Sending & Requesting Money

Find the Pay or Request button on the home screen—it will either say “Pay or Request,” or it will look like a pencil and a square. You can add as many friends as you’d like to pay or charge, the amount, and a note. Once you’re ready, tap “Request” or “Pay” depending on the action you want to take, and you should be all set!

Do I need to add money to Venmo to pay someone?

Nope! You don’t need to add money to Venmo to make payments.

If you have access to a Venmo balance, any payments you receive from friends will be added to your Venmo balance, and you can use those funds to make payments. If you make a payment for an amount that is equal to or less than the amount in your Venmo balance, it’ll be fully funded by your Venmo balance. If you make a payment for an amount that is greater than the amount in your Venmo balance, it’ll be fully funded by your external payment method (bank account or card). In other words: Individual payments on Venmo are never funded by more than one source. For more information about how Venmo balance works, visit this article.

If you don’t have access to your Venmo balance, you can’t use payments you receive from others to fund your own payments. Any payments you make will be funded by your external payment method (bank account or card). If you’d like to use the money in your Venmo account to make payments, visit this article.

Remember: If you're ever confused about which payment method will be used for a specific payment you're making on Venmo, you can always check the bottom of the screen where you enter all the details of the payment to see which payment method will be used.

It is worth noting, that in some rare cases, there may be a problem processing a payment. If we identify an issue, funds may not be available to the recipient right away and may cause a bank transfer to be delayed or blocked or funds being frozen or removed from your account. If there is a problem processing your payment, a notification will be sent to you and/or the recipient via email, and you may need to choose a different payment method outside of Venmo.