---
title: "What does the RevenueDot webhook event EXPIRATION mean?"
description: "EXPIRATION is sent when access ended: the period ran out, billing retry gave up, or the subscription paused. Remove access and read expiration_reason."
url: https://revenuedot.app/docs/webhooks/webhook-expiration
---

# What does the RevenueDot webhook event EXPIRATION mean?

The RevenueDot webhook event EXPIRATION means a customer's access has ended.

## Quick facts

| | |
|---|---|
| Event | `EXPIRATION` |
| Where | RevenueDot webhook (`event.type`), RevenueCat's webhook format |
| Sent to | Every enabled webhook whose filters match |
| Fields that are specific to it | `expiration_reason` |
| What it means | Access ended: the period ran out, billing retry gave up or the subscription paused. |

## When it is sent

- The paid period, and any grace period, passed with no renewal.
- `expiration_reason` says why: `UNSUBSCRIBE`, `BILLING_ERROR`, `DEVELOPER_INITIATED`, `PRICE_INCREASE`, `CUSTOMER_SUPPORT`, `UNKNOWN` or `SUBSCRIPTION_PAUSED`.
- It is recorded once per period by a scheduled job that runs every minute, so it can arrive up to a minute after the expiry time.

## What your server should do

1. Remove the entitlements of the subscription.
2. Use `expiration_reason` to choose the win-back message: a billing error needs a payment prompt.
3. Keep the customer's data.
4. Deduplicate on `event.id`: deliveries can repeat, because anything but HTTP 200 is retried after 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 minutes.

## Example

```javascript
import { createHmac, timingSafeEqual } from "node:crypto";

// X-RevenueCat-Webhook-Signature: t=<unix seconds>,v1=<hex HMAC-SHA256 of "<t>.<raw body>">
function verify(rawBody, header, secret, toleranceSeconds = 300) {
  const m = /^t=(\d+),v1=([0-9a-f]{64})$/.exec(header ?? "");
  if (!m || Math.abs(Date.now() / 1000 - Number(m[1])) > toleranceSeconds) return false;
  const expected = createHmac("sha256", secret).update(`${m[1]}.${rawBody}`).digest();
  return timingSafeEqual(expected, Buffer.from(m[2], "hex"));
}

// Sign a sample delivery the way RevenueDot does, then handle it.
const secret = "whsec_test_secret";
const rawBody = JSON.stringify({ api_version: "1.0", event: {"id":"66339910-3BFF-49F4-B873-D1283D673DE2","type":"EXPIRATION","app_user_id":"user_1","product_id":"pro_monthly","expiration_reason":"BILLING_ERROR"} });
const t = Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000);
const header = `t=${t},v1=${createHmac("sha256", secret).update(`${t}.${rawBody}`).digest("hex")}`;

const seen = new Set(); // use a database table in production

function handle(rawBody, header) {
  if (!verify(rawBody, header, secret)) return "401 bad signature";
  const { event } = JSON.parse(rawBody);
  if (seen.has(event.id)) return "200 duplicate";
  seen.add(event.id);
  if (event.type !== "EXPIRATION") return "200 ignored";
  return event.expiration_reason === "BILLING_ERROR" ? "remove access, ask for a new payment method" : "remove access, start win-back";
}

console.log(handle(rawBody, header));
```

*Run-checked: `npm run check:snippets` runs this snippet with Node and compares its output with `ask for a new payment method` (checked 2026-10-03).*

## How RevenueDot produces it

A scheduled job (`services/tick.ts`) records `EXPIRATION` for every subscription whose access, grace period included, has ended, and claims each one once so replicas do not send it twice. The reason comes from the stored state: paused, then a billing issue, then the stored cancel reason, else `UNSUBSCRIBE`.

## Related

- [What does the RevenueDot webhook event CANCELLATION mean?](https://revenuedot.app/docs/webhooks/webhook-cancellation.md)
- [What does the RevenueDot webhook event BILLING_ISSUE mean?](https://revenuedot.app/docs/webhooks/webhook-billing-issue.md)
- [What does the RevenueDot webhook event SUBSCRIPTION_PAUSED mean?](https://revenuedot.app/docs/webhooks/webhook-subscription-paused.md)
- [EXPIRATION fields and a recorded example payload](https://revenuedot.app/docs/api/webhook-events.md#expiration)
- [Webhooks guide: set up, verify and test](https://revenuedot.app/docs/guides/webhooks.md)

## Source

- [RevenueDot docs: which webhook events RevenueDot sends](https://revenuedot.app/docs/api/webhook-events)
- [RevenueCat: webhook event types and fields (the format RevenueDot follows)](https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/integrations/webhooks/event-types-and-fields)
- [RevenueDot core: events.ts (the event types and the rules that derive them)](https://github.com/revenuedot/revenuedot/blob/main/packages/core/src/events.ts)
- [RevenueDot server: services/tick.ts (the scheduled EXPIRATION)](https://github.com/revenuedot/revenuedot/blob/main/apps/server/src/services/tick.ts)
- [RevenueDot server: services/events.ts (how an event is recorded and delivered)](https://github.com/revenuedot/revenuedot/blob/main/apps/server/src/services/events.ts)

Checked: 2026-10-03