Why was my Stripe payment declined?

When a Stripe payment fails, it is almost always because the card issuer declined the charge, not because of Collect or Stripe itself. Your Stripe Dashboard will show the exact decline code and message for each failed payment.

Check the payment in your Stripe Dashboard

1. Log in to your Stripe Dashboard.
2. Go to Payments and search for the charge by amount, date, or customer.
3. Click the failed payment to see the Failure reason and Decline code from the card network.

Common decline reasons include:

• insufficient_funds – The card does not have enough available balance.
• do_not_honor – The issuer blocked the payment for a generic reason.
• incorrect_cvc – The CVC check failed.
• expired_card – The card’s expiration date is in the past.
• stolen_card / lost_card – The card has been reported lost or stolen.

What your customer can try

Depending on the decline code, ask your customer to:

• Use a different card or funding source.
• Contact their bank or card issuer and ask why the payment was declined.
• Double‑check the card number, expiry, CVC, billing name, and postal code.

When to contact Stripe

If the Dashboard does not show a clear decline reason, or you see repeated failures with different customers, contact Stripe Support from the payment details page. They can review network responses and help you determine next steps. Collect for Stripe cannot override or bypass card‑issuer declines.