Two of the most popular online payment platforms in PayPal and Venmo, were down.
Both services are owned by the same parent company, so having both down at the same time made a lot of sense.
The outage started at around 8:45 a.m. ET with Down Detector reports quickly jumping to around 1,000 and then dropping from there, with some small spikes along the way.
On the PayPal status page, a Service Disruption ran for a few hours in the Retail Checkout and Reporting portions of the service.
Venmo doesn't have an official status page, but a section for Venmo is listed on the main PayPal status page, and it was marked as Operational throughout the whole outage.
Venmo and PayPal were down — live outage updates
The Venmo and PayPal outage begins
Venmo and PayPal are used by thousands of individuals and businesses to send and receive money, so being down can cause significant issues.
As of this post, Venmo currently has 921 users reporting issues on Down Detector, and PayPal has 742.
A system issue...
On its status page, PayPal says it's experiencing an issue with Retail Checkout and Braintree.
"We are experiencing a system issue that may be affecting PayPal Online Checkout in our production environment," reads the page.
Venmo still showing operational
Venmo hit higher outage reports on Down Detector than but it isn't being acknowledged by PayPal, with its status still listed as "Operational" on the status page.
Reports dropping a little
The Venmo user reports are starting to drop slightly, but not enough for us to say the problem is resolved just yet, especially with PayPal's status page still showing an outage.
Users left with questions
Some users have started taking to X if something is wrong with Venmo. While the official status page still shows Venmo as working fine, the number of Down Detector reports and user complaints says otherwise.
An uptick
PayPal reports were dropping fast, but they've since seen a small uptick again, leading us to believe that this outage could last for a bit.
PayPal with an update
PayPal posted a small update about the outage, though it doesn't really reveal much:
"We are still observing impact to Retail Checkout, Online Checkout and Braintree in our production Environment.
Our Technical teams are actively investigating and working to mitigate the impact as quickly as possible. We will continue to provide updates as the situation progresses."
Interestingly, Venmo is nowhere to be found in the update.
Staying steady
Venmo is hanging steady with around 792 reports as of this writing.
Nothing on Venmo social media
Venmo hasn't posted anything on social media regarding the outage, with the company's last post being about astrology (there's nothing new in the Replies section, either). The same goes for Venmo's support X account.
On rent day!
It's the first of the month, which means a lot of users are trying to pay and receive rent through PayPal and Venmo, as noted in the comment from a user on Down Detector. If you're trying to pay rent (or are a landlord trying to collect), perhaps wait a few hours for this outage to slow down.
No news from PayPal
PayPal's status page last updated at 9:39 a.m. ET, which is an hour ago. Hopefully, the company will post something soon, allowing users of the popular payment platforms to have a better idea of when to expect the service to be fully operational.
PayPal and Venmo alternatives
If you're one of the people experiencing issues with PayPal and Venmo today, there are alternative payment services you can use to make your rent payment (or any other necessary payments). I will say that Venmo appears to be working fine for me, so you may have different experiences depending on luck, it would seem.
If you want to try the alternatives, here's a rundown of the best online payment tools to try:
- Apple Pay: great for Apple users with iPhones and iPads. Very easy to use.
- Cash App: popular service that functions a lot like Venmo for sending payments.
- Zelle: built into many banks and very easy to use
Both still showing signs of an outage
Down Detector is showing a steady decline in reports; however, some users are still experiencing issues with PayPal and Venmo.
Everything except Reporting is back
According to PayPal's status page, everything is Operational except reporting, which is listed as under a Service Disruption.
Oddly, Venmo reports still up
Interestingly, Venmo is still showing a relatively high number of reports on Down Detector despite PayPal never officially acknowledging it. It peaked at 920 reports and is currently at 544, which is a decent amount for an unacknowledged outage that's supposed to be over.
Finally over
The Venmo reports have finally reached a level low enough where we can consider the outage done. Anything could change if things go sideways, but it appears that PayPal and Venmo have resolved the situation. Payments should process normally, allowing you to pay your rent.
PayPal's official statement
PayPal reached out with a statement. It doesn't tell us much, but is the first official acknowledgement of Venmo being down that we've received.
"PayPal and Venmo experienced a temporary interruption this morning that has since been resolved," said a PayPal spokesperson.
