Identity Documents

Special Requirements for Texas Payers

Additional identity information is required for Payers based out of the state of Texas.

If a Payer adds a Payment Method with an address located in the state of Texas, the Payer will need to provide a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) before using the Payment Method to make a Payment.

With Plastiq's Connect APIs, you can decide how to best manage and surface this requirement in your customer experience.

Identity Document Collection Upfront

If you place a strong emphasis on your product onboarding experience, you may want to optionally collect a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) upfront for all your Payers.

However, we highly recommend you make this field mandatory for Payers in Texas, as they will inevitably be prevented from submitting Payments until this information has been collected.

Using Post Payers To Collect Identity Documents

When you call Plastiq Connect's POST Payers endpoint, you can create the Payer object with an attached identity document.

This way you entirely avoid identity document errors associated with Texas Payers when creating Payment Methods and Payment Intents at later stages in the Payment funnel.

Down The Road

Alternatively, you may not want to collect sensitive personal information upfront and would rather request for this information given stronger customer intent to make a Payment.

So you let the Payer add a Payment Method

When your customer adds a Payment Method with an address located in Texas, the POST Payment Methods response will return a 200 and set the Payment Method status to 'INACTIVE' if there are no valid identity documents on file for the Payer.

So you let the Payer draft a Payment

If a Payment Intent is created using a Payment Method with an 'INACTIVE' status and the Payer doesn't have valid identity documents on file, POST Payment Intents returns a 200 and a 'NOT_CAPTURABLE' status.

Additionally, the list ofstatusReasons codes will be surfaced: 'TEXAS_COMPLIANCE_BLOCK' and 'PAYMENT_METHOD_INACTIVE' will be nested in the status object.

Using Patch Payers To Collect Identity Documents

In this scenario, you want to add identity documents to the Payer after you've already created it.

We recommend the use of the PATCH Payers endpoint to add identity documents to an existing Payer.

By adding identity documents, the Payment Intent status will be automatically updated to 'CAPTURABLE' and the Payment Intent Id can be used to create a Payment.

Acceptable Identity Documents

In order to fulfill the identity verification obligation for Texas Payers, you only need to provide an identity type and identity value.

There is no need to collect and transmit a stored form of the physical identity document.

Plastiq currently accepts 5 different identity document types:

  • US_TIN - Taxpayer Identification Number (US)
  • US_EIN - Employer Identification Number (US)
  • US_SSN - Social Security Number (US)
  • ALIEN_REGISTRATION_NUMBER - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Number (US)
  • PASSPORT_NUMBER - The number on your government-issued passport

What’s Next