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Overview

Payment methods represent external financial instruments (like bank accounts via Fedwire and SWIFT) that you can use to move money. They are entity-level and you can use them with any of your accounts. Key differences:
  • Accounts hold assets and balances (e.g., your USD account)
  • Payment methods are external destinations (e.g., your JPMorgan Chase bank account)
Example: You have $1000 in your Coinbase USD account. You can withdraw $100 to your JPMorgan Chase bank, then later withdraw $200 to your Bank of America account. Each external bank is a separate payment method. In Sandbox, three test payment methods are automatically created at the entity level and can be used with all your accounts.
Currently, payment methods are only supported as targets for transfers (withdrawals from your account to a bank).

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Pre-configured payment methods

Three test payment methods are automatically created in your Sandbox environment:
Test transfer flows with both active and inactive payment methods to ensure your integration properly handles success and error states before going to production.
Payment RailBankStatusBehavior
FedwireJPMorgan Chase Bank NAactiveTransfers succeed
FedwireBank of America NAinactiveTransfers fail
SWIFTDeutsche BankactiveTransfers succeed

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Prerequisites

Complete the Quickstart before proceeding if you do not yet have Sandbox API keys or a funded account. Ensure you have set your API key as an environment variable: 
export CDP_API_KEY=~/Downloads/cdp_api_key.json

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1. List payment methods

See your available test methods, their paymentMethodId values, and other details: 
cdpcurl -k $CDP_API_KEY \
  'https://sandbox.cdp.coinbase.com/platform/v2/payment-methods'

{
  "paymentMethods": [
    {
      "paymentMethodId": "paymentMethod_398435cb-03bd-5568-b8d5-44accd7ce305",
      "active": true,
      "paymentRail": "fedwire",
      "fedwire": {
        "bankName": "JPMorgan Chase Bank NA",
        "accountLast4": "9012",
        "routingNumber": "021000021",
        "asset": "usd"
      }
    },
    {
      "paymentMethodId": "paymentMethod_82933da3-bd1e-5c8d-a05f-9ef912e5bce9",
      "active": false,
      "paymentRail": "fedwire",
      "fedwire": {
        "bankName": "Bank of America NA",
        "accountLast4": "1098",
        "routingNumber": "026009593",
        "asset": "usd"
      }
    },
    {
      "paymentMethodId": "paymentMethod_d984c884-7fef-51e8-98a2-742ba6e32515",
      "active": true,
      "paymentRail": "swift",
      "swift": {
        "bankName": "Deutsche Bank",
        "bic": "DEUTDEFF",
        "ibanLast4": "3000",
        "asset": "usd"
      }
    }
  ]
}

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2. Test transfer flows

Use payment methods as targets to test transfer flows.
You will need your accountId and paymentMethodId values in the next step:
cdpcurl -k $CDP_API_KEY 'https://sandbox.cdp.coinbase.com/platform/v2/payment-methods' | sed '1d' | jq -r '.paymentMethods[].paymentMethodId'; cdpcurl -k $CDP_API_KEY 'https://sandbox.cdp.coinbase.com/platform/v2/accounts' | sed '1d' | jq -r '.accounts[].accountId'
Set your IDs as environment variables: 
export ACCOUNT_ID="account_abc123..."           # Your account ID
export ACTIVE_PM_ID="paymentMethod_xyz789..."   # Active payment method ID
export INACTIVE_PM_ID="paymentMethod_def456..." # Inactive payment method ID
The escaped quotes (\") in the following commands are required for bash variable substitution in JSON.

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Successful transfer

This simulates transferring from your Sandbox account to an active payment method: 
cdpcurl -k $CDP_API_KEY \
  -X POST \
  -d "{
    \"source\": {
      \"accountId\": \"$ACCOUNT_ID\",
      \"asset\": \"usd\"
    },
    \"target\": {
      \"paymentMethodId\": \"$ACTIVE_PM_ID\",
      \"asset\": \"usd\"
    },
    \"amount\": \"5.00\",
    \"asset\": \"usd\",
    \"execute\": true
  }" \
  'https://sandbox.cdp.coinbase.com/platform/v2/transfers'
The transfer completes successfully, your account balance decreases, and you receive webhook events (payment.transfer.processing → payment.transfer.completed). 
{
  "transferId": "transfer_8b707d29-4690-4948-b645-de1cd1f5fd05",
  "status": "completed",
  "source": {
    "accountId": "account_db458f63-418a-4a91-a045-fab93ac35c3f",
    "asset": "usd"
  },
  "target": {
    "paymentMethodId": "paymentMethod_398435cb-03bd-5568-b8d5-44accd7ce305",
    "asset": "usd"
  },
  "sourceAmount": "5",
  "sourceAsset": "usd",
  "targetAmount": "5",
  "targetAsset": "usd",
  "createdAt": "2026-02-11T23:19:24.086Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-11T23:19:24.183Z"
}

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Failed transfer

This simulates transferring to an inactive payment method to test error handling: 
cdpcurl -k $CDP_API_KEY \
  -X POST \
  -d "{
    \"source\": {
      \"accountId\": \"$ACCOUNT_ID\",
      \"asset\": \"usd\"
    },
    \"target\": {
      \"paymentMethodId\": \"$INACTIVE_PM_ID\",
      \"asset\": \"usd\"
    },
    \"amount\": \"5.00\",
    \"asset\": \"usd\",
    \"execute\": true
  }" \
  'https://sandbox.cdp.coinbase.com/platform/v2/transfers'
The transfer fails with an error response. Use this to test how your application handles failed transfers. 
{
  "errorType": "invalid_request",
  "errorMessage": "Target payment method payment method id is invalid.",
  "errorLink": "https://docs.cdp.coinbase.com/api-reference/v2/errors#invalid-request",
  "correlationId": "9cc7d1cd1cae8b7e-IAD"
}
For more transfer examples, see the Transfers guide.

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API reference