Configure an invoice finalisation grace period

Learn how to configure a grace period for finalising your invoices.

All invoices have a default finalisation grace period of 1 hour. During the finalisation grace period, you can continue to report usage for the previous billing period. Only subscription cycle invoices and subscription schedule phase transition invoices for metered items include usage reported during this period. Other invoices, including threshold invoices, reflect only the usage accrued up to the point the invoice is created. During finalisation, Stripe updates the invoice to reflect the latest quantity for its billing period. Any usage reported beyond the grace period isn’t included.

You can modify the default setting if you need more or less time to record usage for a billing period that already ended.

Configure how long it takes for invoices enabled for automatic collection to transition from draft to finalised. You can set a delay of up to 72 hours (3 days). Don’t specify a value that’s longer than your service period. For example, if your service period is daily, don’t set a grace period greater than or equal to 24 hours. If Stripe fails to receive a successful response to invoice.created, we delay finalising all invoices with automatic collection for up to 72 hours, excluding those where you have set a custom scheduled finalisation time.

Regional considerations

Invoice finalisation requirements vary by region. Consult your legal advisor for advice specific to your business.

Configure the default grace period

1. Go to the Invoice settings page .
2. Under Invoice finalisation grace period , review the configured finalisation behaviour. The default is set to 1 hour for all invoices.
3. To change the default behaviour for all invoices, do the following:

• Click the overflow menu ( ) in the Account default row, and select Edit .
• Under Invoice finalisation delay , specify the duration between invoice creation and finalisation
• Click Save .

Configure rules for the grace period

Rules allow you to set the grace period for specific groups of invoices. If the conditions on your rules aren’t met, Stripe uses the default behaviour.

You can change the order that we apply rules by clicking Change order. You can’t change the order of the default behaviour, which is always applied last. You can revert to the Stripe default behaviour by deleting all other rules and setting the Invoice finalisation delay to 1 hour.

For invoices with multiple products that might satisfy more than one rule, Stripe applies the more conservative grace period. For example, if an invoice includes one line item for a usage-based product (72 hours) and a simple subscription product (1 hour), the invoice finalises after 72 hours.

The first invoice generated by a subscription set to charge automatically finalises immediately, regardless of the rules you configure.

1. On the Invoice settings page , under Invoice finalisation grace period , click Add rule .
2. On the Create new rule page, under Invoice finalisation delay , specify the duration between invoice creation and finalisation.
3. Under Conditions , do the following to set the grace period: For invoices Do the following Generated at the end of a subscription service period Select Invoice is from a subscription cycle from the dropdown. With usage-based products Select Has a metered price from the dropdown. With usage-based products from a subscription service period Select Has a metered price from the dropdown. Click Add more conditions, then select Invoice is from a subscription cycle from the dropdown.
4. Click Save .

Add usage to draft invoices

By default, newly recorded usage appears on an invoice when it’s finalised, and not on the draft invoice. You can delay finalisation if you need more time to aggregate and add usage to your draft invoices. To add usage to existing invoices, they must meet the following conditions:

• The invoice is in a draft Status. Threshold invoices don’t include usage reported after they’re created.
• The timestamp from the meters request is within the service period for the invoice.

If the usage timestamp is for any time after the creation time of the draft invoice, we append the usage to the next invoice.

You can verify added usage on the Meters page in the Dashboard or using the Meters API.

Limitations

The following limitations apply to the invoice finalisation grace period.

Applies only to subscription cycle and phase transition invoices

Only the following invoices include metered usage reported during the finalisation grace period:

• Invoices generated at the end of a subscription service period.
• Invoices generated by subscription schedule phase transitions that modify metered items.

All other invoices use the usage recorded before invoice creation, even if a finalisation grace period is configured.

Mid-cycle price changes drop grace period usage

If a subscription item’s price changes during a billing cycle (for example, because of a mid-cycle upgrade or price update), the grace period doesn’t capture late usage. Stripe skips invoice recomputation during finalisation, so any usage reported during the grace period doesn’t appear on current or subsequent invoices.

This affects both classic and flexible billing modes for subscriptions that use billing meters.