency is disputed or refunded, the original purchase amount you received is converted back to the transaction currency using the prevailing exchange rate. Given the constant fluctuations in market conditions and exchange rates, the rate used for a payment often differs from the rate at the time of a chargeback or refund. The amount deducted from your merchant balance depends on the current rate and could be higher or lower than the initial payment. Regardless of exchange rate variations, customers always receive the exact amount in the currency they paid.
For instance, if your settlement currency is EUR and you process a $60 USD payment at an exchange rate of 0.88 EUR per 1 USD, the converted amount is €52.80 (minus Stripe fees). If, at the time of refund, the exchange rate is 0.86 EUR per 1 USD, only €51.60 will be deducted from your account balance. This example highlights how exchange rate changes can affect the final amounts in your settlement currency during refunds or disputes.
Countries with Foreign Exchange Controls
Transfers to or from countries with foreign exchange controls (including but not limited to Brazil) are processed exclusively through authorized channels in accordance with local regulations.
Additional Settlement Currencies
Alt text: Settings icon depicted in vector format, representing configurable currency options.
In certain countries, additional currencies can be activated for payment processing. If you need to manage liquidity in additional currencies, you can enable or disable them in the payout settings of your Dashboard. When multiple bank accounts are available for a specific currency, Stripe uses the account designated as default_for_currency for payment processing and payouts.
If you hold a balance in a currency without a linked bank account and initiate a manual payout in that currency, a currency conversion will occur.
Command Line
cURL
<div><code><span>curl</span><span>https://api.stripe.com/v1/payouts</span><span> </span><span> -u</span><span>"<div><div><span data-key-type="secret" data-testid="keytoken-secret" role="button">sk_test_Y17KokhC3SRYCQTLYiU5ZCD2</span></div></div>:"</span><span> </span><span> -d</span><span>amount</span><span>=</span><span>1000</span><span> </span><span> -d</span><span>currency</span><span>=</span><span>xaf</span></code></div>Alt text: Code snippet in cURL showing payout API request with amount and currency parameters, useful for developers.
Provided sufficient balance in the specified currency, Stripe automatically converts the amount to the bank account’s default currency.
Note
If you’ve mistakenly activated a currency as a settlement currency, you can manually withdraw funds in your default currency. Then, disable the unintended settlement currency to prevent further accumulation of funds in that currency.
Stripe Fee Conversions
When a Stripe fee is incurred in a currency for which you lack a linked bank account, we automatically convert it to your default settlement currency at the base exchange rate when the fee is due and subsequently charge you. No extra conversion fees are applied in this process. For example, if you use Stripe Billing with USD as your default settlement currency, and process a payment in a non-USD currency, the 0.5% variable fee may apply. If you bill a subscriber a monthly subscription of €100 EUR in EUR, the Stripe Billing fee of €0.50 EUR is converted to USD at the base rate at the time of billing, without any additional conversion costs to you.
See Also
Alt text: “See Also” icon, a vector image suggesting related documentation and resources.
