Stripe webhooks on Django: read request.body raw and exempt the view from CSRF

Stripe webhooks on Django

Two Django defaults break Stripe webhooks: CSRF middleware rejects the POST (Stripe sends no CSRF token), and reading request.POST gives parsed data. Use request.body (raw bytes) and exempt the view. Verification needs no API key, only the signing value.

The setup

import stripe
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
from django.views.decorators.http import require_POST


@csrf_exempt
@require_POST
def stripe_webhook(request):
    sig = request.headers.get('Stripe-Signature')
    try:
        event = stripe.Webhook.construct_event(
            request.body, sig, STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SIGNING_VALUE
        )
    except (ValueError, stripe.error.SignatureVerificationError):
        return HttpResponse('bad signature', status=400)
    # switch on event['type'] ...
    return HttpResponse(status=200)

Set STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SIGNING_VALUE from your environment at startup. Never hardcode it.

from django.urls import path
from .views import stripe_webhook

urlpatterns = [
    path('webhooks/stripe/', stripe_webhook),
]

Notes

• request.body is bytes; stripe-python's construct_event accepts bytes directly.
• Never read request.POST before verification; parsing first is the classic failure.
• With Django REST Framework, apply the same pattern and skip the parsers for this route.

Django's request.body exposes the raw request bytes and csrfexempt opts a view out of CSRF protection. stripe-python's Webhook.constructevent takes the raw payload, the Stripe-Signature header, and the endpoint signing value (docs.stripe.com/webhooks/signature). Note verification needs no API key at all, only the signing value. Verified against live docs 2026-09-26.