Activate your Venmo Teen Debit Card
The teen debit card will need to be activated by the creator of the Venmo Teen Account. Please reach out to the parent or guardian who provided you with the account, and they will be able to activate the teen debit card in their Venmo app.
Get cash at an ATM
The Venmo Teen Debit Card can be used to withdraw money from any ATM that accepts Mastercard.
Please note the following regarding ATM withdrawals with your Venmo Teen Debit Card:
- The teen debit card has a daily withdrawal limit of $400.00
- Only MoneyPass ATMs can be used without a fee from Venmo
- ATM withdrawals will only pull funds that are currently in the Teen Account balance
- If more than the current Teen Account balance is requested, your withdrawal will be declined
- Venmo has a $2.50 fee when withdrawing money from non-Moneypass ATMs
- Other ATMs may have their own fees
- An ATM fee added by Venmo will not count against the $400.00 limit
- Any fees added by the ATM company itself will count against the $400.00 limit
Learn About Purchases: Authorizations
When you make a purchase using your Venmo Teen Debit Card, the merchant will place a hold on the money in your account to cover the amount of the purchase. At this point, you can expect to see your balance go down by the amount of your purchase (or estimated total). This is called a merchant authorization.
Authorizations allow the merchant to ensure that the Venmo account is open and working, with sufficient funds in the balance to cover the purchase. Purchases will appear as a pending charge in your transactions feed until the merchant captures the final amount.
In some cases, you might see a higher amount authorized to your card vs. what you're buying. This can happen at places like gas stations or some restaurants, where your actual total is unknown at the time your card is authorized. The amount should be adjusted to reflect your total by the time the merchant captures the transaction.
Learn About Purchases: Captures
Captures happen after authorization, when the merchant completes your purchase for the final amount. At this point, your money actually moves from your balance to the merchant.
Most transactions are captured and completed within 7 days, but some can take up to 30 days. If you see any transactions that have been pending for too long, have your parent or guardian contact our Support team.
Once a merchant captures an authorization, you’ll see the purchase completed for the final amount in your Teen Account personal transactions feed.
If your card was originally authorized for more than the amount captured, any extra amount that was on hold will go back to your Teen Account balance.
Learn About Purchases: Double Charges
It’s not uncommon for online merchants to authorize your teen debit card for the full amount of your order, then individually capture the amounts for any parts of your order shipping separately.
This means that you may see a pending transaction for your expected total, followed by smaller transactions that make up the different parts of that total. Once the merchant has shipped all of your items, they’ll typically capture the smaller transactions and release any funds held for the total transaction amount back to the Teen Account balance.