When you make a payment using your Wise card, the transaction might appear as pending at first. This is because transferring money from your account to the merchant goes through several steps and isn't always instant.
A pending payment means that the merchant has reserved the money from your account, but hasn’t claimed it yet. It usually takes 3 – 4 days for the merchant to claim the money from your account. When they do, the transaction will change from pending to completed.
Businesses like hotels, gas stations, or car rental companies may use pre-authorisation. This acts like a reservation that will change to the correct amount once the business knows how much you’re actually going to spend.
The payment has been pending for more than 4 days — will it go through?
Seeing a transaction is still pending can be worrying, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the transaction won’t be completed.
Sometimes it takes longer for the merchant to claim the money from your account.
There’s nothing you need to do right now. Just wait for the transactions to go through. Once the merchant claims the funds the transaction will be completed.
If the merchant doesn’t claim the funds, the money will be released back into your account in up to 30 days.
The payment was cancelled — why is it still showing as pending?
Sometimes we can’t tell if a payment was cancelled. This might happen because of problems with the payment terminal or an internet connection. If this happens, the payment will stay as pending in your account.
For most payments, the money will be released back into your account in 15 days.
For some payments, it could take up to 30 days. This might happen if your payment was for a booking deposit, car rental services or a hotel reservation.
I don’t want the pending transaction to go through, can you stop it?
If a transaction is pending, Wise can’t stop the merchant from claiming the money. If you want to cancel the transaction, you’ll need to contact the merchant.
If the merchant won’t let you cancel the transaction, or you think their behaviour could be fraudulent, you can submit a dispute.