What are holds, limitations and reserves?
Under certain circumstances, in order to protect PayPal and the security and integrity of the network of buyers and sellers that use the PayPal services, PayPal may take account-level or transaction-level actions. Unless otherwise noted, if we take any of the actions described here, we'll provide you with notice of our actions, but we retain the sole discretion to take these actions. To request information in connection with an account limitation, hold or reserve, you should visit the Resolution Centre or follow the instructions in our email notice with respect to the limitation, hold or reserve.
Our decision about holds, limitations and reserves may be based on confidential criteria that are essential to our management of risk and the protection of PayPal, our customers and/or service providers. We may use proprietary fraud and risk modeling when assessing the risk associated with your PayPal account. In addition, we may be restricted by regulation or a governmental authority from disclosing certain information to you about such decisions. We have no obligation to disclose the details of our risk management or security procedures to you.
In order to facilitate PayPal’s actions described above and allow us to assess the level of risk associated with your PayPal account, you agree to cooperate with PayPal’s reasonable requests for financial statements and other documentation or information in a timely fashion.
Holds
A hold is an action that PayPal may take under certain circumstances either at the transaction level or the account level. When PayPal places a temporary hold on a payment, the funds shall not be available to either the sender or the recipient. PayPal reviews many factors before placing a hold on a payment, including: account tenure, transaction activity, business type, past customer disputes, and overall customer satisfaction. Some common situations where PayPal will hold payments include:
- New sellers or sellers who have limited selling activity.
- Payments for higher-risk categories like electronics or tickets.
- Sellers who have performance issues, or a high rate of buyer dissatisfaction or disputes.
Holds based on PayPal's risk decisions
We may place a hold on payments sent to your PayPal account if, in our sole discretion, we believe that there may be a high level of risk associated with you, your PayPal account, or your transactions or that placing such a hold is necessary to comply with regulatory requirements. We make decisions about whether to place a payment hold based on a number of factors, including information available to us from both internal sources and third parties. When we place a hold on a payment, the funds will appear in your PayPal account with an indication that they are unavailable or pending. We'll notify you, either through your PayPal account or directly by phone or email, whenever we place a hold.
Risk-based holds generally remain in place for up to 30 days from the date the payment was received into your PayPal account unless PayPal has a reason to continue to hold the payment. We may release the hold earlier under certain circumstances (for example, if you've uploaded shipment tracking information related to the transaction), but any earlier release is at our sole discretion. The hold may last longer than 30 days if the payment is challenged as a payment that should be invalidated and reversed based on a disputed transaction as discussed in the following paragraph below. In this case, we'll hold the payment in your PayPal account until the matter is resolved.
Holds related to Marketplace transactions
If you're a seller on a marketplace or through a third-party application where PayPal is offered, a hold may be placed on a payment sent to you at the instruction of the applicable marketplace or third-party. This is done once you have granted us permission to have your funds held and will be in accordance with your agreement with the third-party. These holds will appear in your PayPal account. If you have questions about why the applicable marketplace or third party instructed PayPal to put these holds in place, you will need to contact the marketplace or third-party directly.
Holds based on disputed transactions
If a payment sent to you as a seller is challenged as a payment that should be invalidated and reversed, we may place a temporary hold on the funds in your PayPal account to cover the amount that could be reversed. Any of the situations described under Refunds, Reversals and Chargebacks are situations that could result in us placing a hold on a payment. If we determine the transaction should not be reversed, we'll lift the temporary hold. If we determine the transaction should be reversed, we'll remove the funds from your PayPal account.
Account Limitations
Limitations prevent you from completing certain actions with your PayPal account, such as withdrawing, sending or receiving payments. These limitations are implemented to help protect PayPal, buyers and sellers when we notice restricted activities, an increased financial risk, or activity that appears to us as unusual or suspicious. Limitations also help us collect information necessary for keeping your PayPal account open.
There are several reasons why we may limit your access to your PayPal account or the PayPal services, and/or limit access to your funds, including:
- If we suspect someone could be using your PayPal account without your knowledge, we'll limit it for your protection and look into the fraudulent activity.
- If your debit or credit card issuer alerts us that someone has used your card without your permission. Similarly, if your bank lets us know that there have been unauthorized transfers between your PayPal account and your bank account.
- In order to comply with applicable law, regulations or PayPal’s policies.
- If we believe you have breached this agreement or violated the Acceptable Use Policy.
- Seller performance indicating your PayPal account is high risk. Examples include: indications of poor selling performance because you've received an unusually high number of claims and chargebacks selling an entirely new or high cost product, or if your typical sales volume increases rapidly.
If we limit access to your PayPal account, we'll provide you with notice of our actions and the opportunity to request restoration of access if, in our sole discretion, we deem it appropriate.
You will need to resolve any issues with your account before a limitation can be removed. Normally, this is done after you provide us with the information we request. However, if we reasonably believe a risk still exists after you have provided us that information, we may take action to protect PayPal, our users, a third party, or you from reversals, fees, fines, penalties, legal and/or regulatory risks and any other liability.
Reserves
We may place a reserve on your PayPal account if we believe there may be a high level of risk associated with you, your PayPal account, your business model, or your transactions. When we place a reserve on your PayPal account, it means that all or some of the transactions will be shown as "pending" in the balance in your PayPal account, and you will not be able to withdraw funds in a "pending" status, in order to protect against the risk of transactions made by you being reversed or invalidated or any other risk related to your PayPal account or use of the PayPal services. We make decisions about whether to place a reserve based on a number of factors, including information available to us from both internal sources and from third parties.
PayPal considers a list of non-exclusive factors and whether and how these factors have changed over time, including:
- How long you have been in business.
- Whether your industry has a higher likelihood of chargebacks.
- Your payment processing history with PayPal and other providers.
- Your business and/or personal credit history.
- Your delivery time frames.
- Whether you have higher than average number of returns, chargebacks, claims or disputes.
If we place a reserve on funds in your account, we'll notify you of our actions and the terms of the reserve.
You agree that PayPal's decision to take certain actions, including imposing reserves, limiting access to your account or placing holds may be based on confidential criteria that is essential to our management of risk, the security of accounts and the PayPal system. You agree that PayPal is under no obligation to disclose the details of its risk management or its security procedures to you.
There are two categories of reserves that may be placed on your PayPal account, and one or both may be applied at the same time:
- A Rolling reserve is a reserve where a percentage of each transaction you receive each day is held and then released later on a scheduled basis. For example, your reserve could be set at 10% and held for a 90-day rolling period – meaning 10% of the money you receive on day 1 is held and then released on day 91, 10% of the money you receive on day 2 is held until day 92, etc. Rolling reserves are the most common type of reserve.
- A Minimum reserve is a specific minimum amount of money that you're required to keep available in the balance of your PayPal account at all times. The minimum reserve is either taken as an upfront amount deposited all at once (also known as an Upfront reserve) or is established on a rolling basis from percentages of sales until the minimum reserve is achieved, much like a rolling reserve.
If we change the terms of the reserve due to a change in our risk assessment, we'll notify you of the new terms.