Manage Stripe Connect platform reserves and negative balance liability for connected accounts

In-depth guide

Steps

1. Choose your liability model at platform setup: platform-liable (your platform covers negative balances from disputes and refunds) or Stripe Managed Risk (Stripe assumes unrecoverable losses) — this choice affects which accounts are eligible for instant payouts and which features are available.
2. Monitor connected account balances via GET /v1/balance on each account using the Stripe-Account header; a negative available balance indicates a shortfall from disputes, refunds, or returns that will be debited from your platform reserve.
3. Review your platform's reserve amount in the Dashboard under Connect > Risk; Stripe automatically holds reserves from your platform balance when connected accounts have ongoing disputes.
4. For high-risk connected accounts, implement volume controls via the API: pause payouts programmatically by updating the account's payout_schedule to interval=manual, and re-enable after your review.
5. Handle the account.updated webhook and inspect requirements.disabled_reason — a value of rejected.fraud or rejected.other signals Stripe has deactivated the connected account; take immediate action to recover funds or close the account.
6. If a connected account's balance remains negative for 180 days, Stripe transfers funds from the platform reserve to cover it; proactively communicate with at-risk connected accounts before this threshold to recover funds voluntarily.