Official pluginLast verified 2026-09-13 · Reviewed by a person 2026-09-14
PayPal connects to WooCommerce through WooCommerce PayPal Payments, a free plugin published on WordPress.org under the WooCommerce name and developed in the woocommerce GitHub organisation with PayPal, Automattic and Syde as contributors. It replaces the retired PayPal Standard and PayPal Checkout plugins and covers PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, hosted card fields, Apple Pay, Google Pay, vaulting and subscriptions.1
UAT-Ops testing: PayPal's sandbox was verified by UAT-Ops on 2026-09-11 with the directory's card flow (5 passed) → evidence on the PayPal hub. The WooCommerce integration itself has not been run.
Sources checked: 27 claims from 6 sites, listed at the foot of the page.
Connects through WordPress plugin (WooCommerce PayPal Payments) connected through PayPal's onboarding wizard, which creates the REST app, registers webhooks and enables features; manual client ID/secret connection is available under advanced options. Biggest gotcha: PayPal Standard is gone from core and gets switched off.
How it connects
Method
WordPress plugin (WooCommerce PayPal Payments) connected through PayPal's onboarding wizard, which creates the REST app, registers webhooks and enables features; manual client ID/secret connection is available under advanced options.2
Maintained by
WooCommerce (wordpress.org author; GitHub org woocommerce); readme contributors paypal, woocommerce, automattic, syde. The woocommerce.com product page attributes it to PayPal.1
classic shortcode checkout, block cart and checkout, express buttons, hosted card fields, redirect to paypal5
PCI scope
Depends on the checkout mode you choose; see the gotchas below.6
What works on this platform
Yes: a source confirms it on this integration. Limited: supported, but only under meaningful conditions or through a subset of connector paths. Not verified here: the gateway supports it, but no source confirms this integration exposes it. No: not available. A capability with no source either way is left off.
Advanced Card Processing renders PayPal hosted card fields on the store; business account only, eligibility limited to the countries PayPal lists (37 countries, 22 currencies), and the application is started from the onboarding wizard. Standard card buttons are the fallback.
Needs a business account in a supported region signed up for Apple Pay, HTTPS, and the domain (each subdomain separately) registered with PayPal with the association file at /.well-known/apple-developer-merchantid-domain-association. The button shows only beneath the PayPal buttons, not as its own gateway.
Needs a business account enabled for Google Pay in a supported region. Like Apple Pay it appears only within the PayPal gateway beneath the PayPal buttons.
PayPal Smart Buttons plus Venmo (US only) and local methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact and BLIK. Express buttons run on the Block Cart and Block Express Checkout.
Pay Later with country variants in US, CA, AU, DE, ES, IT, FR and UK; the Pay Later button only renders next to the PayPal button and is disabled while vaulting is enabled.
Cards vault through Advanced Card Processing without extra approval; saving PayPal and Venmo accounts requires Reference Transactions approval and the Vault option on the REST app. In the block checkout, the 'Proceed to PayPal' button offers no vaulting or PayPal Subscriptions; WooCommerce's blocks page does not say whether card vaulting works there. Vaulting and Pay Later are mutually exclusive.
Requires the Woo Subscriptions extension. Two modes: PayPal Subscriptions API (fixed schedule; no mixed carts, coupons, switching or synced payments) or vaulting with Reference Transactions (flexible amounts, multiple subscriptions, switching).
Full or partial refunds are issued from the WooCommerce order screen. A partial refund leaves the order status unchanged and sends the buyer no notification; an authorize-only order is captured first.
The plugin docs list 31 PayPal currencies, with BRL, CNY and MYR limited to in-country accounts and HUF, JPY, TWD and THB taking no decimals; most WooCommerce currency-switcher plugins are said to work.
PayPal supports this; no source confirms it on this integration.
Capability status reflects the integration and documentation available at the time of verification, not necessarily every capability of the underlying gateway or platform.
Testing it
Create sandbox business and personal accounts at developer.paypal.com (Testing Tools > Sandbox Accounts). In the plugin's Welcome page open advanced options, switch on Sandbox Mode and either run the onboarding wizard with the sandbox login or paste the sandbox REST app's Client ID and Secret under Manually Connect; manual connection cannot detect which advanced features the account has. Onboarding registers the webhooks; on a local store expose it with ngrok (the repo documents NGROK_HOST and a ddev share wrapper) and press Resubscribe on the Webhooks Status panel, then Simulate to confirm delivery. Pay with PayPal's published sandbox test cards, CCREJECT-* names for declines and the 3-D Secure test cards; local payment methods only capture after the webhook arrives, so assert the order moves to Processing after the webhook, not after the redirect. Apple Pay in sandbox additionally needs a sandbox Apple ID and a registered domain.15
UAT-Ops runs integration flows like this against the real sandbox and keeps the evidence. Tell me when it opens →
Gotchas
PayPal Standard is gone from core and gets switched off
PayPal Standard was hidden for new stores from WooCommerce 5.5, and the bundled gateway plus its opt-in filter were deleted in WooCommerce 8.9 (May 2024). Since PayPal Payments 4.1.0, connecting an account disables Standard automatically, except when active or pending-cancel subscriptions still bill through it; then the plugin leaves Standard alone and shows a count. Migrate subscriptions before connecting.
The earlier WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Payment Gateway (woocommerce-gateway-paypal-express-checkout, last version 2.1.3) was permanently closed on WordPress.org on 2024-07-09 at the author's request. Stores still carrying it get no updates; WooCommerce PayPal Payments is the only maintained path, and PayPal's upgrade hub points there too.
Vaulting turns off Pay Later, and wallets need Reference Transactions
Saving PayPal or Venmo accounts requires Reference Transactions approval on the business account and the Vault box ticked on the REST app; cards vault through Advanced Card Processing without it. The two features are mutually exclusive: once vaulting is enabled the Pay Later button disappears. Decide which sells more before enabling either.
Express buttons and hosted card fields work in the Cart and Checkout blocks, but the PayPal gateway with smart buttons inside the block checkout, the standard card buttons, OXXO and Pay upon Invoice are not supported there. The 'Proceed to PayPal' path does not support vaulting or PayPal Subscriptions, and its button is hidden when the cart contains a subscription; WooCommerce's Blocks documentation does not state whether saved-card vaulting through Advanced Card Processing is supported. Test the checkout surface the store actually uses.
Onboarding registers the webhooks; a manual client ID and secret connection cannot detect the account's advanced features. Local payment methods are captured only when the webhook arrives, so a staging store behind a firewall shows orders that never complete. Expose it (the repo documents ngrok and NGROK_HOST), press Resubscribe on the Webhooks Status panel, then Simulate.
PayPal rejects an invoice ID it has already seen. Restoring an older database backup, or pointing two stores at one PayPal account, replays order numbers and produces duplicate invoice errors at checkout. Set a distinct invoice prefix per installation (letters, - or _ only) or disable "Block accidental payments" in the PayPal account settings.
Last verified 2026-09-13 · Reviewed by a person 2026-09-14
Integration capabilities, requirements, pricing, availability, and vendor policies may change over time. UAT-Ops documents information based on the authoritative sources and testing available at the time of review.
Where newer information, testing, or vendor documentation materially changes a published claim, UAT-Ops may revise the page to reflect the most current verified information. Readers should confirm time-sensitive requirements with the relevant vendor before making production or purchasing decisions.