Not authorized

Authorization failed due to insufficient permissions. The following issues may return from a NOT_AUTHORIZED error.

Note: If an issue persists or if you have further questions, you can reach out to paypal-techsupport.com.

PAYEE_ACCOUNT_NOT_VERIFIED

Returns from the Payments v1 or Orders v2 APIs.

| Cause | - Unverified PayPal account: The payee's PayPal account has not been verified, which is a requirement for processing transactions.
- Account restrictions: The payee's account may have restrictions or limitations that prevent it from being verified.
- Unverified email address: The payee has not verified their email address with PayPal, which is a necessary step for account verification. | | Impact | The payment is declined, and the payment is not processed. This can lead to delays in completing the purchase. | | Resolution | - Verify PayPal account: The payee should verify their PayPal account in order to resolve this error. This typically involves confirming their email address, linking and confirming a bank account or credit card, and providing any required identification documents.
- Check for account restrictions: Check the PayPal account for any restrictions or limitations that may prevent verification. The payee should resolve any outstanding issues or contact PayPal support for assistance.
- Verify email address: The payee should verify their email address with PayPal. They should check their email for a verification message from PayPal and follow the instructions to confirm their email address. |

PAYEE_NOT_CONSENTED

| Cause | - The PayPal merchant account making the API call does not have permission from the payee account to carry out a request.
- A different account used credentials to make the API request on behalf of the payee. The payee account is not sending the request.
- The payee account needs to grant permissions to the facilitator account.
- The payee has not consented for the API caller to process this transaction. Your setup requires payee consent before processing. | | Impact | - The facilitator account is not able to process payments for the payee account without receiving permissions from the payee. These attempts will fail until permissions are granted.
- This leads to fewer customers completing PayPal transactions on the merchant website. | | Resolution | - The payee account is passed in the payee field within “purchase_units” object of the Orders API request body. Ensure that the correct values are passed, and the API caller account has received the correct set of permissions.
- For PayPal Complete Payments merchants, ensure the caller API account has consent to collect partner fees for the payee. Make sure to add PARTNER_FEE to the list of capabilities when taking the payee through the sign-up flow.
- After adding permissions, retry the payment.
- If permissions are already added, or if this has started happening for a large number of transactions, reach out to PayPal support. |

PERMISSION_DENIED

Returns from the Payments v1 or Orders v2 APIs.

| Cause | The PayPal API returns this error when the credentials used to call the API do not have the necessary permissions to perform the requested operation or action. Common causes include:
- Insufficient permissions: The PayPal account does not have the required permissions.
- Invalid or expired credentials: OAuth access tokens are expired or invalid.
- Restricted operations: Attempting actions not allowed for the account type. For example, a personal account tries to access business-level APIs.
- Swapped credentials: Using sandbox credentials in a live environment or vice versa. | | Impact | The payment process is halted, preventing the customer from finalizing their purchase. This can lead to lost sales if the issue is not resolved promptly. | | Resolution | - Verify resource ownership: Ensure the resource ID belongs to the PayPal account making the API call. If it belongs to another account, ensure the correct permissions and scopes are granted.
- Check API credentials: Ensure the credentials are for the correct environment (sandbox or live), and are properly generated from the PayPal Developer Dashboard.
- Verify OAuth scopes and permissions: Ensure the necessary scopes are requested when generating OAuth tokens.
- Review account permissions: Access the PayPal Developer Dashboard to ensure the API credentials correspond to an account with appropriate privileges. Check the My Apps & Credentials page for details.
- Renew authentication tokens: Regularly renew access tokens and ensure your application handles token expiration gracefully.
- Use correct API endpoints: Ensure you are using the correct endpoints for the environment. For sandbox, use https://api.sandbox.paypal.com. For live, use https://api.paypal.com.
- Check account type and feature availability: Ensure the PayPal account supports the requested API operations. Some features are only available on business accounts or specific integrations, for example, payouts. |