PayPal · Decline codes
What does the PayPal REDIRECT_PAYER_FOR_ALTERNATE_FUNDING error mean?
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PayPal's REDIRECT_PAYER_FOR_ALTERNATE_FUNDING error means the transaction failed and PayPal wants the buyer sent back to choose another funding source. The chosen card or bank can't fund this payment, but the buyer's PayPal account may have others. The merchant should redirect the buyer to PayPal rather than retrying.
- PayPal description
- Transaction failed. Redirect the payer to select another funding source.
- Type
- Soft decline
- Who declined
- PayPal
- Retry
- Only after the cause is fixed
- Shopper action
- Pick another card, bank or balance in PayPal
- Merchant action
- Redirect the buyer to PayPal
- PlatformDTC renewal (Smart retry)
- Treated as generic and flagged; PayPal ladder
What PlatformDTC does
PlatformDTC has no specific rule for REDIRECT_PAYER_FOR_ALTERNATE_FUNDING: it is treated as a generic decline and logged as unclassified so the team can review it. With Smart retry on, a PayPal subscription renewal declined this way follows the PayPal ladder: up to 7 attempts, each at least 3 days after the last, moved to the subscriber's next payday when one falls within a week, inside a window of at least 24 days.
Why it happens
The selected funding source didn't work for this payment. PayPal's instruction is explicit: redirect the payer to select another.
What the shopper can do
Choose a different card, bank account or your PayPal balance when PayPal reopens.
What the store can do
Send the buyer back into PayPal's approval flow instead of showing a dead end.
For developers
details[0].issue = REDIRECT_PAYER_FOR_ALTERNATE_FUNDING. Handle it like INSTRUMENT_DECLINED: restart so the payer can choose again.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this a decline?
- The selected funding source failed; the buyer can still pay with another one.
- Can a subscription renewal redirect the buyer?
- No one is present on a renewal, so the customer has to be contacted to choose another source.
Sources
- Orders v2 API errors — PayPal
- Handle funding failures — PayPal
Related
- INSTRUMENT_DECLINED — Instrument declined: the card or bank in the buyer's PayPal was refused.
- TRANSACTION_REFUSED — Transaction refused: PayPal refused the request without a specific reason.
- PAYER_CANNOT_PAY — Payer cannot pay: this buyer's and this seller's PayPal settings don't allow the payment.
- TRANSACTION_BLOCKED_BY_PAYEE — Blocked by payee: the merchant's own PayPal fraud settings blocked the payment.
- PAYEE_BLOCKED_TRANSACTION — Payee blocked transaction: the merchant's PayPal fraud tool declined it.
- TRANSACTION_LIMIT_EXCEEDED — Transaction limit exceeded: the total is over a PayPal transaction limit.
- PAYMENT_DENIED — Payment denied: PayPal declined to process the transaction.
- 0100 — Referral: the card's bank wants the cardholder to contact it before it approves.