Access SFTP reports

PayPal delivers many reports to a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) environment. SFTP reports give merchants and processing partners secure, automated access to detailed PayPal transaction data. You access online reports through the PayPal portal. In contrast, PayPal delivers SFTP reports directly to a designated server location on a scheduled basis, making them suitable for automated reconciliation pipelines and system-to-system integrations.

PayPal's SFTP server enables developers and analysts to set up and maintain integrations against PayPal SFTP reports. You can fetch processing results using any SFTP client or through the command line.

Reports are available in CSV format and cover a range of business needs, from dispute management and settlement reconciliation to recurring billing and revenue share tracking.

Prerequisites

Before you can access SFTP reports, you must create an SFTP user account. Keep this information in mind as you set up your account:

• Account creation can take up to 48 hours. PayPal sends a confirmation email to your primary email address when the account is ready.
• You must contact PayPal support to have your PayPal account enabled for report access before you can create an SFTP user account.
• To access Transaction reports specifically, contact PayPal support to enable your subscription. When your subscription is enabled, you can navigate to the reports section of your account and click Subscribe for the reports that you want.

For more information about communicating with the server after setup, see the PayPal Secure FTP Server Specification.

Create an SFTP user account

1. Log in to your PayPal account.
2. Hover over your name and select Account Settings from the dropdown menu.
3. On the Account access page, click Update next to Secure FTP.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the account setup. The final screen displays your new user information.

Provide third-party access

To grant access to third-party users, you must explicitly grant access to third parties by contacting their PayPal account manager and providing the following:

• Third party's PayPal login username
• Type of permission: reporting access (read)

The third party is then notified by email that access to the business partner's Secure FTP Server has been granted.

Download reports

You can download reports from PayPal's live or sandbox environment using command-line SFTP. The hostname of the Secure FTP Server is reports.paypal.com.

1. Open a Terminal window and connect to the reporting server:

   • Sandbox:

     sftp <sftp_account_username>@reports.sandbox.paypal.com

   • Live:

     sftp <sftp_account_username>@reports.paypal.com

2. Enter your SFTP account password.

3. Navigate to your outgoing reports directory.

   cd ppreports/outgoing

4. List the available report files.

   ls

   You should see a list of report filenames in the ppreports/outgoing directory. If no files are listed, no reports have been generated yet for your account.

5. Download a report file.

   get <filename>

   In this example, replace <filename> with the actual name of the report file that you want to download. The file downloads to your current local working directory. To confirm the download succeeded, check that the file exists locally and that its size is greater than zero bytes.

6. Log off the reporting server.

   exit

For instructions on retrieving reports using a GUI-based SFTP client such as WinSCP, see How do I access the SFTP server and retrieve my reports?

Troubleshooting

If you have trouble connecting to the SFTP server or downloading reports, review the following common issues and fixes for SFTP connections.

Connection refused or timeout

Symptom: The SFTP connection attempt times out or is refused immediately.

Fixes:

• Confirm your firewall or network allows outbound connections on port 22 (the standard SFTP port).
• Verify that you are connecting to the correct hostname:
  • reports.paypal.com for live
  • reports.sandbox.paypal.com for sandbox
• If connecting from a corporate network, check whether outbound SFTP traffic is blocked or requires a proxy.

Authentication failure

Symptom: The server rejects your username or password.

Fixes:

• Confirm you are using the SFTP account credentials created during setup, not your PayPal login credentials. These are separate accounts.
• SFTP account passwords are case-sensitive. Verify that Caps Lock is not enabled.
• If you have forgotten your SFTP password, return to Account Settings > Secure FTP in your PayPal account to reset it.

Files are not listed

Symptom: The ppreports/outgoing directory is empty.

Fixes:

• Reports are generated on a daily schedule. If your account was recently enabled, wait until the next generation cycle and try again.
• Confirm that your account has been subscribed to the specific reports you expect. Navigate to the reports section of your PayPal account and verify that the relevant reports show a Subscribed status.

Account is not enabled

Symptom: You cannot find the Secure FTP item in your Account Settings, or you receive an error that indicates that your account is not enabled for report access.

Fix: Contact PayPal support to enable your account for report access. Account creation can take up to 48 hours after enablement is confirmed.

Related content

For more information about PayPal reports, see the following related content:

• T-codes
• Terminology
• Online reports