When will I receive payouts for my WooPayments account balance?

Money you’ve made with WooPayments must flow through your account balance before being paid out into your bank account.

This document will provide details about when payouts occur, how frequently they can be processed, and how factors — like the amount of the payout — can impact when a payout is processed.

There are two balances shown on the Payments > Overview page:

• The Total Balance figure represents all the money you’ve made via WooPayments that has not yet been paid out into your bank account.
• The Available Funds figure is the portion of the total balance that has completed the pending period and is thus available for the next scheduled payout.

Although it’s not shown in the chart, there is a third figure called the Pending Funds. This is simply the portion of the total balance that is not available to be paid out. In other words, the three balances are calculated like so:

Total Balance = Pending Funds + Available Funds

See the sections below for more information on each bucket of funds.

When WooPayments transaction occurs on your site, the money from that transaction takes some time to process before it becomes available to be paid out. During this time, the money is “pending” and is included in the Pending Funds figure.

The time those funds take to flow through your account is called the pending period, and its length depends on your WooPayments account country. This chart shows our standard pending periods, which cannot be changed.

To help illustrate how this works, consider the following examples:

• A U.S. merchant makes a sale on a Friday. Their pending period is 2 business days, so the merchant can expect the funds in their bank account on the following Tuesday.
• A Singaporean merchant makes a sale on a Thursday. Their pending period is 7 calendar days, so they can expect the funds in their bank account a week later (e.g., the following Thursday).

Once the pending period described above has elapsed, funds processed via WooPayments will move from the Pending funds balance to the Available funds balance. If funds are a part of the Available funds balance, that means that:

• The pending period for those funds has been completed.
• The funds are now available to be paid out in your bank account.

Whenever your next payout is scheduled to occur, any funds in the Available funds balance will be paid out then.

The Total balance will provide you with a clear picture of the payments on your site. It includes the sum total of your Available funds plus your Pending funds — which means you can expect the Total balance and Available funds values to differ if you’ve had recent payments activity.

Sometimes, your Total balance value may be less than the Available funds balance.

This is usually temporary and indicative of payments activity that reduces your account’s Pending balance, such as when you:

• Issue a refund.
• Receive a dispute.
• Process an instant payout.

For payout timing purposes, new days start at 00:00 UTC regardless of your location. As such, any payments taken after that time will face an additional delay before they’re paid out.

As an example, consider a store owner in Los Angeles who makes sales throughout the day on Tuesday. Any orders placed before 00:00 UTC (5:00pm their time) will be paid out 2 business days later (i.e., on Thursday). However, a sale made at 5:19pm will have missed the end-of-day cutoff time. The funds from that sale will arrive on Friday.

Payments processed on a non-business day (i.e., a weekend day or a holiday in your country) will have their pending period start on the next business day afterward.

For example, if a U.S. store makes a sale on Saturday, the customer is charged immediately, but the pending period doesn’t start until Monday. Since the U.S. pending period is 2 business days, the merchant will get those funds the following Wednesday.

The chart and examples given above assume that your site is on a daily payout schedule, which is the default for almost all accounts. However, it is possible to change your payout schedule to weekly or monthly, if you wish. This will of course affect the timing of your payouts.

For example, consider a merchant in New Zealand with their payout schedule set to weekly on Fridays. If a customer orders from their store on Thursday, 4 business days after that would be the following Wednesday. However, due to their weekly on Fridays payout schedule, the funds remain in their account for 2 more days, and are paid out on the following Friday.

Additionally, if you are eligible for and are using instant payouts, those will of course occur outside of the usual payouts schedule for your account.

The first payout for all new accounts is sent after a seven-day waiting period. This delay is necessary for risk mitigation and cannot be waived under any circumstances.

The new account waiting period starts after the first successful payment is processed on your account — not when the account is created. After the 7-day waiting period for a new account is over, the first payout will be sent according to the pending period chart shown here and the payout schedule set on the account.

For example, consider a new U.S. merchant who creates their account on a Monday and makes their first sale on Wednesday. Their seven-day waiting period would end the following Wednesday, at which point the two business day pending period for their first payout begins. As such, the money from their first sale would land in their bank account on the following Friday.

Depending on your payout currency, there may be a minimum account balance required before a payout can be sent. Those are detailed below. Currencies not listed in the chart have no minimum payout amount.

If you’re using a bank account to receive payouts, there is no maximum payout amount.

If your store is in the US and you’ve added a debit card for receiving payouts, the maximum that can be paid out at once is $9,999 USD. If you’re set to receive a payout larger than this, there is a danger that your payouts may be suspended until you add a bank account.

It’s for this reason that we strongly suggest adding a bank account instead of a debit card.

Although you can charge prices in Hungarian forint (HUF) that include fillérs (e.g., 12.34 Ft‎), payouts of HUF will be rounded down to the nearest whole number (e.g., 12.00 Ft‎). The remaining fillérs will be kept in your account balance and continuously “rolled over” as you make more sales.

If you suspect that a payout is missing from your bank account, you can contact them and provide the bank reference key to see if they can help find it. It may be best to wait 5 working days before doing this, since internal bank processes may face delays.