Why cant I pay my Spotify Premium?

Fix billing issues with a Premium membership

If your monthly membership payment for YouTube Premium is declined, we'll let you know via email so that you can restore your membership.

After getting this email:

• You’ll have 3 days to fix the issue before losing access to your Premium benefits. During this 3 day period, we will regularly re-attempt to process your monthly payment.

• If after 3 days, we still can't successfully charge you, your subscription will enter a "Paused" state for 30 days. During this paused state, we'll periodically try to process a payment to restore your membership access, unless you cancel your subscription.

If you update your payment info during this time, your membership should be automatically restored during our next attempt to charge your payment method. If you don't want to wait for the system to retry, you can cancel your subscription and re-sign up to gain access right away.

If you believe you got charged for a purchase and membership but can't access your benefits, check out this article.

If your payment for a purchase and membership was declined, you most likely need to fix an issue with your payment method. See our tips for how to fix these issues below.

Fix a declined payment

Your monthly membership payment may have been declined due to an issue with your card or other form of payment. Once you fix any payment issues, the system will automatically try to charge you again and restore your access to your membership benefits.

Make sure your card information is up to date

Update now                

Payments often fail due to an expired credit card or an incorrect billing address. To update this information:

1. Go to youtube.com/paid_memberships if you’re on a computer. If you’re in the YouTube mobile app, click on your profile picture 
   
   
   Paid memberships.
2. Click the  next to the message "Current payment method could not be processed".
3. Click Update payment method.

We recommend that you check all of your card information to make sure it is correct, including the expiration date. The zip code listed for your payment method should also match the zip code of the current billing address of your card.

If your payment method on file can no longer be used, please add or choose another payment method.

Tip: If you don’t see the option to "Update payment method" from the link above, you can also update the payment method for your membership from the Google Pay Subscriptions and Services page.

Submit any requested information

If you see an error message requesting that you submit additional information to Google, please follow the instructions to submit those details. For example, you may need to verify your identity on Google Pay before being able to purchase using your Google account.

You can also check Google Pay at any time for alerts or requests to fix account issues.

Check you have enough funds for the purchase

Sometimes a transaction is declined because of insufficient funds. Check your account to make sure you have enough to complete the purchase.

Contact your bank or card issuer

Your card may have specific restrictions which cause your payment to fail. Contact the bank or company that issued your card to ask about the transaction and see if they know the reason for the decline.

If you’re outside of the U.S., you will also need to ensure your card and bank support international transactions. Depending on your country, you may also need to contact your bank to authorize your card’s use for online transactions.

Try to pay with a different payment method 

Update now

You can try switching to another form of payment by following these steps:

1. Go to youtube.com/paid_memberships if you’re on a computer. If you’re in the YouTube mobile app, click on your profile picture  
   
   Paid memberships.
2. Click the icon next to the message "Current payment method could not be processed".
3. Click Update payment method.
4. Select a different payment method.

Tip: If you are still having trouble using your payment method to purchase on YouTube, you can consider paying with Google Play balance (if it’s available in your country). You can find which countries have Google Play balance available here.

First, add to your Google Play balance and then select the "Google Play Balance" option as your payment method. You can also read more about redeeming your Google play balance.

Fix issues with accessing benefits after being charged

If you’ve made a purchase but don’t have access to what you bought, it’s possible the charge is still being processed. You also may not have access if the charge was declined.

About authorization holds and pending transactions

Pending charges on Google Pay or your card statement are authorization holds that haven’t been processed yet.

It’s possible to see a few pending charges for the same subscription payment, as each pending charge represents an authorization attempt. If a charge is "Pending" instead of processed, it hasn't been charged to you, and any unsuccessful card authorization attempts for a payment will drop off from your statements on their own and won't be billed to you.

How to check a pending charge

• Check your billing statement or Google Pay. If you click into the transaction on Google Pay, you should see the purchase listed as a "Pending" charge rather than completed.
• Search for an email receipt. If a charge is processed, you'll get an email receipt from YouTube.
• You can also check Google Pay at any time for alerts or requests to fix account issues. For example, you may need to verify your identity on Google Pay before you can purchase using your Google Account. If there aren't any alerts on Google Pay, this pending charge should go through within 1-14 business days, or disappear when the payment is declined. If you're still seeing a pending charge after this time, get in touch with your payment provider.

How to check a declined charge

You can double check the status of your purchase in Google Pay. Google Pay should show the transaction status as "Declined". See our tips in the section above for how to fix a declined payment.

If your billing statement is still showing a "Pending", this charge should go away within 1-14 business days or disappear if it's declined. If you're still seeing a pending charge after this time, get in touch with your payment provider.

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