This is a story about trouble when PayPal RefundTransaction API cannot refund after 180 days from the payment date.

Refunds become unavailable after 180 days

According to PayPal’s official documentation, the condition for whether Transaction fees are charged or not changes at the 180-day boundary.

Overview You can refund the entire amount of a transaction or portions of it. When you issue a refund, the gross amount equals the net amount of the original transaction plus the refunded fee from PayPal.

Gross Amount = Net Amount + Refund Fee

The default refund period is 180 days from the transaction date. If you issue a refund within 180 days, PayPal credits the original transaction fee for receiving the payment to your account. For partial refunds, PayPal credits a percentage of the original transaction fee based on the refunded amount. When you issue a refund after 180 days, your original transaction fee for receiving the payment is not credited to your account.

• Source: Overview | Refund Payments for Individual Transactions - PayPal Developer

Refund methods using PayPal API

With 180 days from the payment date as the boundary, there are two methods to handle this:

• Within 180 days: Can refund with RefundTransaction API
• Over 180 days: Send money with MassPay API, DoNonReferencedCredit API, etc.

There’s also the method of sending money from a PayPal business account without using PayPal API.

• Issuing refunds from paypal.com | Refund Payments for Individual Transactions - PayPal Developer

Result code 19: Original Transaction ID not found

Additionally, after 365 days pass, the error message Original Transaction ID not found is returned along with Result code 19.

Result code 19

If you get the error message, “Original Transaction ID not found,” Result code 19, the credit attempt failed for one of the following reasons:

• The PNREF you're trying to reference is more than 365 days old.
• The PNREF being referenced is invalid.
• When processing through PayPal, the transaction being referenced doesn't have a PayPal Transaction ID (PPREF) in the transaction details.

• Source: Help Article

That’s all from the Gemba where I was troubled because 180 days had passed since the PayPal payment date and I couldn’t refund with the RefundTransaction API.