PayPal Statistics 2026: Revenue, Payment Volume, and Ticket Size

PayPal processed $486.4 billion in total payment volume during the second quarter of 2026, a 10% increase year over year. Net revenues rose 5% to $8.7 billion across the same three months. That five-point gap between volume growth and revenue growth is the most important number in PayPal’s current reporting. It shows up in every business line the company breaks out.

Across the full 2025 year, PayPal moved $1.79 trillion on 25.4 billion payment transactions. Active accounts finished the second quarter of 2026 at 439 million, up 0.3%. The sections below track volume, revenue, take rate, accounts, ticket size, Venmo, geography, cost structure, headcount, and cash flow. Every figure comes from a PayPal filing with the SEC, a PayPal earnings document, a PayPal newsroom release, or IRS guidance.

Key Takeaways

• Quarterly payment volume climbed from $417,208 million to $486,448 million across six quarters, covering the start of 2025 through the middle of 2026.
• The total take rate fell across the same six quarters, from 1.87% to 1.78%.
• Active accounts moved between 438 and 439 million across five consecutive quarters, a range of less than 1%.
• Payment transactions per active account reached 60.0 on a trailing 12-month basis, up 3%.
• Payment transactions fell 4% in 2025 to 25.4 billion, while volume rose 7%, which lifts the average payment size.
• Venmo volume grew every quarter in the series, from $75,942 million to $93,806 million.
• PayPal employed approximately 23,800 people globally at the end of 2025, spread across 28 countries.

Editor’s Choice

• PayPal reported total net revenues of $33,172 million for 2025, against $31,797 million in 2024.
• The company connects consumers and merchants across approximately 200 markets.
• PayPal completed 6.8 billion payment transactions in the second quarter of 2026, up 8%.
• Venmo monthly active accounts reached 228 million in the same quarter.
• Transaction expense, PayPal’s largest cost line, totaled $15,987 million in 2025.
• Free cash flow reached $1.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, an increase of 157% over the same quarter a year earlier.
• Cross-border volume held at 12% of total payment volume for a third consecutive year.

PayPal Total Payment Volume by Quarter

• Total payment volume grew 10% to $486.4 billion in the second quarter of 2026, or 9% on a currency-neutral basis.
• For the 2025 calendar year, volume reached $1.79 trillion against $1.68 trillion in 2024, an increase of 7%.
• Quarterly volume has grown year over year in every quarter of the six-quarter series, at rates between 3% and 11%.
• Volume rose 5% sequentially between the first and second quarters of 2026.
• PayPal defines volume as payments net of reversals completed on its platform or enabled through a partner solution, excluding gateway-exclusive transactions.
• Volume generated outside the United States accounted for 37% of the total in both 2025 and 2024.
• Across the six-quarter series, quarterly volume added $69,240 million.
• The transaction margin on that volume was 44.9%, down from 45.6% in the prior quarter.

Source: PayPal 2Q’26 Earnings Presentation, July 2026

Volume is the number PayPal leads with, and it is the number that has held up best through the transformation program. Harder to answer is what each dollar of that volume now earns.

PayPal Revenue Growth and Take Rate

• PayPal’s total take rate fell from 1.87% to 1.78% across the six-quarter series.
• The transaction take rate followed the same path, from 1.68% down to 1.61%.
• Transaction revenues reached $7,832 million in the second quarter of 2026, or 90% of total net revenues.
• Revenues from other value-added services held at 10% of total net revenues in four of the last five quarters.
• Full-year 2025 transaction revenues were $29,798 million, against other value-added services of $3,374 million.
• Transaction revenues grew $956 million, or 3%, in 2025, driven by roughly $740 million from PayPal products and $340 million from Venmo.
• Hedging activity cut 2025 transaction revenue by approximately $210 million.
• Transaction margin dollars grew 1% to $3.9 billion in the second quarter of 2026, or 3% excluding interest on customer balances.

Readers searching for why PayPal’s growth story reads weaker than its volume chart usually land here. Take rate is the bridge between the two. Nine basis points of compression across six quarters turns double-digit volume growth into mid-single-digit revenue growth.

PayPal attributes the seven-basis-point fall in the transaction take rate to higher investments in branded checkout and buy now, pay later. Product mix and the lapping of a prior-year non-recurring benefit are the other two drivers it names.

By the numbers: PayPal’s transaction take rate fell from 1.68% to 1.61% across six quarters while quarterly volume rose by $69,240 million. The company names branded checkout investment, buy now, pay later spending and product mix as the drivers, which places the compression inside its own growth strategy rather than outside it.

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Recent Developments

• In August 2026, PayPal and Venmo became accepted tuition payment options through integrations with Illumia, Nelnet Campus Commerce, and TouchNet.
• PayPal World enabled US PayPal users to make in-store QR code payments at WeChat Pay merchants across China, with no local wallet or Chinese bank account required, announced on August 11, 2026.
• PayPal cited China welcoming more than 68 million international visitors in 2025, up 15.5% year over year, as the backdrop for that launch.
• On July 2, 2026, PayPal joined the European Payments Council, the body that manages payment scheme rules across the 41 countries of the Single Euro Payments Area.
• PayPal’s board declared a cash dividend of $0.14 per share, payable on September 25, 2026.
• The company returned $1.5 billion to stockholders by repurchasing approximately 33 million shares during the quarter.

In the July release, PayPal said branded checkout had further stabilized. The company raised full-year non-GAAP guidance on the strength of its execution. Branded checkout has further stabilized, and we’re building on the strong momentum in Venmo and Braintree as well as diversifying our business model through financial services, the company quoted Enrique Lores, President and CEO.

PayPal Active Accounts and User Growth

• Active accounts rose 0.3% to 439 million in the second quarter of 2026.
• On a sequential basis, active accounts fell 0.04%, or by 0.2 million.
• PayPal held 439 million active accounts at the end of 2025 against 434 million a year earlier, an increase of 1%.
• Venmo monthly active accounts, a subset of the total, stood at 228 million in the second quarter.
• Payment transactions reached 6,750 million in the quarter, against 6,226 million a year earlier.
• Transactions excluding payment service provider volume totaled 4,233 million.
• PayPal counts an active account as one that completed a transaction on its platform within the past 12 months, which means a single user can hold more than one.
• Those accounts sit across approximately 200 markets.

Source: PayPal Q2 2026 earnings release, July 2026

Four consecutive quarters at the same account number is the clearest signal in this data set. PayPal is no longer an acquisition story, which puts the pressure on how hard each existing account works. Scale comparisons that matter sit with the card networks rather than with other wallets. The Visa transaction data shows a very different volume-per-account profile.

How many users does PayPal have?

PayPal reports 439 million active accounts rather than a count of individual users. A user may register on the platform to access different products and may register more than one account to access a product. One user may therefore hold more than one active account. Account totals give management perspective on the scale of the platform but may not have a direct relationship to operating results.

How many merchants use PayPal?

PayPal’s business description groups consumers and merchants inside one 439 million active-account figure. Consumer wallets and merchant checkout are two sides of the same network. No separate merchant line sits anywhere in that disclosure, so a standalone merchant count circulating elsewhere is not a PayPal number.

PayPal Average Transaction Size

• Payment transactions fell 4% in 2025 to 25.4 billion, from 26.3 billion in 2024.
• Payment volume moved the other way, rising 7% to $1.79 trillion from $1.68 trillion.
• That combination puts the average 2025 payment at roughly $70.
• The equivalent 2024 figure was about $64.
• Average ticket size therefore grew roughly 10% year over year.
• Transactions per active account, derived from full-year transaction counts and year-end active accounts, worked out to about 60.6 in 2024 and roughly 57.9 in 2025.
• Braintree volume grew in 2025 even as its transaction count declined, which PayPal attributes to a strategic shift toward profitable growth.

Source: PayPal FY2025 Form 10-K, February 2026

Ticket size is the quietest of PayPal’s metrics and one of the most revealing. Fewer, larger payments point to a mix shift away from small-basket consumer checkout and toward higher-value merchant processing. Take-rate numbers describe the same shift from the revenue side.

PayPal Transactions Per Active Account

• Transactions per active account reached 60.0 on a trailing 12-month basis, up 3%.
• The same measure excluding payment service provider activity grew 7%.
• Excluding payment service provider volume, transactions per active account grew 7%, accelerating for a second consecutive quarter.
• The metric had fallen to 57.6 in the third quarter of 2025 before turning back up.
• PayPal calculates it by dividing the trailing 12-month transaction count by active accounts at period end.
• The company notes that individual consumer and merchant accounts can vary significantly from the average.

The takeaway: Transactions per active account bottomed at 57.6 in the third quarter of 2025 and reached 60.0 three quarters later, while the account base itself barely moved. Engagement, not acquisition, now supplies PayPal’s transaction growth, and the measure that excludes payment service provider volume grew faster than the headline rate.

Venmo Payment Volume Inside PayPal

• Venmo volume rose from $75,942 million to $93,806 million across the six-quarter series.
• Venmo volume grew 14% year over year in the most recent quarter.
• Total peer-to-peer volume reached $115,198 million in the same quarter.
• Venmo therefore accounted for roughly 81% of PayPal’s peer-to-peer volume.
• Venmo Debit Card monthly active accounts grew more than 50%.
• Pay With Venmo monthly active accounts grew approximately 30%.
• Branded checkout volume grew 2% on a currency-neutral basis over the same period.
• Venmo products and services added approximately $340 million of transaction revenue in 2025.

Venmo’s growth rate against branded checkout is the widest gap inside PayPal’s reported lines. Our Venmo coverage tracks the same trajectory from the product side. A wallet growing at seven times the rate of the core checkout button is no longer a side business. PayPal’s own framing of Venmo as a diversification lever concedes as much.

Peer-to-peer transfer is the category where that engagement compounds fastest. The wider P2P payment statistics set Venmo’s quarterly volume against the bank-owned alternative competing for the same transfers.

PayPal Volume and Revenue by Geography

• U.S. payment volume reached $315,580 million in the latest quarter, growing 14% year over year.
• International volume reached $170,868 million over the same period, growing 2%.
• On a currency-neutral basis, international volume growth was flat.
• U.S. net revenues were $5,048 million in the quarter, or 58% of the total.
• International net revenues were $3,634 million, or 42% of the total.
• For the full 2025 year, U.S. revenues were $18,868 million against $14,304 million from other countries.
• Volume generated outside the United States held at 37% of the total in 2025 and 2024.
• Cross-border volume held at 12% of total volume across three consecutive years.

That quarterly split shows where volume originates. The annual revenue table below carries the same domestic and international divide through to the top line, across three full fiscal years instead of six quarters.

Source: PayPal FY2025 Form 10-K, February 2026

The domestic and international lines have separated sharply. A seven-fold difference in growth rate between two halves of the same business rarely closes on its own. It explains why PayPal’s European and cross-border moves have accelerated.

PayPal Cost Structure and Loss Rates

• Transaction expense, PayPal’s largest cost line, reached $15,987 million in 2025 against $15,697 million in 2024 and $14,385 million in 2023.
• Transaction and credit losses rose 19% to $1,720 million from $1,442 million.
• Technology and development spending was $3,103 million, up 4%, while sales and marketing rose 14% to $2,283 million.
• General and administrative expense fell to $1,979 million from $2,147 million, and customer support and operations fell to $1,704 million from $1,768 million.
• Total operating expenses were $27,107 million in 2025 against $26,472 million in 2024.
• The transaction expense rate held at 0.90% across the two most recent quarters, up from 0.89% in the three quarters before them.
• The transaction and credit loss rate fell to 0.08% from 0.11% a year earlier.
• PayPal defines the transaction expense rate as transaction expense divided by payment volume, and the transaction and credit loss rate as transaction and credit losses divided by payment volume.
• Transaction margin has fallen in each of the three most recent quarters, from 46.5% to 45.6% to 44.9%.

That expense breakdown covers the full 2025 year in dollar terms. The chart below tracks the same two cost lines by quarter, scaled against payment volume rather than shown as absolute dollars.

Transaction expense scales with volume by design, so the line worth watching is credit. Losses climbed at the steepest rate in that expense table while the loss rate against volume still fell. That is the signature of a lending book growing faster than its charge-offs. That is the financial services side of PayPal, and it carries a different risk profile from the processing side.

PayPal Employees and Global Footprint

• PayPal employed approximately 23,800 people globally as of December 31, 2025.
• The workforce is split 46% in the Americas and 12% in Europe and the Middle East, with Asia-Pacific holding the balance.
• Approximately 9,600 of those employees are located in the U.S.
• Employees represent 142 nationalities across 28 countries.
• PayPal reported approximately 42% global gender diversity and 58% U.S. ethnic diversity as of December 31, 2025.
• Each employee supported roughly $75 million of 2025 payment volume.
• PayPal describes management of its global talent as essential to the ongoing success of its business.

That regional split covers where PayPal’s workforce sits. The table below adds the absolute headcount, country and nationality counts behind those percentages.

Source: PayPal FY2025 Form 10-K, February 2026

Headcount is the cheapest sanity check on a transformation story. A network clearing more than a trillion dollars a year on a workforce this size runs mostly on software, not staff.

PayPal’s Competitive Set and Digital Wallet Position

• PayPal describes the global payments industry as highly competitive, dynamic, innovative, and subject to regulatory scrutiny and oversight.
• The company names banks and financial institutions offering credit cards, debit cards, electronic bank transfers, credit and installment methods, plus payment networks, payment card processors and card on file services.
• Digital wallets and mobile payments solutions sit alongside tokenized and contactless payment cards, credit, installment and other buy now, pay later methods.
• PayPal meets that competition with a two-sided network of 439 million active accounts across approximately 200 markets.
• Venmo, PayPal’s own wallet inside that set, carried 228 million monthly active accounts in the second quarter.
• PayPal’s consumer wallets let users shop and pay with PayPal and Venmo online and in person, manage finances including buying and selling cryptocurrencies, and send and receive money.
• A third-party issuer launched PayPal USD, a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin, in August 2023, available to PayPal and Venmo customers in certain markets.
• The GENIUS Act provides a regulatory framework that is in the process of being implemented, and PayPal USD is designed to comply with that U.S. framework.

Wallet comparisons are where readers most often want a side-by-side. The Google Pay, Apple Pay comparison covers the two device-native wallets PayPal meets at checkout. Merchant-owned wallets sit in the same bucket, which is where the Amazon Pay numbers belong.

Installment credit is the other contested lane, and PayPal names it directly in the disclosure above. We track the BNPL category as its own market rather than a PayPal feature. The Klarna data set covers a pure-play provider competing for the same baskets.

Who is PayPal’s biggest competitor?

PayPal answers this with categories rather than company names. The annual report lists banks, payment networks, payment card processors and card-on-file services. It adds digital wallets, mobile payment solutions and buy now, pay later methods. Competition arrives per product line, so the rival differs at every point in the stack.

Stablecoins are the newest entry on that list, and the PYUSD supply and usage figures track the token PayPal customers can already hold and transfer.

PayPal Cash Flow and Capital Returns

• Cash flow from operations was $2.0 billion in the second quarter of 2026, with free cash flow of $1.8 billion.
• Adjusted free cash flow was also $1.8 billion, excluding the net timing impact between originating buy now, pay later receivables as held for sale and the subsequent sale of those receivables.
• Cash, cash equivalents and investments totaled $15.3 billion as of June 30, 2026, against debt of $13.4 billion.
• On a trailing 12-month basis, PayPal returned $6.0 billion to stockholders by repurchasing approximately 111 million shares of common stock.
• Non-GAAP operating margin was 17.4% in the quarter, down from 19.8% a year earlier.
• Non-GAAP net income was $1,219 million and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.38, against $1.40 a year earlier.
• GAAP operating margin contracted 171 basis points to 16.4%, and GAAP earnings per share fell 3% to $1.253.
• Free cash flow equalled roughly 21% of quarterly net revenues.

Source: PayPal Q2 2026 earnings release, July 2026

Cash generation is the part of the story that take-rate compression has not touched. Converting a fifth of quarterly revenue into free cash funds buybacks and a dividend while margins contract, which buys the transformation program time.

What Is the $600 Rule on PayPal?

Payment apps must file a Form 1099-K once platform receipts for goods or services exceed $20,000 in more than 200 transactions. IRS guidance calls those platforms third-party settlement organizations. A Form 1099-K can still arrive when total payments or transactions fall below that reporting threshold. IRS guidance states that income from selling goods or services must be reported on a tax return no matter the amount of reported payments.

How Many Transactions Does PayPal Process a Day?

PayPal completed 25.4 billion payment transactions across the 2025 calendar year. That works out to roughly 70 million payments a day. The most recent quarter ran hotter, at 6,750 million transactions in the three months ended June 30, 2026. That pace is closer to 74 million transactions a day.

Daily averages work as a scale marker, not a load figure. Payment traffic concentrates around retail peaks, so no ordinary Tuesday looks like the average.

Conclusion

PayPal moved $486.4 billion in the second quarter of 2026 and turned it into $8.7 billion of net revenue. Volume rose 10% and revenue 5%. Behind that gap, the total take rate sat at 1.78%, down from 1.87% five quarters earlier. Those two figures frame every other number here: the platform keeps getting bigger while each dollar crossing it earns slightly less.

For anyone tracking payments infrastructure rather than a share price, the metrics that settle the question are per-account intensity and the Venmo line. Both are moving up while the account base sits flat. Four more quarters of take-rate prints will show whether the branded checkout and installment investments start paying for themselves.