Glossary

Stripe Fee Credit

A Stripe fee credit is a credit balance Stripe issues to your account, recorded as a balance transaction of type `fee_credit_funding`, that offsets Stripe fees you were previously charged.

Also called: fee_credit_funding, Stripe fee credits, fee credit balance, Fee Credit line

Start a free trial View Pricing

Definition

Almost everything in the Stripe fee family moves money out of your balance. Processing fees, Billing fees, Radar fees, FX fees, and the tax Stripe charges on its own fees are all deductions. A fee credit moves in the other direction.

Stripe documents the type plainly: "When you are issued a Stripe Fee Credit, you will see a positive amount which represents a positive credit balance." That single sentence explains the confusion the term usually causes. People find a line labelled Fee Credit sitting among their fees with a positive sign, assume the sign is a bug or that a fee was double counted, and go looking for the error.

There is no error. The credit is a real balance movement in your favour, carried as its own balance transaction type rather than as a smaller fee on some other transaction.

Key points

+Balance transaction type is `fee_credit_funding`, and it is one of the values in Stripe’s balance transaction `type` enum.
+The amount is positive, which is the opposite direction from every other entry in the fee family.
+It offsets fees you were already charged rather than reversing one specific fee.
+Its reporting category is also `fee_credit_funding`, and it lands under Other Adjustments in the monthly report.
+It is a newer type, added in 2026, so older reconciliation habits will not account for it.
+In Acodei it is a seeded allowed type in the display group "Fee Credit".

Not a fee refund, and not income

Two readings of a fee credit are natural and both are wrong in ways that matter at month end.

**It is not a refund of a specific fee.** A refund would reverse an identified charge, and the balance transaction would point back at it. A fee credit does not work that way. It is a credit balance issued to the account, which then offsets fees generally. That is why it arrives as its own balance transaction with its own type instead of appearing as a reduced fee on the transaction it relates to. There is often no single transaction it relates to.

**It is not revenue.** Nothing was sold and no customer paid anything. Booking a fee credit as income overstates both revenue and expense for the period, because the expense it was meant to reduce stays at full size. The correct treatment is to let it reduce the fee expense it offsets, which is what Acodei does with it.

The general rule is worth holding on to: the direction of a Stripe balance transaction tells you which way the money moved, not what kind of thing it was. A positive amount here means your balance went up, and the reason it went up was a credit against fees.

Where it appears in Stripe

A fee credit shows up in three places, and they do not all label it the same way.

On the **balance transaction** itself, `type` is `fee_credit_funding`. It sits in the same `type` enum as `charge`, `stripe_fee`, `payout`, and the rest.

In **reporting categories**, Stripe gives fee credits their own group, described as covering "the issuance and usage of Stripe Fee Credits". The group has a single member, and that member is also called `fee_credit_funding`. This is one of the few cases where the type name and the reporting category name are identical, which makes it easier than most to trace. The general relationship between the two fields, including the cases where they diverge sharply, is covered in [reporting category versus type](/blog/stripe-reporting-category-vs-type-quickbooks).

In the **monthly summary report**, Stripe files it under Other Adjustments. That placement is worth knowing before you go hunting, because Other Adjustments is not where most people look for anything fee related.

How it differs from a fee promotion adjustment

Businesses have received money back against Stripe fees for years, usually through partner or promotional arrangements, so it is reasonable to ask what is actually new here.

The difference is the mechanism, not the money. Stripe no longer refunds transaction fees except in unique cases or promotional periods, and historically some accounts saw promotional fee money arrive as a balance **adjustment**, which is a general-purpose type covering corrections made outside the normal payment flow. An adjustment tells you almost nothing on its own; you have to read the description to learn what it was.

`fee_credit_funding` is specific. The type itself says the money is a fee credit, so it can be classified without reading a description or guessing. For anyone reconciling a Stripe balance to a ledger, a dedicated type is considerably easier to work with than a general one, which is the practical reason the distinction is worth knowing.

If you are trying to identify an unexplained positive line, checking the type first will usually settle it faster than reading descriptions. A [balance adjustment](/glossary/stripe-balance-adjustment) and a fee credit look similar in a payout total and are different things.

What it does to reconciliation

A fee credit breaks the assumption that fee lines are always negative, and that assumption is embedded in more spreadsheets than people expect.

If your month-end process sums fee-related balance transactions and expects a negative total, a fee credit either gets dropped by a sign filter or quietly reduces the total in a way that looks like fees fell. Neither is wrong in the arithmetic, but both are confusing if you did not know the type existed.

The cleaner approach is to treat the fee credit as its own line rather than netting it into the fee figure. Your fee expense for the period was what it was, and separately Stripe credited some of it back. Keeping them apart preserves both numbers, which is what you want when comparing fee cost across periods.

The direction check that resolves most confusion: the `net` field on a balance transaction is positive when the transaction increments your Stripe balance. On a fee credit it is positive. On a [Stripe fee](/glossary/stripe-fee) it is negative.

How a fee credit posts to QuickBooks

Which balance transaction types Acodei syncs is controlled by an allowed-types list, and new types are enabled by adding them to it. `fee_credit_funding` was added that way, under the display group **Fee Credit**.

Once a type is allowed, it aggregates into payout and daily-summary line items the same way other balance types do. So a fee credit does not produce its own separate QuickBooks record. It appears as a positive **Fee Credit** line within the payout or daily summary it fell into, offsetting the Stripe fees charged in that same period.

Where that line lands is yours to choose. Uncommon balance transaction types post using the product mapped under **Account Mapping**, in the **Balance Transaction Mapping** section, which stays hidden until you toggle Customize. Acodei does not guess: a type that has not been mapped prompts you to map it rather than being assigned to some default account.

For most accounts the sensible destination is the same account already carrying Stripe fees. Acodei creates a product called "Stripe Fees – Acodei" during onboarding, mapped to an account you pick, and all Stripe fees are assigned to it. Pointing the Fee Credit line at that account puts the credit directly against the expense it offsets, so the net fee cost for the period is correct without a manual journal.

If you see a positive Fee Credit line in a payout and want to confirm what it relates to, it offsets Stripe fees you were previously charged rather than any single transaction on that payout.

Want to see this on your own Stripe data?

Start a free trial

Frequently asked questions

What is a Stripe fee credit?

A credit balance Stripe issues to your account that offsets Stripe fees you were previously charged. It is recorded as a balance transaction with type `fee_credit_funding`, and Stripe describes it as a positive amount representing a positive credit balance.

Why is my Fee Credit line positive?

Because the money moved into your Stripe balance rather than out of it. Every other entry in the fee family is a deduction, so a positive figure among them looks like an error. It is not. A positive amount on a fee credit means your balance increased by the credited amount.

Is a Stripe fee credit the same as a fee refund?

No. A refund reverses one identified charge. A fee credit is a credit balance applied against fees generally, which is why it arrives as its own balance transaction type rather than as a reduction on the transaction it relates to. There is frequently no single fee it maps back to.

Should a fee credit be recorded as income?

No. Nothing was sold and no customer paid. Recording it as income overstates revenue and leaves the fee expense it was meant to reduce at full size. It should reduce the fee expense it offsets.

What reporting category does fee_credit_funding use?

Its reporting category is also `fee_credit_funding`. Stripe gives fee credits their own reporting category group, covering the issuance and usage of Stripe Fee Credits, and the group has that single member. In the monthly summary report it appears under Other Adjustments.

How does a Stripe fee credit appear in QuickBooks?

Through Acodei it aggregates into the payout or daily summary it belongs to, as a positive Fee Credit line rather than a separate record. The account it posts to is set under Account Mapping in the Balance Transaction Mapping section, which is revealed by toggling Customize.

Where do I map the Fee Credit line?

In Account Mapping, under Balance Transaction Mapping. The section is hidden until you toggle Customize. Pointing it at the same account your Stripe fees already use puts the credit against the expense it offsets. An unmapped type prompts you to map it rather than being silently assigned somewhere.

Why have I not seen this transaction type before?

`fee_credit_funding` is a newer addition, introduced in 2026, so reconciliation processes written before then have no handling for it. It is now one of the values in Stripe’s balance transaction `type` enum.

What customers say about running Stripe through Acodei

★★★★★

“If you're testing out all the different Stripe/QuickBooks integration apps right now, let me save you some time. This one is the best one by far.”

RyanOwner at Indie Music Academy