| Your Steam store currency | PayPal at Steam checkout | What works instead |
|---|---|---|
| USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD, CAD | Available | Nothing to change — pay Valve directly |
| PLN, BRL, INR, MXN, NOK, CHF, THB, ZAR, IDR, PHP | Not offered | Buy a Steam wallet code in that same currency and pay for it with PayPal |
| Every other Steam currency | Not offered | Same route: a wallet code that matches your currency |
Yes, you can still buy a Steam gift card with PayPal — just not from Steam. Since early July 2025 Valve has only been able to accept PayPal in six currencies: USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD and CAD. In every other currency the button is simply gone. The route that still works is the one Valve itself points people to: buy a Steam wallet code with PayPal from a retailer, redeem it, and spend the balance.
If you already know which currency your Steam account is set to, skip ahead and browse the Steam wallet codes on Virtwave — filter by your currency, pay with PayPal at checkout, and the code lands in your inbox in minutes.
Why PayPal vanished from Steam checkout
Nothing is wrong with your account, your PayPal balance or your bank. In early July 2025 one of PayPal’s acquiring banks — the bank that actually settles the money behind a PayPal payment — told Valve it was terminating processing for Steam transactions in a list of currencies, effective immediately. PayPal the service still works everywhere; the settlement path behind it for those currencies does not.
Valve’s position has not moved since. It says it hopes to offer PayPal for the affected currencies again and is evaluating other payment methods for the customers caught by this, but describes the timeline as uncertain. Fourteen months on, nothing has been restored, and Steam support answers the question by suggesting a Steam wallet code.
“The ticket we see most often is some version of “PayPal disappeared from Steam, is my account broken?” It isn’t. It is the currency your store is priced in, and it is fixable in about four minutes.”
— Virtwave Payments Team, Senior Payments & Wallet Specialists
The six currencies Steam still takes PayPal in
This is a currency rule, not a country rule, which is exactly why it confuses people. PayPal remains available at Steam checkout only when your store is priced in one of these:
- US dollar (USD)
- Euro (EUR)
- Pound sterling (GBP)
- Japanese yen (JPY)
- Australian dollar (AUD)
- Canadian dollar (CAD)
So a player in Ireland or Germany, whose Steam store is priced in euros, still sees PayPal. A player in Poland, Norway or Switzerland — same continent, none of them on the euro — does not. Two accounts a few hundred kilometres apart, different settlement currency, different checkout.
How to buy a Steam gift card with PayPal, step by step
- Check which currency your Steam account usesOpen Steam, click your profile name, then Account details. The wallet line — or the price on any store page — shows the currency your account is locked to. That currency, not the country you happen to live in, decides which code you need.
- Pick a wallet code in that exact currencyOpen the Steam catalogue and filter by your currency. A 50 PLN code tops up a złoty wallet; it will not touch a euro one, and no amount of support tickets will change that.
- Choose an amount that covers the whole purchaseWallet codes are all-or-nothing: the full face value goes into one wallet and cannot be split across accounts. Round up rather than down, and remember Steam adds regional tax at checkout on top of the sticker price.
- Pay with PayPalPayPal sits alongside cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and — on selected products — crypto at Virtwave checkout. The exact list you are shown depends on your region.
- Collect the codeIt arrives by email and is stored on the order in My Orders. Most codes are ready in one to five minutes; a few slower product lines can take up to 24 hours.
- Redeem it on SteamGo to store.steampowered.com/account/redeemwalletcode, or in the Steam client open Account details, then Add funds to your Steam Wallet, then Redeem a Steam Gift Card or Wallet Code. The balance appears immediately, and it never expires.
Getting the currency right (this is where the money gets lost)
Almost every failed Steam wallet code we are ever asked about failed for the same boring reason: it was the right amount in the wrong currency. Three situations cover practically everyone.
If your wallet already has a balance
Then the decision has already been made for you. The first code you ever redeemed locked the wallet to that currency, and Steam will not hold two currencies at once. Buy the matching one. A mismatched code is refused at redemption, so the check belongs before the payment.
If your wallet is empty and you have never added funds
You still do not get a free choice. Steam prices your store in the currency tied to your account’s country, and a wallet code has to match it. If your store shows ₱ prices, you need a PHP code, however much better value the USD rung looks on paper.
Why “just change my Steam country” is not the workaround
Changing your Steam store country needs a payment method issued in the new country, and any balance you already hold stays in the old currency — so it solves nothing if you were only chasing the PayPal button. It is the right move when you have genuinely relocated, and we walk through what actually happens in how to change your Steam store country and currency. The wider version of the same rule, across every brand we sell, is in gift card regions and country locks explained.
Steam wallet codes we stock in the blocked currencies
| Currency | Steam store | Example rung | Browse the ladder |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLN | Poland | Steam 50 PLN | All PLN rungs |
| BRL | Brazil | Steam 50 BRL | All BRL rungs |
| INR | India | Steam 1,000 INR | All INR rungs |
| MXN | Mexico | Steam 500 MXN | All MXN rungs |
| NOK | Norway | Steam 200 NOK | All NOK rungs |
| CHF | Switzerland | Steam 50 CHF | All CHF rungs |
| THB | Thailand | Steam 100 THB | All THB rungs |
| ZAR | South Africa | Steam 300 ZAR | All ZAR rungs |
| IDR | Indonesia | Steam 60,000 IDR | All IDR rungs |
| PHP | Philippines | Steam 500 PHP | All PHP rungs |
Those are single rungs, not the whole ladder — each of these currencies runs from pocket-money amounts up to the price of a full release. If you want the amount-by-amount breakdown for one of them, we did the peso ladder in detail in which PHP Steam wallet code amount you actually need, and the everything-else version lives in the complete Steam gift card guide.
How fast the code arrives, and what to do if it doesn’t
If nothing has appeared, check the spam folder first and then My Orders — the code is attached to the order whether or not the email got through. Wallet codes do not expire, so a code sitting unread in an inbox from last month is still perfectly good. The only ceiling worth knowing is the wallet cap: Steam holds a maximum of about $2,000, or the local equivalent, aggregated across the accounts you own.
Steam and PayPal: the questions people actually ask
Why can’t I use PayPal on Steam anymore?
Can you buy a Steam gift card with PayPal?
Which currencies still work with PayPal on Steam?
Will a USD Steam wallet code work on my account?
Is PayPal coming back to Steam?
Can I pay for a game partly from my wallet and partly with PayPal?
Which route is actually best for you
There are only three real options, and two of them are only right for a specific kind of person.
PayPal at Steam checkout
Still the simplest path if your currency is one of the six. Valve handles the payment, refunds run through Steam’s own policy, and there is no code to redeem.
- No third party and no code to manage
- Refunds go through Steam’s normal two-hour, two-week policy
- Works for wallet top-ups and direct game purchases alike
- Unavailable in every currency outside the six
- No restoration date for the currencies that lost it
A wallet code bought with PayPal
The route Valve support itself suggests. It sidesteps the settlement problem entirely, because you are paying a retailer with PayPal rather than paying Valve, and the balance behaves exactly like any other Steam funds.
- Works regardless of which processor Steam can use
- Delivered in one to five minutes, by email and in My Orders
- Balance never expires and caps your spend at the face value
- The code must match your wallet currency exactly
- All-or-nothing: the face value goes into one wallet, with no splitting
- Wallet balance is capped around $2,000 or the local equivalent
Changing your Steam store country
A legitimate move after a real relocation and a bad one as a PayPal workaround. It needs a payment method issued in the new country, and it does not convert the balance you already hold.
- Restores the local payment methods of the country you now live in
- Requires a payment method issued in the new country
- Existing wallet balance stays in the old currency
- Repeated changes look like region-hopping to Valve
The five-second check before you pay
- Open Account details on Steam and read which currency your wallet is in.
- Match the code to that currency exactly — the country name on the product is a label, the currency is the rule.
- Pick an amount that covers the whole purchase, including the regional tax Steam adds at checkout.
- Pay with PayPal, then check both your inbox and My Orders for the code.
- Redeem at store.steampowered.com/account/redeemwalletcode and confirm the new balance before you buy.
The Virtwave Payments Team has processed millions of gift card top-ups across 80+ countries. They test every major wallet platform (Razer Gold, PSN, Steam, Google Play, Apple, Xbox) on a weekly cadence to keep our how-to content accurate.
