The customer says they can't pay until their customer pays

The scenario

You chase payment and the customer explains, reasonably enough, that they cannot pay you until their own customer pays them. The job you supplied has been completed and on-sold, but the money is stuck somewhere downstream, and the customer is effectively asking you to wait at the end of a chain you have no visibility into or control over. It sounds fair on its face — they are owed money too — and refusing to wait can feel harsh. But the request quietly transfers the risk of someone else's non-payment onto you, for a debt that is not yours and that you are powerless to influence.

What's really going on

The crucial point is simple and easy to lose sight of under the pressure of a sympathetic story: your contract is with your customer, not with their customer. Your customer owes you for what you supplied to them, and that obligation does not depend on whether they themselves get paid downstream. By asking you to wait until their customer pays, they are attempting to pass a risk they took on — the risk of their own debtor defaulting — onto you. Sometimes this is genuine and short-term; the downstream payment really is imminent and a brief wait is reasonable. But "pay you when we get paid" can also become an open-ended excuse that ties your money to a debt you cannot see, chase, or control, and that may never be collected at all.

Your options

Your goal is to stay reasonable while keeping the obligation where it belongs — with your customer:

• Restate the obligation. Acknowledge their position, then make clear the debt to you stands independently of their downstream collection.
• Offer a short, defined accommodation. A brief, specific extension can be fair, but anchored to a firm date, not their customer's payment.
• Propose a partial payment now. Ask them to pay what they can immediately rather than holding the whole balance hostage to the chain.
• Decline an open-ended wait. Refuse to tie your payment indefinitely to a debt you have no control over.

Recommended approach

Be sympathetic but clear. Acknowledge that being owed money downstream is genuinely difficult, then gently but firmly return the obligation to where it sits: the amount they owe you is for what you supplied to them, and it is not contingent on their own customer paying. If their need looks genuine and short-term, a brief, defined extension is a fair accommodation — but tie it to a specific date rather than to the vague event of their customer paying, so it does not become open-ended. Better still, ask for a partial payment now: a customer with any capacity can usually pay something, and doing so keeps the obligation live rather than parking the whole balance against a debt you cannot influence. What you should not do is accept "when we get paid" as the terms, because that hands you the risk of a default you can neither see nor chase. Keep the conversation professional and keep the debt firmly theirs to settle.

What to avoid

Do not accept an open-ended "we'll pay you when we get paid" as a payment arrangement; it ties your money to a debt you have no power over and may never be collected. Do not let sympathy override the basic point that your contract is with your customer, not the party downstream. Do not allow a brief accommodation to drift into an indefinite one without a firm date attached. And do not assume you have any standing to chase the downstream debtor yourself — that debt is not yours, which is precisely why it should not become your problem to wait on.