Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)

The Single Euro Payments Area is an EU initiative to create a single market for euro-denominated payments. You can collect direct debit payments from accounts within the supported countries.

SEPA Direct Debit is a pull-based payment, thus FastSpring’s bank initiates the payment collection. The consumer must accept a mandate that authorizes FastSpring to debit their account. FastSpring automatically generates this mandate, and presents it to customers at checkout.

Note: To ensure the consumer has sufficient funds, FastSpring routes transactions through a third-party bank verification process. Please allow 5-7 days for a consumer’s order to be fulfilled.

The sections below outline the supported regions, transaction timings, and subscription behaviors for SEPA. Select a card or use the TOC on the right to jump ahead.

Supported Countries

View the list of European nations where SEPA payments are accepted.

Payment Experience

Understand the transaction lifecycle and fulfillment delays.

Mandates

Learn about the required billing agreement generated for customers.

Subscriptions & Disputes

Manage recurring billing behaviors, refunds, and chargeback windows.

Enable SEPA

If you are an existing FastSpring seller and want to enable SEPA Direct Debit for your store, please submit a support ticket via the platform or our support portal.

Supported countries

FastSpring supports SEPA payments for consumers in the following countries:

Austria (AT)
Belgium (BE)
Cyprus (CY)
Denmark (DK)
Estonia (EE)
Finland (FI)
France (FR)
Germany (DE)
Greece (GR)
Ireland (IE)
Italy (IT)
Netherlands (NL)
Portugal (PT)
Spain (ES)
Sweden (SE)

FastSpring only displays SEPA as a payment option to customers in these countries. If your store does not accept Euro-denominated transactions, FastSpring will not display the SEPA payment option.

Tip: If your store is not currently configured for Euros, you can edit your currency availability to enable SEPA.

Payment experience

The SEPA payment method is automatically enabled in all store checkouts that support Euros. Customers based in the supported countries may purchase any product or subscription with SEPA.

At checkout, customers follow the steps in the image below to pay using SEPA:

Timings: Initiation to Completion/Cancellation

SEPA Direct Debit transactions usually take 3 business days before the customer is charged. Once the customer has been charged, it will take an additional 3 business days to complete the order at FastSpring.

Note: The timings are based on the payments being collected as soon as possible.

SEPA mandate

The SEPA Direct Debit Mandate is a billing agreement that allows you to collect future payments from a consumer’s bank account. The consumer provides this agreement with the following information:

Payment Amount
SEPA Mandate ID
SEPA Mandate Date
FastSpring Seller Name
FastSpring Order Amount
Product Name
Creditor Information
FastSpring Support Contact Information
SEPA Prenote

If the customer is purchasing a subscription, the mandate should also include subscription billing terms.

You can access the SEPA Mandate in the order’s details page, or the Fulfillments page. Customers can access it from their invoice, fulfillment email, and Account Management Portal.

Subscriptions and disputes

SEPA handles recurring billing and refunds differently than instant payment methods due to strict EU banking regulations.

SEPA supports automatic billing for subscriptions. If the initial mandate included subscription terms, FastSpring can automatically rebill customers without requiring a new mandate for each transaction.

Declined rebills

If a subscription rebill is declined, FastSpring automatically cancels the subscription and notifies the customer. They may add a new payment method through their Account Management Portal prior to deactivation. However, they can no longer use SEPA for that subscription.

Webhook events

FastSpring sends the following webhooks specifically for SEPA transactions:

Webhook Event	Description
order.completed	Sent following a successful SEPA transaction (after the bank verification delay).
order.canceled	Sent following a canceled transaction.
order.failed	Sent if the information fails an account check and FastSpring cancels the transaction.