RentalPilot handles two different things that both get called a “deposit”. They’re worth telling apart before you set either one up.

A security deposit is a hold — money reserved on the renter’s card and released after a clean return. You never actually receive it unless you capture it for damage.
A reservation deposit is a payment — a part of the rental total, taken up front, with the balance due at pick-up. See Online booking options.

Set your default security deposits

In Settings → Reservations, Default security deposit by class sets the hold amount for each of your vehicle categories — so an SUV can carry a bigger hold than a compact.

Auto-release deposit records how many days after a clean return you intend to let a hold go — it’s the figure quoted to renters who ask. In practice a clean check-in releases the hold immediately, so today this setting doesn’t delay anything.

A protection plan can override the class default — that’s the main reason renters buy one. A premium plan can drop the hold to $0.

Place, release and capture a hold

The deposit section on a booking’s detail page gives you three actions:

Place a hold — reserves the amount on the renter’s card. Check-out asks for this before the keys leave.
Release the hold — frees the money. This happens automatically on a clean check-in.
Capture part of it — for damage. You take what’s owed (up to the amount held) and the rest is released.

A hold is an authorization, not a charge, so releasing it isn’t a refund — the money was never taken.

How refunds actually work

This is the part worth reading carefully, because only one path is automatic.

Automatic: a customer who cancels their own booking from your booking site inside the free-cancellation window is refunded in full, to their original card. That window is fixed across RentalPilot — it isn’t a setting you configure.

How the window is measured. It closes 24 hours before midnight at the start of the pick-up date, not 24 hours before your actual pick-up time. A rental picking up on the 10th must be cancelled before midnight at the start of the 9th — a 3 p.m. pick-up doesn’t extend the deadline. It’s stricter than “24 hours before pick-up”, so quote it that way to customers.

If the refund itself fails — or your Stripe account isn’t connected yet — the booking is still cancelled and the rental is flagged for manual processing on its timeline rather than a refund being claimed that never happened. Check the timeline after a cancellation you expected to refund. See What your customers can do themselves.

Not automatic — anything you do yourself. Cancelling a booking from the operator app does not move any money. It frees the vehicle and records the reason; no refund is issued and no card is charged. If the customer is owed money back, you issue it:

Deposit hold → release or partially capture it from the booking’s deposit section.
Rental payment → refund it from your Stripe dashboard, against the original charge.

Because you connect your own Stripe account, refunds come out of your balance and appear in your own Stripe records — see Connect Stripe to get paid.

Long-term rentals are the exception. Returning one early re-prices the days actually used and settles the difference on the card on file automatically — including a refund if the customer had paid ahead. See Long-term & monthly rentals.

Questions about a specific refund? Contact us.