Account Verification

Why can’t I login to the Paxful mobile app using my phone number?

Right now, the login with a phone number feature is only available on the web browser version of Paxful. Although it's not ready for mobile just yet, you still have two options:

• Verify your email address. You can verify your email address and use that to login to the mobile app. As an added bonus, your trading/send out limits will increase once your email address is verified.
  To verify your email address, just head to the Settings page of your Paxful account and click Verification. From there, you can verify your email address in just a few steps.
• Use a web browser. You can still login using your phone number on our web version of Paxful—even on your mobile device. Just open up to your favorite browser and head to https://paxful.com.

Stay tuned for updates as our team is working hard to get this released on mobile.

Starting on July 14, 2021, users located in Nigeria are now able to use their NIN (national identification number) to verify their identity and address on Paxful.

To use your NIN on Paxful follow the instructions below: 

1. Select your issuing country as Nigeria and choose the option: National Identification Number (NIN) from the drop-down menu.
   
   

2. Enter your 11-digit NIN in the box provided.

3. Click on the “Start Verification Process” button.
   

4. Provide a selfie (or take a picture of yourself) to prove your identity matches your NIN.

   

   Please ensure the following:

    - Your face is well lit and in full view of the camera
    - Don’t wear anything that might block any part of your face.
    - Follow all instructions that appear on the screen.

   5. When taking your selfie, please allow camera access as seen in the image below.
   

   6. Take a selfie by lining up your face to the oval shown on the screen. See the image below for more details.
   
   
   
   7. Once the image has been taken, we will verify your image and you will see the screen below.
   8. As soon as your picture is verified and approved, you will see the image below. This means your identification and address have been verified. You are now ready to start trading!

   

   Note:

   If your image does not pass our verification process, you will see the screen below and need to try again.

    

   

Verification is an important part of Paxful as we aim to make the trading experience on our platform as safe as possible.

The following table lists out our various verification levels along with their corresponding benefits:

• Users from countries on this list require levels 1 and 2 to sell crypto, convert crypto, and withdraw any funds from their Paxful Wallet.

• For Lightning transactions, there is an additional limit of $750 per transaction and $10,000 per month.

Why should I verify my account?

With each new level of verification, here’s a glimpse of what you’ll unlock:

Level 1

• Increased security on your account

• Ability to trade and send more crypto

• Ability to convert cryptocurrency

Level 2

• Increased trade and send out limits

• Access to more payment methods

• Ability to create your own offers

Level 3

• Increased trade and send out limits
• Removal of 0.002 BTC requirement for your offers to be visible in the marketplace

Level 4

• Increased trade and send out limits

Here are some additional cases which may require verification. Please visit our Help Center for more information on the verification process.

Email address verification adds an additional layer of security to your account. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to verify your email address.

1. Log in to your Paxful account, hover over your username on the top right of the page and click Settings from the context menu that appears.
   
   The Settings page appears.
   
   
2. Under Verify email address click Resend email. 
    
   A verification email is sent to your registered email address. 
3. Open the email in your inbox received from noreply@paxful.com, and click Confirm Email. Your email address is verified successfully. 

After verifying your email, we also recommend setting up two-factor authentication on your Paxful account if you haven't already.

If you didn't create your Paxful account using your phone number, you'll need to verify it to access certain levels of your account. This also provides additional security to your account with tools like two-factor authentication (2FA). Here's how you can verify your phone number on Paxful if you didn't create your Paxful account using your phone number.

1. Log in to your Paxful account, hover over your username on the top right of the page and click Settings from the context menu that appears.
   
   The Settings page appears. 
2. On the menu on the left side of the page, click Profile.
   
   
3. Enter your phone number in the PHONE field and click Verify or Use a phone call instead.
   
   
   

   Note: We recommend the Verify option as the call option is not supported in all countries.

4. a) Phone call option
   You receive a phone call with the numeric confirmation code. Listen carefully to the code and enter it in the field below and click Submit. Your number is verified.
   b) Verify (SMS) option.
   You receive an SMS with the numeric confirmation code. Enter the code in the field below and click Submit. Your number is verified.
   
   
   After confirming your phone number, consider activating 2FA and verifying your ID.
   

ID verification elevates your trading experience to a new level. We have done our best to make this process as easy as possible for you. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you verify your ID on Paxful.

Before you begin, please ensure that you have verified your phone number.

Video Guide

Here is a short video that walks you through the verification process:

Step 1 Open Verification Page

1. Log in to your Paxful account, hover over your username located on the upper right of the page and click Verify Me.
   
   A dialog box with the verification video guide appears. 
   
   
2. After watching our video, click Continue verification.
   
   The Verification page appears.

Step 2 Insert Your Details

1. Fill in the fields on the ID verification form.

2. Click Start verification process. 

The photo ID verification page appears. 

Step 3 Provide ID Photo

1. On the ID verification page, click Start.

The Submit identity card page appears.

2. Choose whether you want to take a photo of ID or to upload an existing file from your device.

Take Photo

To take a picture of your ID, make sure your document is ready and follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

1. Click Take photo.

2. Click Start.

Place your ID in the center of the screen and make sure all the necessary details are visible: 

• your face on the document
• document number
• your full name

3. Click the Camera icon to capture the image.

The image is captured and displayed on the screen. 

4. If the image is clear, click Confirm. If the photo is not legible or if you are not satisfied with it, click Retake and try again.

Repeat the process once again to capture the backside of your  ID card or Driving license. In the case of a passport, simply continue to the next step.

Upload file

If you want to upload a file from your device,

1. Click Upload file.

The Upload image page appears. 

2. Click Choose file and select a file from your device.

 

3. Click Choose another file if you want to retry. If you selected the right file, click Confirm.

Repeat the process once again to capture the backside of your ID card or Driving license. In the case of a passport, simply continue to the next step.

Step 4 Complete Face Verification

The next step after submitting your ID is to complete your face verification. To verify your facial identity.

1. On the Face verification page, click Continue.

Center your camera page appears.

2. Make sure your camera is working and placed correctly. Click Continue.

The application activates your device camera so you can click a picture of your face.

3. Once you are ready, click Start.

While clicking the picture, keep the following points in mind:

• Look straight into the camera.
• Make sure you are dressed decently and are not wearing glasses or hats.
• Follow the instructions by moving your face closer to the camera.
• Fit your face into the oval frame.
  

In case of an error, click Try again. In case of success, your photo will be sent automatically to our Verification Team.

You’ll be notified about your application in just a few minutes! Check your notification inbox to find out if your application was approved or declined. You will also receive an email with the result of your verification. 

If you have any questions or face any issues, contact us via our contact form. After completing your ID verification, feel free to verify your address as well.

Some users are required to verify their identity when they sign up for a Paxful account based on where they live. Users may not be able to withdraw funds or use their wallet without verifying their ID. The following countries have mandatory ID verification when creating a Paxful account:

• Albania
• Andorra
• Anguilla (UK)
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Aruba (Netherlands)
• Australia
• Austria
• Azerbaijan
• Bahamas
• Barbados
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Belize
• Bermuda (UK)
• Bolivia
• Bosnia and Herzegovina 
• Brazil
• British Virgin Islands (UK)
• Bulgaria
• Canada
• Cayman Islands (UK)
• Chile
• Colombia
• Cook Islands (New Zealand)
• Costa Rica
• Croatia (Hrvatska)
• Curacao (Netherlands)
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Denmark
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• El Salvador
• Estonia
• Falkland Islands (UK)
• Faroe Islands (Denmark)
• Fiji
• Finland
• France
• French Guiana (France)
• French Polynesia (France)
• Georgia
• Germany
• Gibraltar (UK)
• Greece
• Grenada
• Guam (USA)
• Guatemala
• Guernsey (UK)
• Guyana
• Haiti
• Honduras
• Hungary
• Iceland
• Ireland
• Isle of Man (UK)
• Italy
• Jamaica
• Jersey (UK)
• Kosovo
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Macedonia
• Marshall Islands
• Mexico
• Micronesia
• Moldova
• Monaco
• Montenegro
• Montserrat (UK)
• Morocco
• Nauru
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Northern Mariana Islands (USA)
• Norway
• Palau
• Panama
• Papua New Guinea
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Pitcairn Islands (UK)
• Poland
• Portugal
• Puerto Rico (USA)
• Romania
• Russia
• Saint Barthelemy
• Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha (UK)
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Samoa
• San Marino
• Serbia
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Solomon Islands
• Spain
• Suriname
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Transnistria
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turks and Caicos Islands (UK)
• Tuvalu
• United Kingdom
• United States of America
• United States Virgin Islands (USA)
• Uruguay
• Vanuatu
• Vatican City
  
• Zimbabwe

Are there any other situations where I would need to verify my identity?

Yes—if the country you live in is not listed above, there are certain situations where you’ll be asked to verify your identity:

• If you reach an equivalent of 1,000 USD in trade volume or wallet activity in a year, you’ll be asked to verify your ID
• If you reach an equivalent of 10,000 USD in trade volume or wallet activity in a year, you’ll be asked to verify your address
• You may also be required to verify your identity for certain payment methods

What if I am in an OFAC grey list country?

If you’re in an OFAC grey list country, you’ll be required to verify your ID to withdraw any funds or trade for any amount.

For us, at Paxful, the safety of our marketplace is very important. As a result, it may happen that some accounts get banned as they didn’t pass our compliance review.

An account may not pass compliance review for several reasons, such as:

• We believe that you have violated the Terms of Service, which may include:
• Providing multiple and/or false identifications;
• Operating more than one Paxful account;
• Refusing to verify your identity;
• Please see our terms of service here. 
• It’s connected with an activity that may be illegal.
• We have received an order from a legal authority, which may include:
•  A subpoena or similar legal order;
•  Pending litigation involving your account; 
• An investigation and/or proceeding involving your account. 
• We can’t verify the personal and/or business purpose of your account and you have refused to provide us with the requested information. 
• We identify your blockchain activity as a heightened legal/regulatory risk.
• We believe that you may have taken action that we believe to be circumventing our controls and/or procedures to keep our platform safe.
• We determine it is necessary to protect us and our users, including you, from danger or loss.

All information and documents you submit for account verification are reviewed through our automated or manual verification methods. Depending on which method can be used to verify your details, account verification times can vary.

Listed in the table below are the estimated processing times for each verification type:

 For more information on the topic, check our ID verification and address verification guides.

ID verification is an important aspect of building a successful profile on Paxful. This article lists out the main requirements for quick and successful ID verification. The requirements are as follows:

• You must be 18 years or older.
• You must have a valid email address.
• Only personal documents can be used.
• Only the following ID types are accepted:
• Passport
• National ID card (in the new format)
• Driver license
• Tax ID
• Voter’s card (Nigeria only)
• National Identification Number (Nigeria only)
• Domestic passport (Russia only)
• See the full list here.
• ID documents should be valid up to the date of the verification request submission.
• Paper format of ID documents is not accepted.
• The selfie should be in a photograph of you and not a scanned picture of you.
• All files uploaded should be original. No editing is allowed.
• All files should be clearly visible, high quality, JPEG format, all information should be legible, should not be covered by any passport covers or other objects.
• Information on the document should match the information provided on the form.
• If your document is written in a language that does not use the English alphabet, you may still use it for verification. If your native language is not yet supported by our verification provider, you will receive a message: Unsupported ID.
• Your country of citizenship is not on our list of banned countries.

List of acceptable documents

Below, you will find a list of all documents per country that you can use to successfully pass ID verification on Paxful.

Address verification is an important part of our verification process. It provides you with even more possibilities on our platform. Here is a guide on how to go through this process.

Before you begin, make sure you have successfully passed our ID verification.

Step 1 Open Verification Page

1. Log in to your Paxful account and head to your Settings page.
   
2. From there, click on Verification and locate the 'Address Verification' section.
   

Step 2 Insert Your Details

1. Fill in the fields on the address verification form.
   
   
   

1. Click Start address verification.
   The Address verification page appears.

Step 3 Upload Proof of Address

1. Click Upload files. Upload the document you selected.
   

   Note: Remember to submit a proof of address that is less than 3 months old. If you do submit an older document, you will have to restart the verification process.

   
   
   
2. After choosing the file click Continue. If you want to choose another file, click Upload files and retry.
   
   
   

You’ll be notified about your application in just a few minutes (5-10min)! Check your notification inbox if your application has been approved or declined. You can also check your email inbox.

What if I don't own property or the utility bill is not in my name?

If you don't own property and the utility bills at your residency are not in your name, you can provide the following information:

• A utility bill under your family name OR a utility bill showing that you pay the bill or reside at the residence (if you don't own your property and cannot provide a utility bill, you can ask your landlord or family include your name on the bill)
• Registration certificate where all individuals living at the property are named

These documents must be from the past 3 months. No older documents will be accepted. 

Please keep in mind that we cannot guarantee submitted documents will be accepted. 

In case of any questions or issues, please contact our support.

Video verification is an additional identity check that may be requested by our compliance department.

1. Log in to your Paxful account, hover over your username located on the upper right of the page and click Settings.

The Settings page appears.

2. On the Verification progress list, click Verify Video.

The Video Verification section appears.

3. After reading the instructions, click Upload video.

The Upload video window appears.

4. To upload an existing video, click the computer icon. To record a video, click the camera icon.

5. Once the file is selected or the video is recorded, click Upload.

A message confirming your submission appears.

Check out more information on the account verification topic here.

Address verification is an important step towards validating your profile on Paxful. Your document needs the following:

• To be an official PDF or scanned document showing your full name and home address. This can either be a utility bill, phone bill, or a bank or credit card statement.
• Addressed to you and match the address you entered.
• Needs to contain Latin or Cyrillic characters.
• If your document is written in a language that does not use Latin or Cyrillic characters, please translate and attach the following statement: “I hereby certify that this attached document is an official and accurate translation of my (document type). If found otherwise, Paxful has my authorization and full right to suspend my account and not refund the balance due to false information (Name and translation date)(Signature)”.

We do not accept the following:

• Documents older than 3 months
• Black and white documents
• Cropped documents 
• Screenshots of a document
• P.O. box addresses

Here're the samples of great proofs of address. They are clear, legible, well lit, and have all the information we require:

See our address verification guide for more details.

Trading on Paxful in some cases requires verification. The following table lists such scenarios:

For additional information on verification, see our ID Verification Guide and learn more about the various verification levels. 

There are a few different reasons why your ID or proof of address verification may be denied. Here are the most  common reasons: 

ID Verification

Address Verification

As of October 2020

As a US company, we comply with Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") sanctions. The OFAC is a division of the US Department of the Treasury that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other threats to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United​ States. As such, some are broad-based and oriented geographically (i.e. Cuba, Iran). Others are “targeted” and focus on specific individuals and entities.

OFAC banned countries

 Users and traffic from the following countries are banned from Paxful:

• Burundi
• Central African Republic Sanctions
• Cuba
• Crimea region 
• Iran
• Iraq
• Lebanon
• Libya
• North Korea
• Somalia
• South Sudan-related Sanctions
• Sudan and Darfur
• Syria
• Venezuela
• Yemen

OFAC grey/high-risk countries

Users from these countries have to verify their ID before they can send out or sell cryptocurrency:

Additionally, as we fully co-operate with all OFAC and Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) and Blocked persons lists, we block individuals who threaten international stabilization efforts as defined by OFAC in the regions of:

• Balkans
• The Democratic Republic of the Congo-Related
• Western Balkans area and Belarus as part of Ukraine-/Russia-Related Sanctions
• Venezuela related sanctions
• Zimbabwe related sanctions

Furthermore, we use the OFAC Consolidated sanctions list which covers non-SDN sanctions designations under the following programs:

• Foreign Sanctions Evaders (FSE) List
• Sectoral Sanctions Identifications (SSI) List
• Palestinian Legislative Council (NS-PLC) list
• The List of Foreign Financial Institutions Subject to Part 561 (the Part 561 List)
• Non-SDN Iranian Sanctions Act (NS-ISA) List
• List of Persons Identified as Blocked Solely Pursuant to Executive Order 13599 (the 13599 List)

 Globally, we screen the following lists:

• UN Consolidated Sanctions list which covers various UN Security Council Resolutions
• The EU Consolidated Sanctions list which covers the following programs enforced by the EU Security Council and maintained by the European External Actions Service:
  • Arms embargoes
  • Trade restrictions, such as import and export bans
  • Financial restrictions
  • Restricting movements, such as visa or travel bans

• HM Treasury Consolidated list covers entities designated under the following regulations:
  • ‘UK listing only’ – listed under TAFA 2010 only
  • ‘Both UK and EU listing’ – listed under TAFA 2010 and under the EU’s asset-freezing regime
  • ‘EU listing only’ – listed under EU’s asset freezing regime. The prohibitions are found in Council Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001 with penalties given by TAFA 2010.

Paxful is currently unavailable in the following countries:

• Aland Islands
• American Samoa
• Antarctica
• Aruba
• Bonaire Sint Eustatius and Saba
• Bouvet Island
• British Indian Ocean Territory
• Christmas Island
• Cocos Keeling Islands
• Cook Islands
• Curacao
• Falkland Islands Malvinas
• French Guiana
• French Polynesia
• French Southern Territories
• Greenland
• Guadeloupe
• Heard Island and McDonald Islands
• Holy See Vatican City State
• Martinique
• Mayotte
• New Caledonia
• Niue
• Norfolk Island
• Pitcairn Reunion
• Saint Helena Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
• Saint Martin
• Saint Pierre and Miquelon
• Sint Maarten
• Solomon Islands
• South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
• Tokelau
• United States Minor Outlying Islands
• Wallis and Futuna
• Western Sahara

Unfortunately, if you live in a country on this list, you won’t be able to use Paxful at this time. We hope this changes in the future.