Pre-authorization places a temporary hold on a customer's card to verify funds without a final charge. It's useful for businesses that don't know the final amount upfront, like restaurants, hotels, or rental services.

For businesses using a point-of-sale (POS) integration with Adyen, pre-authorization is set per transaction. If the payment request's AuthorisationType is "PreAuth," that transaction processes as a pre-authorization — no account-level setting required. Adyen can also set "PreAuth" as the account default for businesses that primarily use pre-authorizations; contact Adyen support to change this.

For the full step-by-step setup — API fields, adjusting the authorization, and capturing the final amount — see Multi-step Payments.

Manual capture means the merchant sends a separate request to finalize the charge, instead of it being captured automatically. There are two ways to control this:

A merchant account can stay on Immediate Capture while individual pre-authorized transactions are still captured manually — no separate merchant account and no account-wide change needed. Use the account-level setting if a business wants manual capture on every transaction. Use the transaction-level flag for mixed accounts, where only some transactions need pre-auth.

Incremental authorization increases the pre-authorized amount on a card during an open transaction — useful for tabs where the bill grows over time.

Compatible POS systems send a new PaymentRequest for each additional pre-authorization as items are added. When the tab closes, all pre-authorizations consolidate into a single final charge.