Attempts and Declines Report User Guide

Direct merchantCurrent

Last updated: Dec 12th, 11:48pm

The Attempts and Declines Report provides comprehensive insights into payment transactions that were attempted and those that got declined for various reasons. It includes details on transactions made using payment methods such as cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, highlighting both successful attempts and reasons for declines.

If you have opted for PayPal’s fraud protection tools, the report will also include data on fraud risk and filters related to authorization declines.

This report is a valuable tool for understanding the factors behind successful transactions and declines on a daily basis. It enables you to take informed actions to improve authorization success rates, enhance sales conversions, and manage market risks effectively.

How to use the Attempts and Declines Report

Note: After you have subscribed to the report, daily transactions will be available in the next day’s report (T+1).

As a merchant you can also subscribe to and download the report from the PayPal merchant portal and Secure FTP Server. For more information about using SFTP to access reports, see SFTP Reports.

Use Case	Report type	Delivery Method
View detailed information about payment attempts and transaction declines, including successful and declined transactions. View reasons for declines, flags for PayPal products, and, if subscribed to PayPal's fraud protection tool, details about fraud protection risks and filters.	Sample report	PayPal merchant portal web download SFTP

How to get the report

Merchant can generate and download the report from the PayPal portal or secure FTP Server. For more information about using SFTP to access reports, see SFTP Reports.

Important:  We aim to improve  these reports in future and may add attributes to the reports. Use column names when integrating with these reports, so that your integrations do not break when new columns are added.

Know before you begin

The Attempts and Declines report offers comprehensive insights into payment transactions that were attempted and those that got declined for various reasons. It includes details on transactions made using payment methods such as debit card, credit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, highlighting both successful attempts and reasons for declines.

The report is only available in comma-separated values (CSV) format.

The report uses UTF-8 (8-bit UCS/Unicode Transformation Format) character encoding.

Amounts in this report are expressed in major units of currency. For example: dollars for USD and yen for JPY. See PayPal-supported currencies for a list of all ISO-4217 currency codes that PayPal supports.

A single report file can contain a maximum of one million records. If the report contains more than one million records, the report is split across multiple files.

For reports that are split over multiple files, only the first file has a report header record. Only the last file has a report footer and a report record count.

The Attempts and Declines Report is generated daily by 12:00 PM in the leading time zone of the reporting window as T-1 report.

The report is available on the Secure FTP Server in the /ppreports/outgoingdirectory. For help with SFTP reports, see Access SFTP reports.

Report file name

The sample filename for reports being delivered to your SFTP is as: 0003EPN-XWSFEXVAAJLVN-AADR-ATTEMPTS_AND_DECLINE_REPORT-20240701-1-1-20240701000000.CSV.

Report Specifications 

The Attempts and Declines report includes the following sections: 

Report Header

Report Details

Report Footer

CSV Code	Section	Description	Configurable
RH	Report Header	Report name: Name of the report. The default name is `ATTEMPTS_AND_DECLINES_REPORT`. Report status: Success or Error. Report generated: The date the report was generated. Hierarchy: Encrypted account number for an account holding individual account in PayPal. Time zone: Timezone of the report	No
RD	Report Details	This section includes the payment attempt and transaction decline details.	No
RF	Report Footer	File number: The current file number, which is part of the file naming convention. Total records: The number of transactions included in the detail section in a specific file. This field is shown in the report only if there are transactional details. Total files: Number of files generated for the report.	No

RH: Report Header

Position	Column name	Optional/Required	Data type	Description
1	RH	Required	Static, 2 characters	Descriptor advising that this row of data contains report body data.
2	Report name	Required	Character varying (256)	Name of the report. Values include: `ATTEMPTS AND_DECLINE_REPORT`.
3	Report status	Required	Success/Error	Report generation status.
4	Report generated	Required	YYYY-MM-DD	The date and time when the report file was generated, in the following format: YYYY/MM/DD where: YYYY is the year. MM is the month. DD is the day.
5	Hierarchy	Required	Character varying (256)	Encrypted account number for an account holding individual account in PayPal.
6	Time zone	Required	Character varying (256)	Time zone of the report.

RD: Report Details

Position	Column name	Optional/Required	Data type	Description
1	RD	Required	Static, 2 characters	Indicates that this row of data contains report details data.
2	Partner identifier	Optional	Character varying (256)	Partner Identifier.
3	Merchant account ID	Required	Character varying (256)	Encrypted account number of the merchant.
4	Authorization ID	Optional	Character varying (256)	Encrypted Authorization ID.
5	Order ID	Optional	Character varying (256)	The Order Id created at the time of transaction.
6	Invoice ID	Optional	Character varying (256)	The invoice ID passed at the time of transaction.
7	Custom field	Optional	Character varying (256)	Custom field.
8	Authorization status	Required	Character varying (256)	Authorization status (Authorized or Declined).
9	Authorization date	Required	YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM: SS	Date and time the authorization was initiated, in the following format: YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM: SS offset. Where:  YYYY is the four-digit year.  MM is the two-digit month of the year.  DD is the two-digit day of the month. HH is the hour in 24-hour notation.  MM is minutes. SS is seconds.  offset is the five-character signed offset from GMT. For example, +0800.
10	Authorization amount	Required	Numeric (23, 2)	The authorized amount
11	Currency	Required	3-character currency code  Max length: 3 characters	Currency of the transaction. See PayPal-supported currencies for possible values.
12	Payment instrument type	Optional	Character varying (256)	The method of payment used to process the transaction.
13	Payment instrument subtype	Optional	Character varying (256)	The specific tender used to process the transaction.
14	BIN	Optional	6-8 Digits	Bank Identifier Number
15	Card number	Optional	Character varying (256)	Masked credit card number (i.e.. **********4545).
16	Card issuing bank	Optional	Character varying (256)	The name of the bank that issued the physical credit card. This information does not exist for virtual credit cards.
17	Card issuing country	Optional	Character varying (256)	The country where the issuer is based.
18	Decline reason	Required	Character varying (256)	Authorization Decline Reason Categories: Platform Decline: Decline due to risk, policy, platform issues, or instrument decline. Processor Decline: Decline by the processor or due to a processor error. Fraud Protection Decline: Decline by PayPal's fraud protection tool after applying a set of fraud filters. Note: Fraud decline details are available only to users subscribed to PayPal's fraud protection tool.
19	Decline reason details	Optional	Character varying (256)	Details of authorization decline reason.
20	Risk filter applied	Optional	Character varying (256) with JSON format	List of risk filters that were applied, leading to the authorization attempt being declined. Note: Fraud decline details are available only to users subscribed to PayPal's fraud protection tool.
21	Risk score	Optional	Numeric	Transaction risk score. Note: Fraud decline details are available only to users subscribed to PayPal's fraud protection tool.
22	Risk score details	Optional	Character varying (256) with JSON format	Transaction risk score detail. Note: Fraud decline details are available only to users subscribed to PayPal's fraud protection tool.
23	Account updater	Optional	Character varying (256)	For the "Account Updater" product, a flag value of “Applied "will be shown if Account Updater was applied during the authorization attempt.
24	Tokenization	Optional	Character varying (256)	For the "Tokenization," product, a flag value of "Applied" will be shown if Tokenization was used during the authorization attempt.
25	3DS	Optional	Character varying (256)	3DS check.  A flag value of "Applied" will be shown if a 3DS check was carried out.
26	Fraud screening	Optional	Character varying (256)	Fraud Protection Product Screening Status. Values: Standard: Indicates that Fraud Protection Standard product screening has been performed. Advanced: Indicates that Fraud Protection Advanced product screening has been performed. Blank: Indicates that you are not subscribed to the fraud protection product.
27	Email ID	Optional	Character varying (256)	Email id of buyer.
28	Billing zip code	Optional	Character varying (256)	Buyer zip code.

RF: Report Footer

Position	Column name	Optional/Required	Data type	Description
1	RF	Required	Static 2 characters	Indicates that this row of data contains report footer data.
2	File number	Required	Numeric (23, 2)	Indicates the current file number. This can be part of the file naming convention.
3	Total records	Required	Numeric (23, 2)	This will be file specific and will indicate number of transactions included in the detail section in a file. This field should be shown in the report only if there are transactional details.
4	Total files	Required	Numeric (23, 2)	The number of files generated for the report.