Send batch payouts to sellers and contractors using the PayPal Payouts API

Steps

1. Obtain Payouts API access by applying through your PayPal Business account — it is not enabled by default and requires approval; once approved, generate a client ID and secret from the Developer Dashboard.
2. Authenticate with OAuth 2.0 by calling POST /v1/oauth2/token with grant_type=client_credentials to receive a short-lived access token.
3. Build the batch payload: POST /v1/payments/payouts with a sender_batch_header (sender_batch_id for idempotency, email_subject, email_message) and an items array of up to 15,000 payout items, each with receiver (email, phone, or PayPal ID), amount, currency, and a unique sender_item_id.
4. Poll GET /v1/payments/payouts/{payout_batch_id} to retrieve batch status (PENDING, PROCESSING, SUCCESS, DENIED, CANCELED) and iterate over items to catch per-item FAILED or RETURNED statuses.
5. Reconcile each item's transaction_status and links to retrieve individual payout receipts for accounting; store sender_item_id to correlate batch items with your internal order records.
6. Ensure your PayPal balance has sufficient funds — including per-transaction fees — before submitting; insufficient balance causes the entire batch to be DENIED.