Refunds are payments returned back to the customer either fully or partially by the merchant. Merchants can initiate refunds for a payment processed earlier through Cashfree Payments for various reasons like order cancellation by customer, lack of available inventory with merchant, etc
## Create Refund
Refunds can be created via either APIs or through Merchant Dashboard.
### Create Refund via API
#### Payload Field Description
| Field | Description | Example |
| cf_refund_id | Cashfree Payments ID for a refund | 11325632 |
| cf_payment_id | Cashfree Payments ID of the payment for which refund is initiated | 789727431 |
| refund_id | Merchant’s refund ID of the refund | refund_sampleorder0413 |
| order_id | Merchant’s order Id of the order for which refund is initiated | sampleorder0413 |
| refund_amount | Amount that was refunded | 2.00 |
| refund_currency | Currency of the refund amount | INR |
| entity | Type of object (refund always) | refund |
| refund_type | Type of refund (One of MERCHANT_INITIATED, PAYMENT_AUTO_REFUND, UNRECONCILED_AUTO_REFUND) | MERCHANT_INITIATED |
| refund_arn | The bank reference number for refund | 205907014017 |
| refund_status | Status of the refund (One of SUCCESS, CANCELLED, PENDING, ONHOLD) | PENDING |
| status_description | Complete description of the refund status | In Progress |
| created_at | Time of refund creation | 2022-02-28T12:54:25+05:30 |
| processed_at | Time when refund was processed successfully | 2022-02-28T13:04:27+05:30 |
| refund_charge | Charges in INR for processing refund | 0 |
| refund_note | Note added by merchant for the refund | Cancelled Order |
| refund_splits | Refund split details | [] |
| metadata | Additional refund metadata | null |
| refund_mode | Method or speed of processing refund (INSTANT or STANDARD) | STANDARD |
#### refund_status
List of possible refund status along with a generic description
| Value | Description |
| PENDING | The refund request is accepted by Cashfree Payments buy yet to be accepted by the respective banks |
| SUCCESS | The refund request is successfully accepted by the bank and the payment would get credited to the customer in 3-4 days |
| ONHOLD | The refund request is kept on hold because the merchant has insufficient balance in their Cashfree Payments account |
| CANCELLED | The refund request which was earlier accepted by Cashfree Payments is cancelled because it could not be processed by the Bank |
#### status_description
List of detailed status descriptions for various refund status
| refund_status | status_description |
| PENDING | In Progress |
| PENDING | Refund request sent to bank for processing refund manually |
| PENDING | Refund request is getting processed via payouts |
| PENDING | Request sent to merchant to collect customer details |
| SUCCESS | Refund processed successfully |
| CANCELLED | Refund is cancelled |
| ONHOLD | Refund on hold because of insufficient account balance |
#### refund_type
| Value | Description |
| MERCHANT_INITIATED | The refund was initiated on the request of merchant |
| PAYMENT_AUTO_REFUND | The refund was initiated because Cashfree Payments could not return a success response for payment within an agreed timeline, or if the customer had raised dispute for the order with Cashfree |
| UNRECONCILED_AUTO_REFUND | If the payment was done to a merchant but could not be reconciled with any of the merchant orders, then the payment is auto refunded to the customer |
## Get all refunds for an order
To query all the refunds associated with an order
## Get a single refund for an order
To query a particular refund for an order