Connect for Marketplaces: Split payments with delayed routing

Delayed routing allows you to provide the routing information at a later time after the payment has been paid. This offers enhanced flexibility compared to the Upfront Routing, with the primary difference being when routing instructions are provided.

With Delayed Routing, instructions are submitted after a payment has been processed, allowing marketplaces more control over when and how funds are distributed to sellers. This feature is especially valuable when funds need to be held until certain conditions are met, such as after the successful shipment or confirmed receipt of goods.

Overview

Delayed Routing is ideal for marketplaces that want to split payments between one or multiple sellers in a single transaction at a later point - whether they don't know where the money has to go at the time of the transaction or need to wait for a certain trigger to split the payment. Funds can be routed between connected customer accounts (sellers), and the marketplace may retain a portion as a commission. In this setup:

• The marketplace is the payment owner.
• Fees are charged directly to the marketplace account.
• Chargeback liability remains with the marketplace.

There are no limits to how many routes can be created for a single payment, as long as there is sufficient balance and the amount being split does not exceed the amount paid.

Some advantages of using Delayed Routing are:

• Ability to distribute, split and route payments between your platform and the connected customer accounts.
• Flexibility to control the timing and frequency of your customers’ settlements from Mollie.
• Easier fund allocation when multiple parties are involved in the payout.

And some things to consider are:

• Using Delayed Routing might introduce some implementation complexity.
• Marketplaces have to route payments within 90 days - the rest of the funds are automatically transferred to the marketplace's balance (you can monitor unrouted balance using the Unrouted Report).
• Gross settlements are mandatory - all payment fees will be invoiced to the Marketplace at the end of the month.

*All other supported payment methods where Mollie is collecting settlements are available both in Upfront and Delayed routing.

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Delayed Routing is not enabled by default. To enable them for your organization, complete this request form or contact your Mollie point of contact so they can enable Delayed Routing for you.

Example

Imagine you run an online marketplace where multiple sellers list their products. A buyer places an order and pays €100 for a pair of sneakers. Instead of immediately sending this payment to the seller, Mollie holds the funds temporarily.

This gives the marketplace time to check whether the seller actually has the sneakers in stock and/or perform any fraud or compliance checks to confirm the final split:

• if the sneakers are available, the marketplace can route the funds — say, €95 is routed to the seller and €5 is routed to the marketplace as a platform fee;
• if the sneakers aren’t available, the marketplace can refund the buyer or route the funds to another seller who has them in stock & ready to ship.

This delayed routing approach is particularly useful when the marketplace doesn’t know how much exactly each seller should get at the moment of the payment. This way, you have up to 90 days to choose how to split and route the funds. If you don’t act, all funds — including your own — will stay in the holding balance. After 90 days, any remaining funds are automatically sent to the marketplace.

Setting up routing

Step 1: Create a payment

Once Marketplace features are enabled for your account, and you have a customer account connected to your platform, you can start processing payments for them. Payments are created using the Create payment API call.

POST https://api.mollie.com/v2/payments

Request:
{
    "amount": {
        "currency": "EUR",
        "value": "15.00"
    },
    "description": "Order #12345",
    "redirectUrl": "https://webshop.example.org/order/12345/",
    "webhookUrl": "https://webshop.example.org/payments/webhook/",
    "testmode": true
}

Response:
{
    "resource": "payment",
    "id": "tr_C15LZwVISe",
    "mode": "test",
    "createdAt": "2025-06-25T09:35:28+00:00",
    "amount": {
        "value": "15.00",
        "currency": "EUR"
    },
    "description": "Order #12345",
    "status": "open",
    "isCancelable": false,
    "expiresAt": "2025-06-25T09:50:28+00:00",
    "redirectUrl": "https://webshop.example.org/order/12345/",
}

Step 2: Set up routes

When the status of a payment goes to paid, a route has to be created for each seller to receive a split of this payment. A route includes an amount to be allocated to each seller and a destination which includes the organization id and a description for reconciliation purposes.

If the Marketplace would like to keep a part of the payment for themselves, this part also needs to be routed using the organisation ID of the Marketplace itself.

POST https://api.mollie.com/v2/payments/tr_C15LZwVISe/routes

Request:
{
    "amount": {
        "currency": "EUR",
        "value": "9.00"
    },
    "description": "#12345 Food order",
    "destination": {
        "type": "organization",
        "organizationId": "org_8752"
    },
    "testmode": true
}

Response:
{
    "resource": "route",
    "id": "crt_iqwYSNJ90p",
    "paymentId": "tr_C15LZwVISe",
    "amount": {
        "value": "9.00",
        "currency": "EUR"
    },
    "description": "#12345 Food order",
    "destination": {
        "type": "organization",
        "organizationId": "org_8752"
    }
}

POST https://api.mollie.com/v2/payments/tr_C15LZwVISe/routes

Request:
{
    "amount": {
        "currency": "EUR",
        "value": "4.00"
    },
    "description": "#12345 Delivery fee",
    "destination": {
        "type": "organization",
        "organizationId": "org_3172"
    },
    "testmode": true
}

Response:
{
    "resource": "route",
    "id": "crt_CEYRKlzqIs",
    "paymentId": "tr_C15LZwVISe",
    "amount": {
        "value": "4.00",
        "currency": "EUR"
    },
    "description": "#12345 Delivery fee",
    "destination": {
        "type": "organization",
        "organizationId": "org_8752"
    }
}

POST https://api.mollie.com/v2/payments/tr_C15LZwVISe/routes

Request:
{
    "amount": {
        "currency": "EUR",
        "value": "2.00"
    },
    "description": "#12345 Commission",
    "destination": {
        "type": "organization",
        "organizationId": "me"
    },
    "testmode": true
}

Response:
{
    "resource": "route",
    "id": "crt_LYoQWGWwUj",
    "paymentId": "tr_C15LZwVISe",
    "amount": {
        "value": "2.00",
        "currency": "EUR"
    },
    "description": "#12345 Commission",
    "destination": {
        "type": "organization",
        "organizationId": "org_123456"
    }
}

Multicurrency support

Mollie's Delayed Routing supports all primary currencies: AUD, CAD, CHF, CZK, DKK, EUR, GBP, HUF, NOK, PLN, SEK, and USD.

Routing is only supported in the same currency as the incoming payment. If the seller does not have a balance in that currency, Mollie converts the route to the seller's primary balance, and applicable FX fees are borne by the seller.

Gift cards and partial captures

Delayed Routing supports:

• Payments fully or partially made with gift cards (upon request).
• Routes on partially captured payments — as long as the routed amount does not exceed the captured amount.

Contact your Mollie point of contact to enable support for gift cards.

Settlement delays

The processing time for routes depends on the original payment method. Refer to the How long does it take to process a payment? article for more details.

Once the funds are moved to the seller’s balance, they are visible to them under the Balance tab in their Mollie dashboard. The Marketplace can also see all the payments they received in the Payments tab in the Mollie Dashboard, along with all the routes for specific payments.

Reporting

Mollie offers comprehensive reporting, allowing for a more straightforward reconciliation and bookkeeping for Marketplaces.

Holding Balance mutation report

The Holding Balance report offers a comprehensive overview of balance transactions: incoming payments are represented as credits, whereas debits correspond to routes processed for sellers. The report includes the following columns:

• Date: the Paid Date timestamp of a payment.
• id: unique Mollie identifier (tr_ for payments, crt_ for routes).
• Description: description for payment or route.
• Type: type of mutation (Payment or Route).
• Transaction reference: unique Mollie identifier for each incoming payment.
• Organization: beneficiary organization ID (empty for credits).
• Currency: currency of a mutation.
• Amount: positive for credits, negative for debits.

This time-based report can only be accessed by the Marketplace owner. An example report can be found here.

Unrouted payments report

Marketplaces can use the unrouted payments report to identify payments that are not (fully) routed yet:

• Date: the Paid Date timestamp of a payment.
• id: unique Mollie identifier of a payment.
• Payment Description: description for a payment.
• Payment Currency: currency of a payment.
• Payment Amount: amount of a payment.
• Routed Amount: amount that has been routed already.
• Remaining Amount: remaining amount (which can still be routed).
• Routes: an array with all routes present for this payment.

This report can only be accessed by the Marketplace owner. An example report can be found here.

Invoices

Mollie invoices Marketplace platforms for all Transaction Fees, Account Onboarding Fees, Account Usage Fees and Volume Fees. As mentioned earlier, with delayed routing these fees are gross-settled, meaning that they are invoiced once a month.

Marketplaces can choose to charge their sellers an additional fee by routing a portion of funds to the Marketplace’s balance. The Marketplaces are then responsible for manually invoicing their sellers for this amount.

Refunds and chargebacks

Refunds: split payments with Delayed Routing can be refunded both partially and fully.

• To process a full refund, make a call to the Refunds API with reverseRouting set to true. This deducts the amount that was originally split from the balance of each connected seller account and refunds the full amount.
• For partial refunds, use the routingReversals array in the Refunds API, similarly to the routing array provided when the payment is initially created. This array defines how much should be deducted and from which seller account. You can’t reverse more than what was originally sent to that seller.

Chargebacks: for full chargebacks we create full route reversals automatically after the marketplace covers the cost of the chargeback; for partial chargebacks the marketplace has to first cover the cost of the chargeback and then manually take back the funds from the seller.

Handling errors

If you receive a 404 Not Found error when creating a route, it means the payment isn't routable yet, even if it's marked as paid. Some delay is expected for newly processed payments.

• Wait up to 5 minutes and try again.
• Use the List Routes API to confirm if the payment is routable. If the payment isn't listed, it's not ready for routing.