Settlement rules

Learn about the following Alipay settlement rules before performing a reconciliation:

• Prerequisites for settlement
• Settlement period
• Settlement currency

Prerequisites for settlement

Two settlement prerequisites have to be met for each settlement batch:

• Settlement funds meet the minimum required: The settlement is initiated when the settlement funds within each batch are greater than or equal to the minimum settlement amount specified in the contract. Otherwise, the settlement funds are accumulated until the unsettled amount is greater than or equal to the minimum settlement amount.
• Sufficient balance: The settlement funds are deducted only when your balance is sufficient when Alipay initiates a batch settlement. An insufficient balance may be caused by a refund.

Settlement period

Alipay supports settlement based on transactions occurring in three time dimensions: daily, weekly, and monthly. The settlement periods are T+N, W+N, and M+N respectively, where N represents a variable. The specific settlement period is subject to the settlement contract that you sign with Alipay.

Table 1. Details of settlement period

If you want to shorten the settlement period, contact Alipay Merchant Service business support (global.service@alipay.com).

Notes:

1. Alipay only settles to you on working days, not on holidays. For specific settlement days, check Settlement calendar on Alipay Global Merchant Portal.
2. The transaction period for each settlement batch is from 0:00 (UTC+8:00) of the first transaction day to 23:59:59 (UTC+8:00) of the last transaction day.

Suppose there are no other holidays except weekends. Taking the settlement periods of T+4, W+4, and M+4 as examples, the following figure shows the specific settlement day under these settlement periods:

Figure 1. Settlement days of different settlement periods

Exchange rate

The settlement exchange rate refers to the exchange rate between the settlement currency and the transaction currency, where:

• the settlement currency refers to the settlementStrategy.settlementCurrency field in the pay and createPaymentSession APIs.
• the transaction currency refers to the order.orderAmount.currency field in the pay and createPaymentSession API.

The settlement exchange rate differs based on different currency conversion modes:

Table 2. Settlement exchange rates of different currency conversion modes

Settlement currency

The settlement currencies supported by different acquiring regions of Alipay are as follows:

Table 3. Supported settlement currencies for different acquiring regions