Can You Use Venmo on Amazon? What Changed and What Still Works

Summary: You cannot link a Venmo account to Amazon any more. Amazon accepted Venmo for about 14 months and switched it off on 10 January 2024. What still works is the plastic: a Venmo debit card or Venmo credit card can be added to your Amazon wallet like any other card, and the debit card draws on your Venmo funds. This guide covers what happened, how to use the card route, why those cards get declined, and how to spend a Venmo balance on Amazon without one.

• Linking a Venmo account to Amazon is no longer possible, and has not been since January 2024.
• The Venmo debit card works on Amazon, and it spends the money in your Venmo account.
• This is a deliberate change by both companies, not a fault you can troubleshoot.
• If you have no Venmo card, buying gift card credit is the way to move Venmo funds onto Amazon.

Can You Use Venmo on Amazon?

Not the Venmo app itself, no. There is no way to select Venmo at Amazon's checkout or add it to your Amazon wallet.

This one causes more confusion than most, because the answer used to be yes. If you remember paying with Venmo on Amazon, you are not misremembering, and if you have found a guide explaining how to do it, that guide is out of date rather than wrong at the time it was written.

The important distinction is between the Venmo account and the Venmo card. The account cannot be linked. A Venmo-branded card can, and Amazon treats it as an ordinary bank card.

What Happened in January 2024

Amazon rolled out Venmo as a payment option in October 2022, after a partnership first reported the year before. It lasted just over a year. In December 2023 Amazon emailed customers to say Venmo would stop working, and the cutoff came on 10 January 2024. Anyone who already had it enabled kept access until that date, then lost it.

Neither company explained why in any detail. Amazon's public comment was simply that customers had nearly a dozen other payment options available. PayPal, which owns Venmo, described it as a mutual decision to disable Venmo as a payment option at this time, while stressing that the wider relationship continues.

Worth noting that PayPal itself has never been a checkout option on Amazon either, which puts the two in the same position despite the different histories.

The Venmo Debit Card Still Works

This is the part most articles bury, and it is the actual answer for most people. Both PayPal and Amazon confirmed at the time that Venmo debit and credit cards remain usable on Amazon. Nothing about that changed in January 2024.

The Venmo debit card is a Mastercard tied to your Venmo funds, so paying with it on Amazon spends your Venmo money. Functionally that is the thing people wanted from the account integration:

• Request the debit card in the Venmo app if you do not already have one.
• Add it to your Amazon wallet under your payment settings, as you would any debit card.
• Keep enough in your Venmo account to cover the order, including tax and shipping.
• Select it at checkout like any other card.

The difference from the old integration is that the money has to be sitting in Venmo before you order, rather than Venmo pulling from a linked bank account at the moment of purchase.

Debit Card and Credit Card Behave Differently

Venmo issues two cards and they are not interchangeable for this purpose. The debit card draws on your Venmo funds, which is what you want if the goal is spending money friends have sent you. The Venmo credit card is a normal credit card that happens to be branded Venmo: it does not spend your Venmo funds, it borrows against a credit line.

Both work on Amazon. Only one of them empties your Venmo account, so check which card you are reaching for.

Why Is My Venmo Card Declining on Amazon?

Assuming the card is added correctly, the usual causes are ordinary rather than Amazon-specific:

• Not enough money in the Venmo account to cover the full order including tax and shipping
• The billing address on file at Amazon not matching the one Venmo holds
• The card not yet activated in the Venmo app
• Venmo holding or reviewing the account, which freezes card spending
• An Amazon subscription still pointing at the old Venmo account entry rather than the card

That last one caught a lot of people in early 2024, because Prime memberships and subscriptions paid through the old Venmo link failed silently once the cutoff arrived. If a recurring charge on your account has been failing since then, this is the likely reason.

Spending Venmo Funds Without a Venmo Card

If you do not have and do not want a Venmo card, the route is to convert the funds into Amazon credit. Buy gift card credit using Venmo wherever it is accepted, then redeem the code to your Amazon account, and the balance sits there until you spend it.

It is the same manoeuvre that works for every payment method Amazon does not take directly, and can you use PayPal on Amazon goes through it in more detail for Venmo's parent company. The advantage over a card is that nothing can be declined for an address mismatch. The disadvantage is that gift card credit cannot be turned back into cash.

Will Amazon Bring Venmo Back?

Nobody has announced anything, but the wording used when it ended left the door ajar. PayPal described the two companies as having agreed to disable Venmo as a payment option at this time, which is not how you describe a permanent break, and both sides went out of their way to say the relationship continues.

Treat that as a possibility rather than a plan. Two years on, nothing has changed, and there is no reason to wait for it before setting up an alternative.

What Amazon Accepts Instead

Amazon's accepted payment methods cover credit and debit cards from the major networks, checking accounts, Amazon gift card credit, Amazon Pay, its own store cards, and health and benefit cards on eligible items. Digital wallets are conspicuously thin on the list, which is why so many of these questions come up in the first place.

Apple Pay sits in the same position as Venmo, and can you use Apple Pay on Amazon covers that case.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't you use Venmo on Amazon any more?

Amazon and PayPal agreed to switch it off from 10 January 2024. Neither gave a detailed reason.

Can I use a Venmo debit card on Amazon?

Yes. It is a Mastercard and Amazon accepts it as an ordinary debit card, drawing on the money in your Venmo account.

Did Amazon ever accept Venmo?

Yes, from October 2022 to January 2024. It is one of the few payment methods Amazon added and then removed.

Can I pay for Prime with Venmo?

Not through a linked Venmo account. A Venmo debit or credit card can be set as the payment method for Prime instead.

Does the Venmo credit card spend my Venmo money?

No. It is a conventional credit card with a credit line. Only the debit card draws on your Venmo funds.

Does Amazon accept Cash App?

Not the app itself, but the Cash App card works the same way a Venmo debit card does, as an ordinary card.

Can I split an order between Venmo and another method?

Amazon lets gift card credit combine with one card. It will not let you use two cards on the same order, so partial payments have to go through credit.

Use the Card, Not the App

The short version is that the Venmo account route closed in January 2024 and is not coming back on its own, while the Venmo debit card route was never affected and does the same job. Request the card, add it to your wallet, keep the funds topped up, and Amazon stops caring where the money came from.

If you would rather not add another card at all, you can buy Amazon gift card credit and load your account directly instead.