What Is an ARN Number?
In payments, an ARN is an acquirer reference number, a unique 23-digit number assigned to a card transaction so it can be traced between banks. The acquiring bank assigns it as the transaction moves through the system, and a refund gets its own ARN separate from the original payment's. ARNs exist on Visa, Mastercard, JCB, and Diners transactions.
How an ARN number is structured
An ARN's 23 digits hold the acquiring bank's BIN, the processing date, and a transaction sequence number. Each part answers a different question about the payment:
- Acquirer BIN (6 digits): The BIN names the bank that processed the payment.
- Julian processing date (4 digits): One digit for the year, three for the day of the year.
- Transaction sequence (remaining digits): The value that sets this payment apart from every other one.
The bank and the date are written into the number itself. A support agent reads both off the ARN, with no card number needed.
Say a Julian segment reads 5125. That points to the 125th day of a year ending in 5, so early May.
Published sources disagree on whether a Visa ARN starts with a 4, a 7, or a 2. No card network documents the rule.
Read the first digit as part of the acquirer BIN and nothing more.
Where to find an ARN number
You pull an ARN from your payment provider after the transaction settles, and every platform files it somewhere different.
The field can sit empty on a payment that otherwise looks finished. Three platforms, three different places to look:
- Stripe: Open the payment's details page, then click View Details on the refund's Timeline entry.
- Adyen: In Customer Area, open Transactions > Payments, select the PSP Reference, then Payment events.
- Shopify: Open Orders, filter to Refunded, then scroll to the timeline on an order a few days old.
We also have guides for finding ARNs for different payment processors in our Help Center.
Stripe's own documentation gives banking partners up to 7 business days to return the ARN, and Stripe shows the reference as processing until then. A reversal produces no ARN at all, because the original charge isn't processed.
ARN vs STAN vs RRN vs transaction ID
An ARN is the one reference a bank can trace, while a STAN recycles, an RRN is a fallback, and a transaction ID stays internal.
Uniqueness and audience separate them. A STAN is six digits and starts over after 999,999, so the same value comes back around. An RRN is a 12-character reference the acquirer assigns at authorization. A transaction ID only exists in your own systems, so the bank can't match it to anything. Here's how the four line up:
Name the reference type whenever you hand one to a customer.
A bank looks up a STAN and an RRN differently, so give a customer the wrong one and their bank can't find the payment.
Why ARN numbers matter for merchants
The ARN is what closes out a "my refund never arrived" complaint before it turns into a chargeback.
A customer who has lost track of a refund can do one of two things. They can keep asking you, or they can ask their bank to reverse the charge and start the chargeback process. Give them the ARN and their bank can trace the refund, so they have no reason to file.
On Visa, the ARN also gates enrollment in a prevention program. In our own support data, Rapid Dispute Resolution enrollment takes two ARNs or a BIN and CAID pair.
A brand-new store hasn't refunded anyone yet, so it has no ARNs to hand over and can't enroll. Confirm your BIN with our BIN lookup tool before you try.
The ARN helps once a customer has already lost track of a payment. What usually confused them in the first place is a billing statement descriptor they didn't recognize.
We catch those disputes earlier. You get an alert, and we refund the charge before it becomes a chargeback.
How we sourced our data
The RDR enrollment requirement comes from our own support interactions with merchants applying to the program. We track what Visa asks applicants to submit.
This describes what our support team has seen requested. It isn't a published Visa rulebook figure.
FAQs
Do American Express and Discover transactions have ARNs?
No. Amex and Discover run their own networks, so ask your processor which reference it provides for those payments.
Can I create or look up an ARN myself?
No, and no public lookup tool exists either. You can only read back the value your provider got from the acquiring bank.
What do I tell a customer while the ARN is still processing?
Give them the date you issued the refund and tell them the bank reference is still coming. Follow up with the ARN once it appears in your provider's dashboard.
Does an ARN prove the customer received their money?
No. It proves the refund went out and gives the bank a way to trace it, and the bank decides when the money reaches their account.
