Stripe API errorStripe: “Must provide source or customer.”

Why the charge has nothing to charge, and the fix

1. 01

   The token never reached the server

   “One or more required values are missing.” Stripe, Error codes (parameter_missing)

   The form posted before Stripe.js returned the token, or the token was sent under a different field name, so source is undefined. Read the field your frontend actually sends, and fail early if it is empty. Also check the server parses the body: with a plain form post or JSON and no body parser, req.body is undefined.

   const { token } = req.body; // whatever the frontend sends
   if (!token) return res.status(400).send('No card token');
   await stripe.charges.create({ amount, currency: 'usd', source: token });

2. 02

   A customer without a saved card

   “The ID of an existing customer that will be charged in this request.” Stripe, Create a charge (customer)

   Passing customer alone works only if that customer has a card or other source saved to charge. If it doesn’t, attach one first, or pass the token as source. If you pass a saved card_… ID, pass the customer too.

3. 03

   The Charges API itself is on its way out

   “This method is deprecated and will be removed soon.” Stripe, Create a charge

   Code built on tokens and charges.create is the legacy flow, and it doesn’t handle 3D Secure authentication the way Payment Intents does. Move it to a PaymentIntent confirmed in the browser, or to Checkout, which creates the payment for you.

4. 04

   Migrating: no server-side charge step

   “In your existing integration, the final step is using tokenized payment information to create a charge on your server.” Stripe, Migrate to the Payment Intents API

   With Payment Intents, the server creates the PaymentIntent and the browser confirms it with the card. The old step that posts a token to the server and creates a charge goes away.

Checked against the vendor’s docs on November 8, 2026: Stripe docs: Error codes; Stripe docs: Create a charge; Stripe docs: Migrate to the Payment Intents API.

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