July 31, 2025

How long do pending transactions take to clear?

Pending transactions are charges that have yet to be fully processed or settled. Depending on the charge, they can take anywhere from a few hours to 5 business days to clear. Restaurants, hotels, and car rental companies often initially list charges as pending until the payment is fully processed.

This post explains what pending transactions are, how long they take to clear, and what causes pending transactions. Plus, learn how to cancel a pending transaction and what factors could prevent you from doing so.

What does "pending transaction" mean?

A pending transaction is a charge, payment, or deposit that hasn’t been fully processed by your bank or credit card. The funds are temporarily on hold, either reducing your available credit or your available bank balance, but the transaction hasn’t officially cleared.

Several transactions may show up as pending, such as when you use your card to leave a tip at a restaurant or buy gas at the pump. Online shopping can also result in pending transactions until the merchant processes your payment and ships your order.

How long do pending transactions take to clear?

It’s normal for a charge to take a few days to post to your credit card account. Pending credit card charges typically clear within a few hours to several days, depending on factors such as the merchant’s processing time, weekends, holidays, and your card issuer’s policies.

Pending charges can also show up in banking accounts. The time it takes to clear often depends on the type of transaction. Here are some common timelines to expect for different types of bank transactions:

  • Direct deposits: A direct deposit usually clears by the next business day
  • Check deposits: If you deposit a check at the bank, ATM, or via a banking app, it can take up to 2 business days
  • Wire transfers: Standard wire transfers usually take 1 business day, while international wire transfers can take up to 2 weeks
  • ACH payments: It typically takes 1–3 business days for a pending ACH payment to clear

What causes pending transactions?

Some reasons for pending credit card charges include bank holds, debit card holds, credit card holds, and merchant holds, among others. Here’s a closer look at the most common causes:

  • Bank holds: Banks may place holds on accounts to monitor for unusual activity or protect against fraud, such as in cases of payment disputes or unusual spending patterns
  • Debit card holds: In instances where you can't use your PIN for debit card purchases, your debit card issuer will label the transaction as pending for up to 4 business days
  • Credit card holds: Credit card payments typically clear more quickly than debit card payments. Your credit card issuer will usually verify that you have sufficient funds, then clear the transaction within 48 hours.
  • Merchant holds: Merchants such as hotels and gas stations use authorization holds to verify the card and reserve funds for potential additional charges, causing transactions to show as pending
  • Canceled transactions: If you see a transaction canceled after authorization, it may still appear as pending until fully processed
  • Subscription renewals: When a subscription is due for renewal, a merchant may request authorization from the credit card issuer to verify the card is still valid and has sufficient funds, resulting in a pending transaction
  • Fraud and anti-fraud authorizations: Unknown pending transactions can indicate potential fraud. Conversely, companies may apply small pending charges as a security measure to confirm card ownership and prevent credit card fraud.

Ready to take control of your finances?

Learn about Ramp’s pricing plans and start saving today.

Pricing preview

Are pending transactions ever declined?

You may see a pending transaction declined even after initially appearing as pending on your account. This may occur for a variety of reasons:

  • There are insufficient funds to cover the charge
  • Your bank has flagged the transaction as fraudulent
  • There’s been a technical or processing error related to the transaction
  • The charge exceeds your credit limit
  • The authorization hold expired
  • There’s been a merchant finalization delay

What does it mean when a pending transaction says declined?‍

In the case of a pending transaction that’s declined, the pending funds are typically released, adjusting your available balance to its original amount. Whether you rely on paper statements or mobile banking, you should regularly monitor your transaction history to stay informed about the status of any pending transactions and promptly address any issues.

How to cancel a pending transaction

Here’s how to cancel a pending transaction, broken down by merchant and payment type:

Credit card

To cancel a pending credit card transaction, contact the merchant directly. Clearly explain your reasons for canceling and request that they void the charge. If this approach is unsuccessful, or you suspect fraudulent activity, contact your credit card issuer by phone using the number on the back of your card. Explain the situation in detail and inquire about the dispute resolution process.

Debit card

Similar to credit cards, you'll need to contact the merchant directly to cancel a pending debit card transaction. If this fails, contact your bank or debit card issuer to learn about the options available to you to void the transaction.

PayPal

Log in to your PayPal account and go to the "Activity" section to cancel a pending transaction. Find the pending payment, select it, and then select "Cancel" and "Cancel Payment."

Cash App

Go to the "Activity" tab in Cash App and select the pending payment you want to cancel. If the option is available, you should see a "Cancel" button. Select it to cancel the payment.

Factors that can affect your ability to cancel

You can’t always cancel pending transactions immediately, even if you contact the merchant. Factors such as the purchase category, timing, and shipping status often determine whether cancellation is possible:

  • Purchase category: Some merchants, such as restaurants and gas stations, typically place a hold on your card, resulting in a pending transaction. Travel agents may place a hold that lasts up to 30 days. Be aware that with some categories, your best course of action is simply to wait.
  • Delayed shipments: If your charge is pending due to a delayed shipment, contact the seller and ask them to cancel the transaction until they complete the shipment
  • Holidays: During bank holidays, your card purchases may lead to pending transactions. Usually, the pending payment will finalize during the first business day following the holiday.
  • Banking hours: Banking hours are typically 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Any charges outside these hours will likely fall into pending payments until at least the next business day. If the charges don't clear by then, consider contacting the merchant to see if they can lift the pending payment.

Get complete transaction visibility with Ramp

Staying on top of pending, posted, and flagged charges is key to managing your business finances effectively.

The Ramp Business Credit Card gives you complete visibility into pending and posted transactions in one centralized platform, with automated expense reporting and categorization tools to help you track and understand every charge in real time. With Ramp, you can:

  • Identify and flag fraudulent, suspicious, and unauthorized charges in real time, even while they’re still pending
  • Set custom controls on corporate cards for specific vendors and categories to prevent out-of-policy spend
  • Create unlimited free virtual cards with custom permissions
  • Give employees the ability to submit receipts and memos instantly via SMS, web, mobile app, or direct integrations with services like Gmail
  • Personalize approval workflows to keep the right people informed, with automated reminders

See how Ramp helps your business stay on top of every transaction with an interactive demo.

Try Ramp for free
Share with
Fiona LeeFormer Content Lead, Ramp
Fiona writes about B2B growth strategies and digital marketing. Prior to Ramp, she led content teams at Google and Intercom. Fiona graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in English.
Ramp is dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes make informed decisions. We adhere to strict editorial guidelines to ensure that our content meets and maintains our high standards.

When our teams need something, they usually need it right away. The more time we can save doing all those tedious tasks, the more time we can dedicate to supporting our student-athletes.

Sarah Harris

Secretary, The University of Tennessee Athletics Foundation, Inc.

How Tennessee built a championship-caliber back office with Ramp

Ramp had everything we were looking for, and even things we weren't looking for. The policy aspects, that's something I never even dreamed of that a purchasing card program could handle.

Doug Volesky

Director of Finance, City of Mount Vernon

City of Mount Vernon addresses budget constraints by blocking non-compliant spend, earning cash back with Ramp

Switching from Brex to Ramp wasn’t just a platform swap—it was a strategic upgrade that aligned with our mission to be agile, efficient, and financially savvy.

Lily Liu

CEO, Piñata

How Piñata halved its finance team’s workload after moving from Brex to Ramp

With Ramp, everything lives in one place. You can click into a vendor and see every transaction, invoice, and contract. That didn’t exist in Zip. It’s made approvals much faster because decision-makers aren’t chasing down information—they have it all at their fingertips.

Ryan Williams

Manager, Contract and Vendor Management, Advisor360°

How Advisor360° cut their intake-to-pay cycle by 50%

The ability to create flexible parameters, such as allowing bookings up to 25% above market rate, has been really good for us. Plus, having all the information within the same platform is really valuable.

Caroline Hill

Assistant Controller, Sana Benefits

How Sana Benefits improved control over T&E spend with Ramp Travel

More vendors are allowing for discounts now, because they’re seeing the quick payment. That started with Ramp—getting everyone paid on time. We’ll get a 1-2% discount for paying early. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars, it does add up.

James Hardy

CFO, SAM Construction Group

How SAM Construction Group LLC gained visibility and supported scale with Ramp Procurement

We’ve simplified our workflows while improving accuracy, and we are faster in closing with the help of automation. We could not have achieved this without the solutions Ramp brought to the table.

Kaustubh Khandelwal

VP of Finance, Poshmark

How Poshmark exceeded its free cash flow goals with Ramp

I was shocked at how easy it was to set up Ramp and get our end users to adopt it. Our prior procurement platform took six months to implement, and it was a lot of labor. Ramp was so easy it was almost scary.

Michael Natsch

Procurement Manager, AIRCO

“Here to stay:” How AIRCO consolidated procurement, AP, and spend to gain control with Ramp