Leaving Stripe? What Comes With You (And What Doesn't)

Stripe will move your customers' saved cards to a new processor. Subscriptions, payment history and Link-saved cards stay behind.

The fear that keeps a lot of companies on a processor they've outgrown is simple: if we switch, every customer has to re-enter their card. For a subscription business, that sounds like a self-inflicted churn event.

If you're on Stripe, you mostly don't have to worry about that. Stripe will transfer your customers' saved card data to your new processor. But the process doesn't work the way most people expect, and several important things don't come with you.

What Comes With You

Stripe prepares an encrypted export of your customer card data. It includes saved card numbers, expiration dates, cardholder names and billing addresses, along with customer email addresses and any metadata you attached to your customer records.

The file also carries Stripe's own customer and card IDs. That matters, because your systems reference those IDs today, and you'll need them to match each customer to their new record on the other side.

What Stays Behind

Subscriptions. Stripe doesn't export subscriptions. If Stripe Billing runs your renewals, every plan, price, trial and billing date has to be rebuilt in your new processor or billing platform. This is the part teams forget, and it's usually the biggest piece of work in the move.

Payment history. Past charges, refunds and disputes aren't in the export either. You can still pull them through the Dashboard or API after you stop processing, as long as you don't close or delete the account. Don't close it until you have what you need.

Everything else in your account. The export covers customer and card data. Other objects stay in Stripe.

Cards saved through Link. Link is Stripe's own checkout wallet. Credentials customers saved there can't be transferred between processors, so Stripe excludes them from the export. Those customers will need to enter a card again.

Who Gets The File

Not you. To meet PCI requirements, Stripe only transfers card data to another PCI DSS Level 1 compliant processor. The receiving processor has to provide its current Attestation of Compliance (or a listing on Visa's service provider registry) and a public encryption key hosted on its own domain. Stripe then arranges the transfer directly with that processor, which imports the file into its system.

In practice, that means your new processor has to be willing and ready to accept an inbound migration. Most large processors are. It's still worth confirming before you sign, along with what they charge for it and how long their import takes.

Before You Switch

Confirm the inbound migration. Ask your new processor whether they accept card data imports from Stripe, what it costs, and what format they return the new tokens in.

Plan the subscription rebuild. Decide where your billing logic will live after the move, and map every plan and billing date before the cards arrive.

Map your IDs. Make sure every place your product stores a Stripe customer or card ID can be pointed to its new equivalent.

Keep the old account open. Pull your payment history and reporting before you close anything.

Move a small batch first. Run a test group through the new setup before switching every customer over.

If you're on another processor, ask the same questions. Many offer a similar export, with their own rules on what's included and who can receive it. It's one of the clauses worth checking before you renew, which we covered in Before Your Payments Contract Renews, Check These 6 Things.

The Takeaway

Leaving Stripe doesn't mean losing your customers' cards. It does mean rebuilding everything around them: your subscriptions, your reporting, and the IDs your product depends on. Plan for that work, and the card data is the easy part.

Through the end of the year, we're doing free 20-minute contract reviews, including what it would take to move. Reach out if you're weighing a switch.