What to Do if Your Cash App Transactions Are "Pending" — and What *Not* to Do

In the old days, we had regular ol’ cash. Physical money that could get ripped right in half or just straight-up lost forever. Now, it’s the future and we have Cash. The app. Sure, its name is a little confusing — every time someone asks whether you have cash you have to be like, “do you mean ‘cash’ or like ‘Cash cash’?” — but it’s also a super convenient way to pay for things.

Or, it should be a super convenient way to pay for things, anyway. Unfortunately, some people experience difficulties with the Cash app on occasion. Namely, their transactions get stuck as “pending” — pretty annoying! If you’re wondering: “Why is my Cash app pending?” — we can help with that!

Having a transaction stuck on “pending” is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The money is stuck somewhere between your account and the account you’re trying to send it to, meaning the friend you were trying to reimburse for drinks remains un-reimbursed, or even that an important bill is unpaid. Yikes! If you notice your Cash app transaction is stuck on “pending,” it could be for one of two reasons.

First, there could be a security issue with your account. In most cases, that means you can follow any steps you see outlined in your activity feed in order to resolve the issue. For instance, Cash allows you to send up to $250 within any 7-day period and receive up to $1,000 within any 30-day period. If you need to increase those limits, Cash will ask you to verify your Social Security Number in order to do so, and will not process any payments in the meantime. 

Assuming everything is OK on the security front, a “pending” message could actually mean that there’s an issue on Cash’s end. They might be suffering from connectivity issues, making it difficult (or temporarily impossible) to process payments in a timely fashion. You can check whether that’s the case on Cash’s status page — that’s where they’ll let you know if they’re experiencing widespread service issues, as well as what they’re doing to fix the problem.

It looks like the Cash App Support Twitter account is also pretty responsive (between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. PT). If you don’t see anything about widespread failures on the status page, it might be worth shooting them a DM there and trying to get some one-on-one support. Unfortunately, the app itself doesn’t offer much help, nor does it have a phone number you can call.

Regardless of the reason behind your pending transactions, Cash recommends not trying to resend your funds through the app. This could result in a double withdrawal, which might leave you in an even more inconvenient situation than before. If you can’t wait for Cash to resolve the issue, it is usually possible to cancel the transaction (and use another method of payment), but the cancelation might also take a while to resolve.

Although Cash has suffered from some connectivity issues in the past, the good news is that they do get resolved eventually. At the very least, it’s a good time to practice your patience, right? If you find yourself getting repeatedly hit with the frustrating “pending” message, maybe it’s time to give regular old-fashioned cash another try!