Retrieve real-time account balances via Plaid /accounts/balance/get and understand latency tradeoffs

In-depth guide

Steps

1. POST to /accounts/balance/get with client_id, secret, and access_token; optionally pass options.account_ids to limit the response to specific accounts
2. Unlike /accounts/get which returns cached balances, /accounts/balance/get always performs a real-time data fetch from the institution; expect p50 latency of ~3 seconds and p95 of ~11 seconds
3. The response accounts array includes balances.available (funds available for immediate use) and balances.current (posted balance) for each account
4. Use options.min_last_updated_datetime to request a balance that was refreshed no earlier than a given ISO 8601 timestamp; Plaid returns an error if the institution cannot satisfy the freshness requirement
5. Reserve this endpoint for use cases that require real-time balances (e.g., pre-debit balance checks, payment risk decisioning); use /accounts/get for display-only use cases to reduce latency
6. Handle PRODUCT_NOT_READY and LAST_UPDATED_DATETIME_OUT_OF_RANGE errors gracefully; some institutions cache balances and cannot guarantee real-time data