There are many reasons to make a transaction suspicious, they can be:
- Money laundering.
- New account, not high reliability but have traded a lot + large amount of money.
- One of the sending and receiving parties is having a dispute, etc…
The review and tagging pending / on hold is done automatically, so when you encounter this situation, don’t worry too much, because the final decision will still come from paypal’s staff.
How long is Paypal on hold?
Depending on the “severe” of the transaction, the pending/on hold time will vary. Typically it will be 24 hours, 72 hours up to 7 days or longer (21 days).
Besides, paypal may also ask you to perform other operations such as proving the source of money, transaction purposes … when necessary. And if there is nothing, then wait is happy 
Case 1: Paypal on hold when sending money
- Cause: usually because the account receiving money is new, lack of reliability because paypal has not been verified. The recipient will still see the amount in the account but it’s pending and can’t do anything about it.
- After 24-72 hours (usually 24), the amount will be verified and added to the account.
- On hold status only applies to this transaction, you can still send money to other people normally.
Paypal transaction is temporarily held and how to handle it when on hold
The message appears immediately after sending money on Paypal
Paypal transaction is temporarily held and how to handle it when on hold
Emails also receive notifications
Case 2: Paypal on hold 24 hours when receiving money
- Similar to case 1, but this time I will take the role of the payee. The ON HOLD status will be displayed by paypal at the top of the transaction details.
- With the amount not too large and the source of clean money, you can rest assured to wait, paypal will handle it quickly.
Paypal transaction is temporarily held and how to handle it when on hold
PayPal transaction is on hold for 24 hours
After 24 hours, this transaction has been approved and the amount is also automatically added to the available balance on paypal.
Paypal transaction is temporarily held and how to handle it when on hold
Verification is complete
When you transact many times with 1 person, the first time the money is kept for 24 hours, but from the second time on, if the time is only a few hours or minutes, don’t be surprised. Because of human intelligence PayPal’s creator has recognized these transactions as safe and will automatically process them faster, providing a better user experience.
Case 3: Transaction is suspended for 7 days and 21 days
Usually, these will be cases of a slightly more serious nature. Maybe paypal detected something with your transactions and it took a long time to verify.
7-day or 21-day on hold status is very common with buying and selling transactions, especially when the amount is larger and only transactions by transferring money to friends and relatives. Basically, the money is still yours, paypal only keeps it for so long to see if any disputes arise.
In a case like this, I think we should actively contact paypal to solve it ourselves, it will be faster. If you can speak English, even better, because calling in person is always more effective than using email. It gets a bit stressful when im selling reasonably expensive items, Because if say 5 or 10 people purchased using paypal and it held everything, I would struggle to find the money to order it all at once since I am only a newly started business. I would suggest you this too to add tracking number automatically https://bit.ly/3OnC8nm