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Set up PayPal for your marketplace

Create a PayPal environment and add PayPal to your marketplace.

PayPal is a supported payment method for marketplaces, but note that certain requirements and limitations apply. To enable your marketplace users to accept online PayPal payments, you need to:

  1. Create PayPal developer and sandbox accounts.

  2. Get a PayPal marketplace account and give Adyen access to that account.

    Adyen will add and configure PayPal as a payment method in your Customer Area.

  3. Integrate PayPal in your online payments flow.

  4. When you go live, create a live PayPal business account and a live PayPal marketplace account.

Requirements and limitations

To support PayPal payments:

The supported currencies for PayPal payments are:

  • EUR
  • GBP
  • USD

Step 1: Create developer and sandbox accounts

To test your integration, you need to create a PayPal developer account and PayPal personal and business sandbox accounts.

To be able to see your test payments later, it is important that you create your sandbox accounts under your PayPal developer account.

  1. Create a PayPal developer account, if you do not already have one.
    This account gives access to the developer dashboard where you can create and manage business and personal sandbox accounts.

  2. Under your developer account, create a PayPal business sandbox account.
    This account, ending in @business.example.com for example, lets you simulate the merchant's role when testing payments.

  3. Under your developer account, create a PayPal personal sandbox account.
    This account, ending in @personal.example.com for example, lets you simulate the shopper's role when testing payments.

Step 2: Set up a PayPal marketplace account

You need to create a PayPal marketplace account and give Adyen permission to access that account so that we can connect it to your Adyen integration.

  1. Ask your Adyen contact to ensure PayPal sends you the details of your PayPal marketplace account.

  2. When you have your PayPal marketplace account, ask your Adyen contact for a referral URL.

  3. Using the referral URL, log in to your PayPal marketplace account and confirm you give Adyen permission to access this account.

Step 3: Integrate PayPal payments

When your Adyen contact has informed you that we have completed configuring PayPal in your Customer Area:

  1. Ask your PayPal account manager what PayPal risk data you must provide.
  2. Build your PayPal integration including:
    • Split payment data.
    • The paypalRisk fields that PayPal told you to include. For instructions, see the PayPal page for your integration type.

Test and go live

Test your integration

When you are done setting up your integration, use your PayPal sandbox accounts to test the PayPal payment flow. Your business sandbox account lets you simulate your role as a merchant when testing payments. With your personal sandbox account you can simulate the role of a shopper.

For more information, see the PayPal sandbox testing guide.

You can check the status of a PayPal test payment in your Customer Area > Transactions > Payments.

Before you go live

For live operations, you need to set up a live PayPal business account and a live PayPal marketplace account.

  1. Create a live PayPal business account:

    1. Go to the PayPal website, select Sign Up, and follow the instructions.

      Do not use a personal email address for your live PayPal business account. We strongly recommend that you use a generic company email address. This is to prevent having to configure a new account for your business in the future, should the personal email address no longer be in use for any reason. The email address for your live PayPal business account will also be shown on the payment receipt the shopper receives from PayPal.

    2. Activate your business account.

  2. Create a live PayPal marketplace account:

    1. Ask your Adyen contact to ensure PayPal sends you the details of your PayPal marketplace account.
    2. When you have your PayPal marketplace account, ask your Adyen contact for a referral URL.
    3. Using the referral URL, log in to your PayPal marketplace account and confirm you give Adyen permission to access this account.

    Adyen will add and configure PayPal as a payment method in your live Customer Area.

Chargebacks

When a shopper (a buyer on your marketplace) doesn't agree with a PayPal payment, they can raise a dispute either:

  • Through their bank or card issuer.
  • Directly with the seller on your marketplace or in the PayPal Resolution Center.

When PayPal informs Adyen that a payment is disputed, we do not know to which seller on your marketplace this payment belongs. All we can do is inform you of the dispute, and let you review and defend the dispute on behalf of your seller. You can do this using the Adyen Disputes API or your Customer Area.

As a marketplace, you have to implement your own business logic to manage disputes on behalf of your sellers.

You have 20 days to respond to a dispute before it is lost in the shopper's favor. For details, see PayPal chargebacks.