Is PayPal down?
Is PayPal not working? Check PayPal’s official status first, then identify whether the problem affects the service generally or only a merchant checkout, account, browser, network, or payment.
Site Administrator
Last reviewed: September 25, 2026
LATEST RECORDED STATUS
Up PayPal’s website appeared to be up and responding normally at the last check.
| Endpoint | Status | Observed |
|---|---|---|
| paypal.com | Operational | 2026-11-09 15:00 UTC |
Is it working for you?
0 recent reports — more reports are needed for a useful trend.
For the full picture, including partial or regional outages a single external check may miss, see PayPal’s official status page. official status page.
What this check can tell you
- Check PayPal’s official status page before treating a failed checkout as a platform-wide outage.
- If PayPal works in another browser, device, or network, the problem is more likely local than service-wide.
- A failure at only one store may involve that merchant’s checkout session or PayPal integration.
- Login challenges, verification requests, account limitations, declined payments, and pending transactions need account- or transaction-specific investigation.
- Confirm the status of an attempted payment before submitting the same payment again.
About PayPal reliability
Understanding PayPal availability
PayPal can appear unavailable for several different reasons. A broad PayPal incident may affect the website, sign-in, checkout, or payment processing, while a merchant checkout error, account review, funding-source problem, or local browser and network issue may affect only one user or transaction.
A declined or failed payment does not by itself show that PayPal is down. Compare the official status information with what you can observe:
- Does the PayPal website load?
- Can you sign in successfully?
- Does the problem occur at one merchant or across several PayPal actions?
- Is the payment declined, pending, authorized, completed, or absent from your transaction activity?
If a payment may have been authorized or is still processing, avoid submitting it repeatedly. Confirm the transaction in PayPal and check the related bank or card activity before trying again.
How to troubleshoot PayPal
Troubleshooting PayPal problems
Check for a wider PayPal incident
Review PayPal’s official status page for an active incident affecting the feature you are using. If the website, sign-in, and several payment-related functions fail at the same time, wait for the incident to clear rather than repeatedly retrying a payment.
Check whether only one merchant is affected
If PayPal works elsewhere but fails at one store, the merchant’s website, checkout session, or PayPal integration is a more likely cause than a general PayPal outage. Start a fresh checkout from the merchant’s site and avoid reusing an old payment tab or saved session.
Check account and transaction status
A login challenge, identity check, account limitation, declined payment, or pending transaction is different from a service-wide outage. Read the exact PayPal message, review the transaction in your account, and confirm that the selected funding source is available. Contact PayPal or your bank when the message requires account or transaction review.
Do not submit the same payment repeatedly until you know whether the original attempt completed, was declined, or remains pending. Compare PayPal’s transaction history with your bank or card activity.
Isolate browser and device problems
Try PayPal in a private or incognito window. If that works, clear PayPal site data and temporarily disable extensions that block scripts, cookies, pop-ups, or payment redirects. Testing another browser or device can help confirm whether the issue is local. Do not continue using an old checkout tab after changing account or payment details.
Test the network path
If possible, switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data. A VPN, proxy, DNS filter, firewall, or restrictive workplace or school network can interfere with PayPal pages and payment redirects. If PayPal works on another connection, investigate the original network or filtering device.
Investigate an application or API integration
If the error appears in a website or app’s PayPal integration rather than on PayPal’s own pages, record the exact error, timestamp, affected checkout or transaction, and whether the failure is reproducible. Review the application’s server logs and compare the timing with PayPal’s official status information. Merchant-side authentication, redirect, configuration, or timeout problems can affect checkout without indicating a complete PayPal outage.
Related troubleshooting guides
TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE
503 Service Unavailable
A 503 Service Unavailable response means the service cannot handle the request at that time. Common causes include exhausted CPU, memory, worker, or connection capacity; incomplete maintenance mode; an unavailable database or other dependency; or a proxy, WAF, rate limiter, or load balancer returning 503. Identify which layer generated the response, then review logs and resource usage before changing settings.
TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE
504 Gateway Timeout
A 504 Gateway Timeout means a proxy, CDN, load balancer, or gateway waited for a backend response but its timeout expired first. The backend may still be running; common causes include slow database queries, overloaded workers, long-running tasks, delayed third-party services, and restrictive intermediary timeouts. Compare direct backend timing with the full gateway path before changing timeout settings.
TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE
HTTP 429 Too Many Requests: What It Means and How to Fix It
HTTP 429 Too Many Requests means the server or an intermediary has rate-limited the client after receiving too many requests in a defined period. Check the `Retry-After` header, stop rapid retries, and retry after the indicated delay. Site owners should identify whether the application, web server, proxy, CDN or WAF generated the response before changing limits or configuration.
TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE
HTTP 401 Unauthorized: What It Means and How to Fix It
HTTP 401 Unauthorized means the endpoint requires authentication, but the request did not include acceptable credentials or the credentials were rejected. Confirm the exact URL, method, authentication headers and response headers, then check which application, server, proxy or CDN produced the response. HTTP 401 is different from HTTP 403, which generally means the request was understood but access is not permitted.
Sources & references
Official source
- PayPal status page — Check PayPal’s reported service availability and active incidents before treating a local, account-specific, merchant-specific, or payment-specific failure as a platform-wide outage.
For account, payment, and integration details, consult the relevant PayPal help or developer documentation from PayPal’s official website. Use the documentation that matches the affected flow rather than assuming every checkout or payment error has the same cause.
How this check works
Every time this page loads, our server makes its own request to paypal.com (and its API domain, when applicable) and reports what it got back — a real HTTP response, a timeout, or a connection failure. That result is cached for up to 2 minutes.
This confirms external reachability; it does not test every feature, region, account, or network path. Cross-check the official status page when one is available.
Embed this live status badge
Add this badge to a dashboard, documentation page, or blog. The badge reads the cached Erriscope observation and links back to this status page.
<a href="https://erriscope.com/status/paypal/"><img src="https://erriscope.com/status/badge/paypal.svg" alt="PayPal status on Erriscope" width="210" height="34"></a>Frequently asked questions
Is this the same as PayPal's official status page?
No. This is a live, one-off connectivity check run from our own server, not PayPal's own incident reporting. Their official status page can show partial, regional, or component-level issues our single external check cannot detect.
Why does this show "Up" when PayPal feels slow or broken for me?
A basic reachability check confirms that the server responded to our request. It does not test every feature, region, ISP, browser, or account-specific issue.
How often is this checked?
A check is refreshed after the two-minute cache expires. The displayed check time shows when the observation was made.
Does an API outage mean the whole product is down?
Not necessarily. Many services split their website and API onto separate infrastructure, so one can fail while the other keeps working.
Is PayPal down right now?
Check PayPal’s official status page and compare its information with your symptoms. A failure limited to one merchant, browser, account, or payment method does not necessarily mean PayPal is unavailable for everyone.
Why can I open PayPal but not complete a payment?
The problem may be limited to the merchant checkout, an expired checkout session, an account or payment review, a funding-source issue, or an account restriction. Check the transaction status before trying again.
Why does PayPal work on my phone but not my computer?
The computer may have stale site data, a browser extension, a VPN, security software, or a network restriction interfering with PayPal. Test a private window, another browser, or another network to isolate the cause.
What should I do if a PayPal payment is pending?
Check the payment status in PayPal and review your bank or card activity. Avoid submitting the same payment again while the first attempt may still be processing. Contact the relevant provider if the status remains unclear or does not update.
Why can’t I sign in to PayPal?
First check the official status page to distinguish a broader service problem from an account-specific sign-in or verification issue. Then follow the sign-in message and test a clean browser session without extensions.
What should a developer check when PayPal checkout fails?
Determine whether the failure occurs on PayPal’s pages or only within the application’s integration. Record the exact error and time, inspect application logs, and compare the event with PayPal’s official status information.
This is a live connectivity check from our server, not an official statement from PayPal. A down result may also reflect a regional or partial outage.
LIVE CHECKS
