# Payment Status Lifecycle

Every checkout session follows a deterministic state machine. These states are returned on every query and drive downstream integration logic.

<table><thead><tr><th width="122.9609375">Status</th><th>Meaning</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Created</strong></td><td>The checkout session has been generated. No payment has been detected yet.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Pending</strong></td><td>An inbound transfer has been detected on-chain but has not yet reached the required confirmation threshold.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Paid</strong></td><td>The payment has been confirmed on-chain with sufficient block confirmations. Settlement processing begins.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Settled</strong></td><td>Funds have been credited to the merchant's participant account. Terminal state for successful payments.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Expired</strong></td><td>The expiry window elapsed before a valid payment was detected. Terminal state — no further action is taken.</td></tr></tbody></table>


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