7/23/2026 Edit - The post has been updated to include the Deal object specific validateDealStageUsagesBeforeDelete query parameter.
Availability: This is a breaking change for the next GA date-based API version, /2026-09/. It does not change the behavior of the current GA API version or earlier versions. Integrations will see this behavior only after moving to /2026-09/ or later.
Learn more about HubSpot's Date Based Versioning
What is changing?
Starting in version /2026-09/ of the Pipelines API, HubSpot will validate references before deleting a pipeline or pipeline stage. If the pipeline or stage is in use, the delete request will be blocked and return a validation error.
This makes public API deletes behave the same way as deletes from the pipeline settings page in HubSpot, where deleting a pipeline or stage is already blocked when it is in use.
The reference check is enabled by default because validateReferencesBeforeDelete and validateDealStageUsagesBeforeDelete will default to true in /2026-09/.
validateDealStageUsagesBeforeDelete is used for the Deal object and validateReferencesBeforeDelete for all other object types.
To bypass this validation, pass:
validateReferencesBeforeDelete=false
validateDealStageUsageBeforeDelete=false
Affected endpoints …