Skip to main content
Save 30% on your first year

How to find a PayPal receipt or statement

By

Founder & CEO, Smartbills

2 min read

PayPal

PayPal shows every payment on your Activity page and lets you download statements and reports for your records. The seller's own receipt or invoice is still the best proof of what you bought; PayPal's record proves you paid.

One payment

  1. Sign in and open Activity.
  2. Find the payment by recipient, date or amount.
  3. Select it to see the full transaction details, including the transaction ID.

Monthly statements

Go to the account statements page in PayPal's reports, select Request next to the month you want, and download it once it is ready.

A year of activity in one file

Download an activity report covering up to the past seven years, 12 months per request, as a PDF, CSV, Quicken, QuickBooks or TAB file. On the web, open the activity history, select the Download icon and choose Custom. Large files can take up to 5 business days; PayPal emails you when the file is ready. Each row includes the date, name, status, fee and the 17-character transaction ID.

Using transaction IDs

The transaction ID is what ties a PayPal payment to the seller's receipt and to your card or bank statement. When a charge is queried, quote it. Business accounts can also request access to PayPal's more detailed transaction report, filtered by transaction ID.

Merchants and Virtual Terminal

Merchants taking payments through Virtual Terminal can view, print or email a receipt from the transaction confirmation page.

PayPal payments matched to real receipts

A PayPal line on a card statement says nothing about what was bought, which is why it needs the seller's receipt next to it. PayPal emails a receipt for each payment, and email receipt capture picks those up along with the seller's own emails, making the match easy. For monthly statements and activity reports, connect your PayPal account and our AI agent signs in and downloads them each month with bill fetching, ready for expense reports.

Have receipts like this captured for you

Frequently asked questions

Open Activity and select the payment to see its details and transaction ID.

Activity reports cover up to the past seven years, 12 months per request.

PDF, CSV, Quicken, QuickBooks or TAB.

Sources

Steps checked against these pages on the date above. Menus change; if a label differs, the page linked here is the one to trust.

Related guides

More guides like this