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Stripe decline code: service_not_allowed

Service not allowed — The merchant category isn't accepted for this card.

Common cause

Card is restricted to specific merchant categories (e.g. pre-paid gift cards).

Recovery strategy

Retry strategy	Don't retry
Customer-facing action	Send a card-update flow
Recovery rate (retry only)	~5%
Recovery rate (with customer flow)	~50%

What to do, in order

Email the customer that their card may be restricted; suggest a different card or alternative payment method.

Code example

The recommended Stripe Customer Portal session for the recovery flow:

session = stripe.billing_portal.Session.create(
    customer=customer_id,
    return_url="https://yourapp.com/billing/thanks",
    flow_data={"type": "payment_method_update"},
)
update_link = session.url

Where this fits in the bigger picture

service_not_allowed is one of dozens of decline codes Stripe returns; recovery rates vary by code by 5x or more. The recovery-rate reference covers the full set; the card-update flow article covers the customer-facing side; dunning emails covers how to write the messages.

DunningKit's open-source CLI parses your Stripe failed-charges CSV and gives you the breakdown by code, with recoverable-revenue estimates. pip install dunningkit.