Pay Pal Express | Not working on first checkout attempt | Unable to find resolution

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

• Customers receive a “Failed payment” on the first PayPal Express Checkout attempt, showing error code 10486. The merchant contends it is not a bad funding source and notes PayPal blames Shopify while Shopify blames PayPal.

• A Shopify representative asks whether the issue affects all customers or only some.

• Per PayPal documentation, error 10486 indicates the buyer’s funding source failed (examples: expired card, insufficient funds, or account limitations). A PayPal Help Center article and a PayPal Support link were provided.

• Recommended actions: have buyers follow PayPal’s prompts to update payment information, add a new payment method, or resolve account limitations; if the problem persists, contact PayPal Support.

• Status/outcome: No Shopify-side fix was identified. The working interpretation points to buyer-side PayPal issues, which the merchant disputes. The discussion remains unresolved pending clarification on scope (all vs. some customers) and outcomes after following PayPal’s guidance.

Summarized with AI on January 23. AI used: gpt-5.
2

Hi, @WiDEYE .

Thanks for connecting with us here in the Shopify Community.

You mentioned that customers are unable to checkout using PayPal Express Checkout due to the error message Failed Attempt/error code 10486. Could you clarify if this is happening to all customers or specific customers?

Upon researching the PayPal 10486 error code, it does indicate that the cause is due to the buyer’s express checkout payment failing due to a bad funding source. Various other reasons may be due to an expired credit card, insufficient funds, or a limitation on the buyer’s PayPal account. You can find more information via PayPal’s Help Center resource where they’ve also provided a solution to the error message.

To resolve this error, your customer may want to follow the instructions provided by PayPal. Typically, PayPal will prompt the customer to update their payment information, add a new payment method, or resolve any account limitations. If the issue persists, it’s advisable for the customer to contact PayPal Support for further assistance.