Payment rails, speeds and cut-offs

A rail is the network a payment travels over. Ledgerline connects to several, and the rail you choose decides how fast the money arrives, when you must submit it and what it costs. Pick it with the rail parameter when you create a payout.

Rails at a glance

The 15:00 UTC cut-off

Batch rails send payments to the bank in daily files. A payout created before 15:00 UTC on a business day goes out in that day's file. A payout created at or after 15:00 UTC, or on a weekend or bank holiday, goes out on the next business day.

This applies to ach, ach_same_day and sepa. Domestic wire payouts have a later cut-off of 18:00 UTC. Instant rails have no cut-off at all, so use them when timing matters.

The response to a payout tells you what to expect:

{
  "id": "pay_01JA6D4H2K",
  "rail": "ach_same_day",
  "status": "scheduled",
  "amount": 1500000,
  "currency": "USD",
  "expected_arrival": "2026-09-16T21:00:00Z",
  "submission_deadline": "2026-09-16T15:00:00Z"
}

submission_deadline is the cut-off that applies to this payout. You can cancel a payout until it is submitted. See Payouts.

Business days

Business days are Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays of the rail's home calendar: US Federal Reserve holidays for USD rails, TARGET2 holidays for EUR and Bank of England holidays for GBP. The dashboard shows the holiday calendar for each rail.

Same-day ACH

ach_same_day settles on the day of submission when you create the payout before 15:00 UTC. It costs more than standard ACH and is capped at $1,000,000 per payout by the network, whatever your plan allows. If you create it after the cut-off, Ledgerline does not silently downgrade it: it is submitted the next business day and still billed as same-day, so check submission_deadline before you choose the rail.

Wires

Domestic wires are final and cannot be recalled by Ledgerline once submitted. They are the right choice for large, time-sensitive payments. The cut-off is 18:00 UTC, and wires arrive the same business day.

Instant rails

RTP and FedNow in the United States, SEPA Instant in the euro area and Faster Payments in the United Kingdom settle in seconds at any hour. Each has network limits that can be lower than your plan limit. If the receiving bank does not support the network, the payout fails with rail_unavailable_for_recipient and you can retry on a batch rail.

Limits and fees

Per-payout and daily limits depend on your plan and are in Limits and quotas. Fees per rail are in Plans and pricing. Payouts above $25,000 to a counterparty created in the last seven days are held for review, covered in Counterparties and screening.

International wires

Payouts in currencies without a local rail, such as CAD, AUD, SGD, CHF and JPY, go out as international wires over SWIFT with rail=swift. They arrive in 1 to 3 business days, depending on the correspondent banks, and use the same 15:00 UTC cut-off. swift is available on Growth and Scale only. Intermediary banks can deduct their own charges, so the recipient may receive slightly less unless you pay the fees with the charges=ours option.

Receiving money

Incoming payments arrive through virtual accounts. ACH credits, wires and instant payments are posted to the ledger account when the bank confirms them, and a transaction.posted event follows. Incoming ACH debits that you originate are not supported.

Choosing a rail