Subscriptions not renewing

Hello @noihs

Could you please confirm if you have Reference Transactions enabled on PayPal?

Without Reference Transactions, users can vault a PayPal payment method, but the vaulted payment method could only be used when the user is present on the site.
Every PayPal integration requires Reference Transactions for automatic PayPal payments.
I suggest reaching out to PayPal to request the feature to be enabled. Otherwise, PayPal subscriptions with PayPal Payments could only be renewed manually by the user when using PayPal Payments.
To request that PayPal turn on Reference Transactions, call your local PayPal Support Help Center. Log into your PayPal account then find your dialing instructions here.
Tell PayPal that you are specifically calling so a PayPal Specialist can enable Reference Transactions on your account. They may try to help you set up recurring payments with a button — that is not what you want. They need to transfer you to a specialist who will ask you for your PayPal account information (email address), and then tell you that they filed a ticket, and you will hear back from PayPal via email on whether Reference Transactions have been enabled or not.
You can read more about this here: https://woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-paypal-payments/#subscriptions-faq
https://woocommerce.com/document/paypal-reference-transactions/#section-1

Regards,
Femi.

Hi there,

PayPal Payments works differently compared to PayPal Standard when it comes to subscriptions. The differences are explained in the linked documents above.

For now, PayPal Payments requires Reference Transactions to use the Vaulting feature for subscriptions.
But sometime early next year, PayPal Payments will receive a feature to allow subscription payments without requiring Reference Transactions. This is still in development, but you can expect more details sometime in Q1.

Please don’t hesitate to let us know if any questions remain. Thanks!

Kind regards,
Niklas