Activate a card

Last updated: September 30, 2026

You must activate the following cards before the cardholder can perform transactions:

Newly created physical cards
Virtual cards created using the API with "activate_card": false
Suspended cards

You can activate cards using:

You can also schedule a card's activation for a future date or time, instead of activating it immediately.

The cardholder can activate the card in the following ways:

Performing their first Chip and PIN transaction at a point of sale (PoS) – This also enables the card for contactless payments.
Withdrawing cash from an ATM

To show the cardholder their card's personal identification number (PIN) in your mobile app, use the Android or iOS Card Management SDK. You can also send them the PIN by mail.

Note

Cardholders cannot make contactless payments until after they perform a Chip and PIN transaction, even if the card is already active.

You must have one of the following user roles:

Admin
Support manager
A custom role with the Create and edit cards and cardholders; Simulate transactions permission

Sign in to the Dashboard.
Go to Issuing > Cards.
Select the card you want to activate.
On the Card details page, select Activate card.

Call the Activate a card endpoint. Provide the card ID, prefixed with crd_, as the {cardId} path parameter.

Alternatively, use the Update card details endpoint to update the card status.

Information

Your base URL's {prefix} value is unique to your account and environment. To learn how to retrieve your base URLs for the sandbox and production environments, see API endpoints.

post

https://{prefix}.api.checkout.com/issuing/cards/{cardId}/activate


1{
2  "last_activated_on": "2019-09-10T10:11:12Z",
3  "_links": {
4    "self": {
5      "href": "https://{prefix}.api.checkout.com/issuing/cards/crd_fa6psq242dcd6fdn5gifcq1491"
6    },
7    "revoke": {
8      "href": "https://{prefix}.api.checkout.com/issuing/cards/crd_fa6psq242dcd6fdn5gifcq1491/revoke"
9    },
10    "suspend": {
11      "href": "https://{prefix}.api.checkout.com/issuing/cards/crd_fa6psq242dcd6fdn5gifcq1491/suspend"
12    },
13    "controls": {
14      "href": "https://{prefix}.api.checkout.com/issuing/controls?target_id=crd_fa6psq242dcd6fdn5gifcq1491",
15      "actions": ["GET"],
16      "types": ["application/json"]
17    }
18  }
19}

After you integrate the Card Management Android SDK or iOS SDK, you can activate cards in your mobile app.

Note

To activate cards in your app, you must migrate to Android SDK version 3.0.0 or iOS SDK version 4.0.0. For guidance on how to update your integration, see Support – Issuing Card Management SDKs migration guide.

Note

The getCards() method throws a CardManagementError that you must catch. For example, use catch, as shown in the following example, or runCatching.

Call the getCards() method to get all the cardholder's cards, or getCard(cardId) to get a specific card:


1// Call coroutineBased getCards in the context of a coroutineScope
2try {
3  // Get all the cardholder's cards
4  cardManager.getCards(statuses = setOf(CardState.ACTIVE, CardState.REVOKED))
5  
6  // Get a specific card
7  cardManager.getCard(cardId: "<cardId>")
8} catch (e: CardManagementError) {
9   when (error) {
10        is CardManagementError.Unauthenticated -> // Prompt login
11        is CardManagementError.ConnectionIssue -> // Show network error
12        else -> // Handle other errors
13    }
14}


1do {
2   // Get all the cardholder's cards
3   let cards = try await cardManager.getCards(statuses: [.active, .suspended])
4   
5   // Get a specific card
6   let cards = try await cardManager.getCard(withID: cardId, statuses: [.active,.suspended])
7} catch let error as CardManagementError {
8  switch error {
9    case .authenticationFailure:
10      // Handle the authentication error
11    default: 
12      // Handle other errors
13  }
14}

Read the Card.possibleStateChanges property to get the statuses you can change the card to:


1// Returns a list of possible statuses you can change the card to
2val possibleNewStates = card.possibleStateChanges
3
4// You can activate the card if the status was returned by possibleStateChanges
5if (possibleNewStates.contains(CardState.ACTIVE)) {
6  <coroutineScope> {
7    val result = card.activate()
8    handleCardStateTransition(result)
9  }
10}


1import CheckoutCardManagement
2
3class YourObject {
4
5  // Returns a list of possible statuses you can change the card to
6let possibleNewStates = card.possibleStateChanges
7
8// You can activate the card if the status was returned by possibleStateChanges
9if possibleNewStates.contains(.active) {
10    do {
11       try await cardManager.activate()
12    } catch let error as CardManagementError {
13      // activation failed - handle error accordingly
14    }
15  }
16}

Complete the change to active status:


1fun cardStateChangeCompletionHandler(result: Result<Unit>): Unit {
2  result
3    .onSuccess {
4      // The card status is successfully updated and reflected by both the back end and the SDK
5    }.onFailure {
6      // If something goes wrong, you receive an error with more details
7    }
8}


1func cardStateChangeCompletion(_ result: CheckoutCardManager.OperationResult) {
2    switch result {
3    case .success:
4        // The card status is successfully updated and reflected by both the back end and the SDK
5    case .failure(let error):
6        // If something goes wrong, you receive an error with more details
7    }
8}

After you integrate the Card Management Web SDK, you can activate cards on your website or web app.

Initialize the SDK with your public API key:


1const sdk = new window.CheckoutCardManagement(<PUBLIC_API_KEY>);

Call the activateCard() method with the card ID, prefixed with crd_, and a cardholder access token. If the card is already active or revoked, the call fails with an INVALID_CARD_STATE error.

Note

Make sure you pass a cardholder access token to activateCard(). The method does not accept the single-use payment token.


1try {
2  const result = await sdk.activateCard('crd_fa6psq242dcd6fdn5gifcq1491', 'cardholderAccessToken');
3
4  console.log(result.cardId);      // 'crd_fa6psq242dcd6fdn5gifcq1491'
5  console.log(result.status);      // 'active'
6  console.log(result.activatedAt); // ISO 8601 timestamp
7} catch (error) {
8  console.error(error.code, error.message);
9}

If the request fails, you receive an error object that contains a code and a message. If you receive a NETWORK_ERROR, the card might already be active. Call getCardDetails() to confirm the card's status before you retry. For the full list of codes, see Handle errors.

Instead of activating a card immediately, you can schedule it to activate at a future date or time. Checkout.com activates the card at the scheduled time, without any further action from you or the cardholder.

To schedule a card's activation, set the scheduled_activation_date field when you call one of the following endpoints:

Create a card
Update card details – You can also use this endpoint to reschedule a card's existing activation date.

The scheduled_activation_date value must be in the future, and use one of the following ISO 8601 formats:

Date only – YYYY-MM-DD. The card activates at midnight (00:00) UTC.
Date and time – YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mmZ for UTC, or YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm±HH:mm with a UTC offset.

If you include a time, it must be:

On the hour
At least one hour later than the time you send the request

For example, if you send the request at 14:35, you can set the activation time to 16:00, 17:00, and so on.

Note

You cannot set "activate_card": true and provide scheduled_activation_date in the same Create a card request. If you do, the request returns an error.

You can activate a card before its scheduled activation date using any of the other methods on this page. We activate the card immediately and clear its scheduled activation date.

To cancel a scheduled activation, call the Update card details endpoint and set scheduled_activation_date to null.

To receive webhooks when a physical or digital card's activation status changes:

Configure your webhook server.
Subscribe to the following webhooks:

Activate a card

Let cardholders activate their own cards

Note

Activate a card in the Dashboard

Activate a card using the API

Information

Response example

Activate a card in your app

Note

Retrieve the cardholder's cards

Note

Check the possible status changes

Change to active status

Activate a card on your website

Note

Schedule card activation

Note

Activate a scheduled card early

Clear a scheduled activation date

Subscribe to webhooks