Why players can no longer pay with PayPal on Steam in many countries

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Since around the beginning of July, there have been increasing reports of users who can no longer pay with PayPal on Steam. Valve's gaming platform suddenly stopped offering this payment option to some users. Steam initially failed to provide an explanation, but Valve has now provided a reason for kicking out PayPal. In many countries, banks associated with PayPal no longer processed Steam's payment processes, so the gaming platform has removed PayPal there.

The banks or PayPal have yet to explain why Steam is no longer served in many places. A connection with the dispute between Valve and Mastercard over banned Steam games can be assumed. In July, Steam also kicked out sex games under pressure from payment service providers, although Mastercard denies having asked Valve to delete numerous questionable porn games. According to Valve, Mastercard did not contact them directly, but Mastercard's partner banks and payment service providers did.

PayPal officially not an option in many countries

The situation is similar with PayPal. Initially, there were numerous reports on Reddit that PayPal was not available as a payment option. Some users suspected temporary problems of a technical nature, but after around a month, PayPal is still not an option on Steam in many countries. The gaming platform has now informed customers that PayPal is currently not available in their countries. At the same time, Valve has added a corresponding statement to Steam's support pages.

“In early July 2025, PayPal informed Valve that the bank responsible for payments in certain currencies will immediately stop processing all Steam-related transactions. This affects Steam purchases via PayPal in currencies besides EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD, and USD,” reads the Steam support page. Customers who pay in euros, British pounds, Japanese yen, Canadian, Australian, or US dollars can therefore continue to use PayPal.

European users without euros also affected

“We hope to offer PayPal as an option for these currencies in the future, but the exact timeline is still uncertain,” Steam continues. “We are also looking into adding additional payment methods on Steam for affected customers.” As alternatives, Valve refers to other payment methods or the Steam Wallet, whose credit can be topped up elsewhere.

This information is still missing in the German-language Steam support, but euro payers are not impacted in this country either. However, there are also European users with the PayPal problem. Not only users from countries such as Mexico or the Philippines are complaining on Reddit, but also from Norway. As is well known, the country does not use the euro and continues to rely on Norwegian kroner.

Banks don't like adult games either

When asked by Rockpapershotgun, Valve explained that the banks associated with PayPal no longer process Steam's payment processes due to the content offered on the gaming platform and referred to the dispute with Mastercard. “In this case, one of PayPal's acquiring banks decided to stop processing Steam transactions, cutting PayPal off from Steam for several currencies,” a Valve spokesperson added.

So ultimately there is a connection to the adult games that Steam recently kicked off the platform. Whether the relevant banks will reactivate Steam payments after the questionable sex games have been removed remains to be seen.

(fds)