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Refunds are an essential part of any payment system, they ensure users never lose funds due to failed or excess transactions. Chainrails automates the refund process for all cross-chain transfers, making it secure, predictable, and effortless for both developers and users.

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When are refunds triggered?

Refunds can occur in two primary scenarios:

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1. Failed Transfers

If a cross-chain transfer fails to execute (for example, due to network congestion, insufficient deposit, or unexpected errors), the funds are automatically refunded once the intent expires (typically in 1 hour). This delay ensures that premature refunds aren’t made while a transaction may still be in progress or could be retried.

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2. Excess Payments

If a user sends more than the required amount for an intent, Chainrails automatically deducts the needed value and refunds the excess back to the sender.

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Predictable Outcomes

Chainrails is designed to protect users from cross-chain risks. Relayers handle bridge and liquidity risk behind the scenes, meaning users are always guaranteed one of two outcomes:
  • Successful settlement — funds arrive on the destination chain, or
  • Automatic refund — funds are returned to the sender’s wallet.
In other words, users never lose funds because of failed bridges or liquidity issues.

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Manual Refunds (Rare Cases)

In very rare cases where an intent’s final status cannot be determined automatically (for example, due to an indexer outage), you can trigger a refund manually using the POST /api/v1/intents/{intent_address}/refund. For more complicated cases, please contact our support team with the intent address and transaction details for assistance.