# Delete a payment method

`DELETE /api/financial/payment-methods/{id}`

- **Products:** Operator (`FOH`)
- **Features:** Front of House Generic Access (`FOHGENERIC`)

HTML version: [Delete a payment method](https://support.gladstonesoftware.cloud/reference/payments/delete-a-payment-method)

## Overview

Permanently removes a payment method. This is a hard delete — the record is removed, there is no soft
delete and no undo.

**In practice you can only delete a payment method that has never been used.** The moment a sale
has been recorded against it the delete is refused, and the call comes
back `409 Conflict` with `Cannot delete payment method because sales have been generated using
it.` For anything that has seen live traffic, use
[Update a payment method](update-a-payment-method.md) with `isActive: false`
instead; that withdraws it from use while leaving the sales history intact.

On success you get `204 No Content`, and
[List all payment methods](list-all-payment-methods.md) reflects the removal on
the next read.

## Endpoint

`DELETE {base_url}/api/financial/payment-methods/{id}`

`{base_url}` is the environment URL issued to your integration. See [Authenticating with Gladstone APIs](../../guides/authenticating-with-gladstone-apis.md).

## Path parameters

| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|------|------|----------|-------------|
| `id` | string | Yes | The payment method to remove, as returned in `id` by [List all payment methods](list-all-payment-methods.md). Maximum 15 characters. An id with nothing behind it returns `404` — the call is not idempotent in the sense of returning `204` for an already-deleted id. |

## Sample request

```bash title="cURL"
curl -X DELETE '{base_url}/api/financial/payment-methods/{id}' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {accessToken}' \
  -H 'X-Use-SSO: true'
```

## Errors

| Status | Meaning | When |
|--------|---------|------|
| `400` | Bad request | `Payment method ID must be specified` — the path id is empty. In practice an empty segment usually fails to match the route and returns `404` first. |
| `404` | Not found | `Payment method {id} does not exist` — no payment method exists with that id, including because a previous call already deleted it. |
| `409` | Conflict | `Cannot delete payment method because sales have been generated using it.` — sales have been recorded against the payment method. Deactivate it instead of deleting. |
| `500` | Internal server error | An unexpected server-side failure, including the delete being blocked by something other than recorded sales. The response body is empty. |