Does PayPal allow adult content? The rules for digital goods, games and creators

Mostly no. PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy prohibits transactions involving “certain sexually oriented materials or services”, and PayPal’s help pages spell out what that means in practice: sexually oriented digital goods, such as downloads and website subscriptions, are not permitted anywhere, and certain physical goods are permitted for transactions inside the United States only. A downloadable adult game is a digital good, so it falls on the wrong side of the line.

This page sets out the wording of both documents, where they disagree, how PayPal decides what counts, and what the rule has meant for Steam, itch.io and individual developers. It describes PayPal’s published policy as it stood on 7 October 2026. It is not legal or financial advice.

Key points

• Digital adult content is not permitted. PayPal’s examples are downloadable pictures or videos and website subscriptions.
• Some physical goods are permitted in the United States only. PayPal’s examples are videos, DVDs and magazines.
• PayPal’s two documents do not match. The Acceptable Use Policy lists digital adult content as needing pre-approval. The help page says it is not permitted.
• PayPal decides case by case against a list of seven criteria, one of which is a product’s rating from a recognised ratings board.
• Steam lost PayPal in most currencies in July 2025. Valve said one of PayPal’s acquiring banks stopped processing Steam transactions, and that this was about content on Steam.
• Accounts can be limited and balances held. A UK programmer reported about £80,000 withheld in 2025 over work on an adult game.

What PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy says

The Acceptable Use Policy is the document every PayPal user agrees to. The US version was last updated on 29 October 2022. Under “Prohibited Activities” it says users may not use PayPal for activities that relate to transactions involving a list of things, and two items on that list are relevant here:

• “(g) items that are considered obscene”
• “(i) certain sexually oriented materials or services”

The word “certain” carries the weight. The policy does not say which materials, and it does not say who considers an item obscene. PayPal does.

The same document has a second section, “Activities Requiring Approval”. Its tenth category is headed “Mature Audience Content” and reads:

“Any adult content delivered digitally including video on demand (VOD) and web-cam activities. PayPal may be restricted from processing payments in certain jurisdictions for adult DVD’s, magazines and other adult themed products or services.”

Read alone, that suggests a seller of digital adult content can apply to PayPal’s sales team and be approved.

What PayPal’s help page says

PayPal’s help article, “What is PayPal’s policy on transactions that involve sexually oriented goods and services?”, is more direct. It opens with what is allowed:

“We permit U.S.-only transactions for certain sexually oriented physical goods that are physically delivered to the customer. Videos, DVDs, and magazines are examples of physical goods. We don’t allow transactions for such goods outside the U.S.”

It then lists what account holders may not buy or sell:

• “Sexually oriented digital goods or content delivered through a digital medium. Examples of digital goods include downloadable pictures or videos and website subscriptions.”
• “Sexually oriented goods or services that involve, or appear to involve, minors.”
• “Services whose purpose is to facilitate meetings for sexually oriented activities.”

The article adds: “We don’t factor in sexual preferences and viewpoints when determining what our policy prohibits.”

The two documents compared

The honest reading is that the two do not fully agree. The policy leaves a door open for approved merchants. The help page, which is what PayPal’s support staff point users to, says ordinary account holders may not sell digital adult content at all. A business that PayPal has approved in writing is in a different position from an individual who opened an account and started selling. If you do not hold a written approval from PayPal, assume the help page describes your situation.

How PayPal decides what is “sexually oriented”

The help article lists what PayPal considers:

1. Regulations or restrictions placed on the product.
2. The product’s classification by a recognised ratings board.
3. Whether the product describes or depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way.
4. The dominant theme of the product, material or website.
5. The literary, artistic, political or scientific value of the product.
6. Potential medicinal or educational uses.
7. The product’s impact on the safety of customers.

Several of these echo the test US courts use for obscenity, which also asks about patent offensiveness and about serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. They are judgments, and PayPal makes them privately.

Two of the criteria matter for games in particular. The second, a ratings board classification, is one most adult games on PC do not have, because digital stores do not require one. Our page on the AO rating explains why almost no game carries it. The fourth, the dominant theme, is the same question Stripe asks in different words: is the product about sex, or does it contain sex?

Can you sell an adult game through PayPal?

On the published wording, no. A game that is downloaded or played online is “content delivered through a digital medium”. If its content is sexually oriented, it is in the category PayPal’s help page says account holders may not sell.

This matters in three situations developers meet.

• A PayPal button on your own site. This is the plainest breach. The account is yours, the product is yours, and PayPal can see both.
• Payouts from a store. A store that pays developers through PayPal is sending money that came from the sale of the game. The case below shows PayPal treating that as covered by the policy too.
• Tips and donations. Money sent in support of an adult project is tied to the project. Calling it a donation does not change what it is for.

itch.io’s creator FAQ makes the same point from the store’s side. Anyone collecting money there must follow the acceptable use policies of the processors on their account, and it names PayPal, Stripe and Payoneer.

What happened on Steam

PayPal’s rule reached the largest PC game store in July 2025, by an indirect route.

Players in many countries began to see PayPal marked as unavailable at Steam’s checkout. Valve later added an explanation to its support pages, quoted by Rock Paper Shotgun: “In early July 2025, PayPal notified Valve that their acquiring bank for payment transactions in certain currencies was immediately terminating the processing of any transactions related to Steam.” Valve said this affected purchases in every currency except euros, Canadian dollars, pounds, yen, Australian dollars and US dollars.

At first it was unclear whether this was connected to adult games. Valve then confirmed it. A spokesperson told Rock Paper Shotgun that the withdrawal “is regarding content on Steam, related to what we’ve previously commented on surrounding Mastercard”, and added: “In this case, one of PayPal’s acquiring banks decided to stop processing any Steam transactions, which cut off PayPal on Steam for a number of currencies.”

Three things are worth drawing out.

• The decision was a bank’s, not PayPal’s own. PayPal, like Stripe, processes through acquiring banks, and one of them refused Steam.
• The bank refused the whole store. It did not stop payments for particular games. It stopped all Steam transactions in the currencies it handled.
• The timing matters. Early July 2025 is the same period in which the campaign group Collective Shout wrote an open letter to PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and other payment companies, and in which Steam added a rule against content that might breach its payment partners’ standards.

Valve said it hoped to offer PayPal in the affected currencies again and that the timing was uncertain. We could not find an announcement that it has been restored. For the full sequence, see the timeline of the Steam and itch.io removals and who Collective Shout is.

A developer’s frozen balance

The risk to an individual is shown by a case Automaton reported in 2025. A programmer in the United Kingdom wrote that PayPal had frozen about £80,000 they had earned working on a game sold on Steam, after PayPal determined that the game was adult-oriented.

By the programmer’s account, the game was legal in the UK and its sales did not go through PayPal at all. The money in the account was payment for development work. PayPal still treated it as a breach of its terms. The programmer said PayPal had refused to release the funds for more than a month, and that banks and banking apps had closed their business accounts before for the same reason, which was why they had turned to PayPal.

This is one person’s account, and PayPal’s side of it was not reported. It is consistent with the policy as written: the rule covers transactions “involving” sexually oriented materials, and PayPal reads “involving” widely.

PayPal and adult creators before 2025

The 2025 events were not PayPal’s first. Patreon’s history shows the same rule a decade earlier. In March 2014 creators of sexual content on Patreon could no longer be paid through PayPal. In July 2016 PayPal payments returned for adult creators. Our page on whether Patreon allows NSFW content has the dated sequence.

The pattern is the same in each case. PayPal does not announce a campaign. A platform finds that PayPal, or a bank behind PayPal, will no longer carry part of what it sells, and it changes its own rules to keep the payment method.

What PayPal does allow

The policy is narrower than “nothing adult”.

• Certain physical goods, inside the United States. PayPal’s examples are videos, DVDs and magazines that are physically delivered.
• Products that are not sexually oriented. A game rated for adults because of violence or horror is not covered by this policy.
• Approved merchants. The Acceptable Use Policy has an approval route for mature audience content. It is an agreement between PayPal and a business, reached before the business starts selling.

What developers can do

• Do not use a personal or standard business PayPal account to sell an adult game. The help page says it is not permitted, and the cost of being wrong is a held balance.
• Ask before you rely on PayPal for payouts. If a store or a client pays you through PayPal for adult work, ask whether another payout method exists.
• Do not keep a large balance in the account. Money that has been withdrawn to a bank cannot be held by a payment company.
• Use a route built for the category. Stores that accept adult games take payment themselves. For your own site, specialist processors accept adult businesses after a review. See the payment processors that accept adult content and where adult games can be sold in 2026.

PayPal is not alone in this. Stripe does not allow adult content either, and for a similar reason. The rules above both companies are covered in how payment processors decide which adult games can be sold.

Could this change?

On 26 March 2026 the chairman of the US Federal Trade Commission sent warning letters to the chief executives of PayPal, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard. The letters warned that denying customers access to financial services in a way that is inconsistent with a company’s terms of service, or with a customer’s reasonable expectations, may violate the FTC Act.

That is a warning about companies acting against their own terms. PayPal’s terms already restrict adult content, and the FTC’s announcement speaks of political and religious views and does not mention adult content. PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy still carries its 2022 date. A bill before Congress, the Fair Access to Banking Act, is aimed at banks and card networks, and PayPal is neither.

What is still unknown

• Whether PayPal has returned to Steam in the affected currencies.
• How PayPal treats a game that contains sexual scenes without being built around them. It publishes criteria and no examples.
• How often PayPal grants approval for digital mature audience content, and to whom.

How this page was put together

PayPal’s rules are quoted from its Acceptable Use Policy and its help article, both read on 7 October 2026 in their United States versions. Other countries have their own versions, and the wording can differ. The events on Steam are quoted from Valve’s statements as reported by Rock Paper Shotgun and GIGAZINE, and the frozen account from Automaton’s report of the programmer’s own posts. The studio has not sold anything through PayPal, so nothing here is a tested outcome.

This page was written on 7 October 2026 and will be updated when PayPal changes either document. To report an error, see the corrections standard.