Why is my transfer status pending?

A transfer on Paystack can have one of four different statuses. It can either be Pending, Successful, Failed, or Reversed.

• Pending: This is the initial status of a transfer immediately it is made. It is a temporary status that usually changes within seconds to "Successful" or in some cases "Failed".
• Successful: This is the status of transfer that has been completed successfully. Most transfers on Paystack become successful within seconds.
• Failed: This is the status of a transfer that was unable to be completed for one reason or the other. This is could be an issue with the recipient's bank account or an error while processing the transfer.
• Reversed: This is the status of transfer that was previously successful but had to be reversed to your balance because it could not be applied to the recipient's bank account. This occurs when there is an issue with a recipient's bank account. For example, if the account is closed or cannot receive up to the amount transferred, the transfer will have to be reversed.

Why is my transfer in the pending state for long?

Transfers on Paystack are typically successful within seconds. On some occasions, however, a transfer might remain in a pending status for more than a few minutes because there is an issue communicating with the recipient's bank.

In this case, rather than setting the transfer to fail, our systems will continue retrying the transfer through different channels till we've exhausted all options and the transfer fails.

Please note that the 'Pending' status is not final and the status of the transfer will eventually be updated to either Successful or Failed.