PayPal Bans Steam... Valve Responds
PayPal is no longer available as a payment option in many countries.
If you've tried to purchase a game on Steam in the past few months, what you'd have noticed is odd: PayPal isn't accepted as a form of payment in the vast majority of countries anymore. Not a glitch, not a temporary bug. Just part of one half of a larger and most definitely darker trend.
What transpired?
In early July 2025, the company verified PayPal informed them their acquiring bank--the payments processor agent who received payments sent to Steam--froze transactions in specific currencies.
The effect?
PayPal still functions with the large money such as the Euro, US Dollar, British Pound, Japanese Yen, the Canadian Dollar, and the Australian Dollar. But for the rest of the globe, it's out.
Valve further states that their goal is to reinstate support for PayPal in the affected regions, and they are also actively seeking alternative payment options. In the meantime, they recommend using Steam Wallet codes as substitutes.
One Reddit user tried to contatc PayPal support about. Here is the full story
Why in Certain Countries
If this indeed was a technology or policy issue, then why should the entry of PayPal continue unchecked in major markets? One of the possible reasons: testing the waters in the smaller markets where there were fewer legal protections in place. That keeps the pressure on without breaking out the full-scale PR or regulatory war in the US or EU.
A Familiar Script
We've heard it before:
Mastercard & Visa – had previously forced Steam to restrict games with explicit sex, so new limits were set. Both had denied it in public, but the words of Valve justified otherwise.
Stripe & itch.io - suspended the payment services owing to the same reason, blaming it on "banking partners."
PayPal seems to be going down the same line here as well: do not accept responsibility, blame the platform, and submissively retreat under pressure from activists or banks.
The Global Vision
The actual issue here is reputational risk—banks and payment processors cutting off service to companies whose content or policies they disagree with, generally with no basis in law.
In such a scenario, the catalyst is one of the activist drives in preventing payments for Certain Types of adult content in games. Following smaller markets first allows companies to insist on conformity without triggering pushback from the regulations for their most lucrative markets.
Pushback Is Near
Japan and even Donald Trump have come in with offers or executive orders in support of equal access to banks remaining in place.
The FDIC chief has indicated new rules preventing denials of payments for “reputational risk.”
six months later, the US government will have the proper response—in the form of legislation—to prevent such practice.
Can Valve create a virtual payment platform?
Valve has already eliminated middlemen wherever there has seemed to be risk:
App-store furor with Windows 8 spurred SteamOS, and SteamOS left Windows in the dust with the game benchmarks.
As payment businesses are now becoming a chokepoint, making "Valve Pay" is not that outlandish an idea.
Even Musk has signaled implementing Steam payments into his future service Xpay.
What's Next For the foreseeable future, PayPal removal is a real and urgent concern for gamers in dozens of countries. Valve is looking for answers but no one knows when. With the aid of actions by governments, industrial creativity, or alternative payment methods, the battle over who controls global gaming payment methods is afoot.