Wise payouts

Partners are paid into their bank account from your Wise Business balance, in their own currency, at Wise's rate when the currencies differ. We prepare each transfer in your Wise account; the money never touches us.

• API token
• Business profile ID

Both come from a verified Wise Business account. Already have one? Skip to step 2. If not, allow fifteen minutes of your time plus one to three business days for Wise to verify the business.

1. A verified Wise Business account

Wise verifies the business before it will hold a balance for it, and payouts are funded from that balance.

1. Go to wise.com/business and open a business account. If you already have a personal Wise account, sign in first and add a business profile to it from the profile menu rather than signing up again.
2. Enter the business details Wise asks for: legal name, registration number, address, what the business does, and the directors and significant owners. The business name must match the name on the bank account you will fund it from.
3. Upload the documents Wise requests and wait for verification. Wise emails you when the account is ready.
4. Open a balance in each currency you pay partners in, from the balances section of your account, and add money to it from your bank.

If you pay a EUR partner from a GBP balance, tell us the balance currency under Advanced in the panel and Wise converts at its rate.

2. An API token with full access

In Wise, under your account's apps page, create a token, set it to Full access, and copy it. Wise shows it once.

1. Sign in to your Wise Business account. Open the profile menu and choose Your Account.
2. Choose Connect and manage apps, then API tokens.
3. Choose Add new token and complete the two-step verification prompt.
4. Name the token AffiliateRail. Set the access level to Full access. A read-only token can look at your account but cannot create transfers, and the connection will fail to verify.
5. Copy the token now. Wise shows it once.

The token can move money from your balance. Keep it out of email and chat. If it is ever exposed, go back to the same page, choose Revoke, create a new one, and save it here.

3. Your business profile ID

Paste the token into the panel and choose Find my business profile. We ask Wise which profiles the token can see; pick the Business one and the ID fills in.

1. In the panel on this page, paste the token and choose Find my business profile. Nothing is saved until you choose Save and verify.
2. If you would rather find it yourself, the profile ID is the number Wise returns for your business profile from its profiles endpoint. It is a plain number, usually eight digits.

4. Who approves each transfer

Where your business is registered decides whether payouts complete on their own or wait for you to approve each one in Wise. Either way, money leaves your balance only when you or Wise release it.

• If your Wise Business account is registered in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore or Malaysia, Wise lets us fund each transfer from your balance automatically. Payouts complete without you doing anything.
• If it is registered in the United Kingdom, the EEA or anywhere else, Wise requires you to approve each transfer yourself (the regulation known as strong customer authentication). We draft the transfer in your account and email you; you sign in to Wise, open the transfer and pay it from your balance. The payout is marked paid automatically once Wise sends it.
• Optional, for automatic approval from the UK or EEA: Wise can accept a signed approval instead of a login if you register a public key on your account. Generate a key pair on your own computer with openssl genrsa -out wise-private.pem 2048 and openssl rsa -in wise-private.pem -pubout -out wise-public.pem, upload wise-public.pem in Wise where it manages public keys (under your account's connected apps settings), and paste the contents of wise-private.pem into the Signing key field under Advanced in the panel.

If a payment-approval rule in your Wise settings applies to all payments, transfers created through the API are refused with Quote cannot be accepted with this request due to missing approval. Remove the rule, or exclude API payments from it.

5. In AffiliateRail

Choose Save and verify, then send a one-unit test transfer to a bank account you control. After that, partners who added bank details in their portal are paid from your balance on your schedule.

1. With the API token and business profile ID in the panel, leave Live selected, optionally set the balance currency you want transfers funded from, and choose Save and verify. A green tick with your business name means Wise accepted the token and the profile is a business one.
2. Send the test payout: enter a bank account you control (your own business account is fine) and choose Send 1.00. Wise's minimum transfer is one unit of currency. If the result says the transfer needs your approval, approve it in Wise and the status here updates on the next check.
3. Turn on automatic payouts from the Payouts page, or send each batch by hand from there.

Partners add their bank details in the portal with the same checks Wise applies, so a typo becomes an error on their screen rather than a failed payout three days later. Wise payouts go to bank accounts only: an IBAN, or an account and routing number for US dollars. Email addresses and Wise tags are refused.

Optional: rehearse in Wise's sandbox

Wise has a separate sandbox with pretend balances. Useful if you want to see a transfer go through before a real one does.

1. Create a sandbox account at wise-sandbox.com, add a business profile, and create a personal API token there the same way as in step 2. The sandbox is a separate world: your real Wise login will not work there, and nothing in it touches real money.
2. Top up a sandbox balance: the sandbox has no real banks, so use the Add money simulation in the sandbox interface or the balance top-up simulation endpoint in the Wise developer documentation. GBP, USD and EUR are the currencies Wise keeps working in the sandbox.
3. Here, tick This is a sandbox token when you save, and use a sandbox-only bank account for the test payout.