Do Not Honor
What This Means
The customer's bank has declined the transaction without specifying a reason. This is one of the most common and frustrating decline codes because it provides no specific cause. For SaaS businesses, this often requires direct customer communication to resolve.
Smart retry logic can recover this payment. Use exponential backoff and retry after 24-72 hours.
Common Causes
- 1Bank's internal risk assessment flagged the transaction as suspicious
- 2Customer has set spending restrictions or transaction limits on their card
- 3The charge amount, frequency, or merchant category triggered a bank rule
- 4Bank systems are applying overly conservative fraud detection
Recovery Tactics
- 1Retry the charge after 24-48 hours as the bank may have resolved the flag
- 2Ask the customer to call their bank to pre-authorize the charge
- 3Send a clear dunning email explaining the payment failed and linking to update payment method
- 4Suggest the customer try a different card from the same or different bank
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FAQ
Why do banks decline without a reason?
Banks use "do not honor" as a catch-all when their automated systems flag a transaction but the specific reason is confidential. This protects the cardholder but frustrates merchants. Only the customer's bank can provide more details.
Is do_not_honor the same as card_declined?
They are similar catch-all codes but from different sources. do_not_honor comes specifically from the issuing bank's decision, while card_declined can come from various points in the payment network. Treatment is essentially the same.
What is the success rate when retrying do_not_honor?
Industry data suggests 15-25% of do_not_honor declines succeed on retry within 7 days. The success rate improves when the customer contacts their bank first.
How healthy is your Stripe account?
Get a free churn health report. Find pending cancellations, failed payments, and expiring cards putting your MRR at risk.
Run Free Audit