Captures and refunds

A capture takes the money that an authorization holds, and a refund gives back money that you captured. Both go to the same card as the payment.

Last reviewed 2 November 2026.

When to capture

Capture when you deliver: when you ship the goods, hand them over, or start the service. The rules of the card schemes, and Danish consumer law, assume that you do:

• The Danish Consumer Ombudsman's position is that a shop may not take the payment for goods before it ships them, or hands them over for click and collect, unless it has a good reason that the payer agreed to.
• An authorization does not last long. Visa expects a capture within 10 days of an online payment, and Mastercard within 7 days of a final authorization. See Authorizations.

Capturing at once, as soon as the payment is authorized, is right when you deliver at once: a download, a ticket, or a subscription period that starts now. The API calls this autocapture.

Captures of part of the amount

You can capture any part of an authorization, as many times as you like, up to the authorized amount. Capture what you ship, when you ship it: if an order ships in two parcels, capture each parcel's part when it leaves.

What you never capture is released when the authorization runs out. Once you have captured part of an authorization, you can no longer void the rest.

Settlement and payout

A capture asks your acquirer for the money. The acquirer sends it to the card scheme for clearing, the issuer moves the money off the payer's account, and the acquirer pays it out to you, less its fees, on the schedule of your agreement with them. gjold takes no part in this, and does not report payouts: your acquirer does.

Refunds

A refund returns money that you captured, all of it or a part, in one refund or several, up to what you captured. It goes back to the card the payer paid with. You can't refund more than you captured, nor to another card or account.

The payer usually sees a refund within a few working days, depending on their bank. If their card has since expired or been replaced, the issuer still credits the account behind it. A refund is not a void: it moves money a second time, and the payer may see both the payment and the refund on their statement.

If you have captured nothing yet, void the authorization instead of capturing and refunding it. See Voiding.