Refund a Payment

POST /v1/payments/refund

Refunds a captured payment, either fully or partially. Only PaymentIntents with status succeeded can be refunded.

Request Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`payment_intent_id`	string (UUID)	Yes	The ID of the captured PaymentIntent to refund.
`amount`	integer	No	Amount to refund in cents. Set to `0` or omit for a full refund.
`reason`	string	No	Reason for the refund (e.g., `customer_request`, `duplicate`, `fraudulent`).
`connector_account`	string	No	Must equal the connector account that settled the originating sale / authorize. See the override-forbidden note below.

Refund inherits the originating connector account. The gateway refunds through the same account that originally settled the charge, regardless of the merchant’s current default. Passing a different connector_account (body or X-Connector-Account header) returns 400 connector_account_override_forbidden. If the originating account has been hard-deleted, refund returns 409 originating_account_unavailable.

Examples

Full Refund

Partial Refund

To refund a specific amount, set amount to the desired value in cents:


curl -X POST https://sandbox.api.gatelithix.com/v1/payments/refund \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_test_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: ref_$(uuidgen)" \
  -d '{
    "payment_intent_id": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
    "amount": 1500
  }'

Multiple partial refunds can be issued against the same PaymentIntent until the total refunded amount equals the original amount.

Response


{
  "id": "r1234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef",
  "payment_intent_id": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "amount": 5000,
  "status": "succeeded",
  "reason": "customer_request",
  "connector_account_id": "aa0e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440aaa",
  "connector_account_short_id": "ca_abc123def4",
  "test_mode": true,
  "created_at": "2026-03-18T12:05:00Z"
}

Error — override forbidden

Refund refuses any connector_account that differs from the one that originally settled the PaymentIntent. If the originating sale used ca_abc123def4 but refund specifies ca_ghi789jkl0:


POST /v1/payments/refund
Authorization: Bearer sk_test_your_key_here
Idempotency-Key: ref_01HK...
Content-Type: application/json
 
{
  "payment_intent_id": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "amount": 1500,
  "connector_account": "ca_ghi789jkl0"
}

Response — 400 Bad Request:


{
  "error": {
    "type": "invalid_request_error",
    "code": "connector_account_override_forbidden",
    "message": "Refund must use the same connector_account as the originating charge.",
    "param": "connector_account",
    "request_id": "req_01HK9ABCD3F7X1YZ2Q3W4E5R6T"
  }
}

Fix: drop the connector_account field on refund — the gateway inherits it from the originating charge automatically.

Error Cases

Error Code	HTTP Status	Cause
`invalid_param`	400	Missing payment_intent_id
`refund_exceeds_amount`	400	Refund amount exceeds remaining balance
`payment_intent_not_found`	404	PaymentIntent does not exist
`invalid_state_transition`	409	PaymentIntent is not in `succeeded` status
`connector_account_override_forbidden`	400	Refund supplied a different `connector_account` than the originating charge. See example above.
`connector_account_inactive`	400	Originating connector account has since been soft-deleted.
`originating_account_unavailable`	409	Originating connector account has been hard-deleted; refund cannot route through it. Contact the processor directly and reconcile via ledger adjustment.