If you’ve had trouble checking your balance, viewing the latest activity, or even sending or requesting cash on PayPal or Venmo earlier today, you weren’t alone. Two of the largest online payment platforms experienced major outages on October 16, 2025.
According to Down Detector, which tracks reported outages for services, both PayPal and Venmo saw a surge beginning around 11 AM ET that lasted for well over an hour. PayPal hit nearly 10,000 reports, and Venmo wasn’t far behind at over 8,000.
PayPal took a while to reflect the issues it was having on its own status page, but shared this statement with us after the outage had concluded: “PayPal and Venmo experienced a brief service disruption that has since been resolved.” The company has also not said what caused the interruption, but it clearly impacted many users.
You can read on for our live blog reporting of the PayPal and Venmo outage, but know that it has since been resolved.
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Here’s a live look at Down Detector for PayPal – it’s still approaching 10,000, currently at 9,452 as of 12:11 PM ET. Comments are still being posted by impacted users, some of whom are noting that they can’t even log in to the platform or get the main dashboard to load.
Venmo is showing some signs of recovery on Down Detector, though with over 6,500 reports of issues on the platform, it’s still high above a normal day for the payment platform.
I just tried opening the Venmo app, and while I can get in, the main feed is empty, and searches are taking quite some time. There are also plenty of users still posting on X (formerly Twitter) to Venmo and PayPal, noting issues. Support accounts for both platforms are responding.
Hi there! Thank you for reaching out to Venmo. We understand the inconvenience you are facing at the moment. Please be assured that our team is working on the ongoing issue and will try to resolve it at the earliestOctober 16, 2025
@VenmoSupport you know, you could let users know when your service is down. Instead I’m learning from a different service that Venmo & PayPal are down. Of course when I need them like now 😒October 16, 2025
Even though we’re over an hour since reported issues with PayPal began, the official status page for the payment platform shows that everything is operational. Though for many impacted users, that’s simply not the case, with many reporting that they cannot sign in.
Can you sign back in?
It seems PayPal might be starting to recover – reports on Down Detector are trending downward, now above 2,000. Still a high number of reports, but less than over 9,000 at its peak, and it’s showing some signs of recovery.
Commenters on the platform are noting that they can now sign back in and complete transfers. I’m trying to sign back in myself, and it’s still slow – there’s a spinning wheel, and about a minute after that, I can see the dashboard.
That’s definitely an improvement, though, and shows that the platform is indeed recovering.
PayPal acknowledges the issue
Well, it’s better than late never, and even with some signs of recovery via Down Detector, the official PayPal status page has now been updated to reflect a “Service Disruption” for ‘Homepage’, ‘Account’, and ‘Venmo’.
And PayPal says it’s back to ‘Operational’ across the board, which is good news – though I wish they had updated to reflect the outage a bit sooner.
Maybe even more importantly, though, reports have dropped dramatically on Down Detector for both PayPal and Venmo. We’re currently seeing under 1,000 reported issues with PayPal, and Venmo is slightly higher at 1,078 reports.
Many in the comments are noting that things are looking back to normal, and on my end, I can once again access my PayPal dashboard and see my feed on Venmo, though the most recent transactions are from over an hour ago.
Now that PayPal and Venmo’ combined outages, we’ve finally received a statement from a PayPal spokesperson.
“PayPal and Venmo experienced a brief service disruption that has since been resolved.” It’s a bit slim on details, mainly what caused the service disruption for over an hour on October 16, 2025, but it does not state that it has since been resolved.
