How to Unfreeze a Frozen Venmo Account: Step-by-Step Guide

If you frequently rely on online payment apps to send and receive payments, running your Venmo account frozen is among the most unpleasant surprises you can come across, causing frustration and confusion. A frozen account means you’re temporarily unable to access your funds, send or receive payments, or use the platform until the issue is sorted out. This can happen for a few different reasons, from a simple failed payment, no matter how much money you send on Venmo, to more complex issues.

How to unfreeze a Venmo account? Usually, it’s a straightforward process. Still, understanding the nuances will ensure you're back to making transactions quickly and without hassle.

Is your Venmo account suspended, and you don’t know what to do? We’ll outline the possible reasons for the suspension, steps to clear up the situation, and some tips to prevent this from happening again.

Why Is Your Venmo Account Frozen?

“I don’t understand why my Venmo account is frozen!” Frankly speaking, that’s quite a common issue. It can happen in several situations:

• Failed payment. The failure of a recent transaction you made from a bank account may trigger a temporary suspension. Transactions may fail to go through because of insufficient funds or because you exceeded the number of ACH transfers.
• Terms of service violation. Another reason is that it goes against the app’s terms of service. If an individual carries out transactions that are deemed illegal, the account will be suspended.
• Suspicious activity. Can Venmo get hacked? Definitely yes! And that’s why the service may freeze your account even if you don’t do anything wrong but some unusual activity was detected. For example, there may be too many transactions happening in a short time. In other cases, your profile may be frozen to protect your cash from scammers.
• Identity verification failure. If this mobile payment service requires you to provide verification information, such as your SSN or date of birth, and you fail to follow through, you may also face account suspension.

The consequences of a suspended Venmo account include the following:

• You will not be able to carry out any transactions, which is highly inconvenient if you are an active user. You also can’t receive money from anyone.
• You will either lose all access to funds, or it will be limited.
• If you use the mobile payment service for bill payments or you need to quickly return money to someone, the suspension will definitely cause some stress.

It is best to know how to unsuspend your Venmo account as soon as possible to avoid a negative impact on your finances.

Unfreezing Your Venmo Account in a Few Steps

To unfreeze a Venmo account, you need to take some steps depending on why your account was frozen in the first place.

If your profile got suspended because there was a failed payment due to the lack of funds in your account, you need to do the following:

• Head over to the official website, specifically the “Add Funds” page.
• Under “Add funds from your bank account,” you can choose an appropriate payment option from the list.
• Select whether you want to cover your negative balance using your bank account or a debit card. Note that a credit card won’t be accepted for this.
• Type an amount in the corresponding field. The amount should be at least equal to your negative balance.
• Click on the green “Transfer (amount) now” button at the bottom.
• You can check the payment status by clicking on “Account Recovery Payment” in your transaction history.

Keep in mind that if you send funds using a bank account, the processing may take up to 5 days. Once the balance payment is confirmed, your profile will be unsuspended.

If this is not your case, and you still need to know how to unfreeze Venmo, you can reach out to customer support. To do this online from your device, you should:

• Open up the Help Center.
• Click on “Contact Us” and select “Other.”
• Next, you need to write a reason for sending your request in a subject field.
• In the description, make sure to provide your details (username, full name, phone number, email address) and explain that you're facing suspension and why, if you know.
• Click “Submit.”

A support team representative will get back to you in up to 48 hours, and you will need to follow the suggested steps. Another way to contact support is to call them directly at (855) 812-4430 from 8 AM to 8 PM CT every day.

To make sure you won’t have to recover your account again in the future, there are some things you should do:

• Don’t share your login info with anyone to prevent identity theft.
• Set up two-factor authentication to maximize security.
• Even if you have a reliable password, you should still change it regularly.
• Avoid performing a lot of transactions at once so that your activity is not deemed suspicious.

By following these instructions, you will cut down on the chances of your account being suspended by the payment service. For beginners, we've already talked about Venmo definition, how to use it, and how to download Venmo in our published articles.

Final Thoughts

Millions of people use Venmo to receive and send payments, so when your account gets suspended, it is far from pleasant. Still, it’s not the end of the world, as when you know how to unfreeze a Venmo account, you can get it back up and running in no time. If the reason for the suspension is a failed payment, you can simply pay what you owe, and your account will be restored. If your situation is more complex, we recommend getting in touch with support.