Do you wonder how old you have to be to create and use a Venmo account? Learn more about Venmo accounts for minors along with Venmo visitors for minors who haven’t reached the age limit.
Venmo’s age limit is 18 years as the minimum age requirement to apply for a Venmo account. Venmo requires that users be at least 18 years of age and must be a resident of the USA to use their Services. It is safe for older teens but parents should consider the risks associated with it.
Venmo is an increasingly popular platform to send and receive payments. So far, over 60 million people use the platform for all kinds of transactions.
Like any other digital transaction application, Venmo has some requirements you’d have to satisfy to own an account. One of them is that you’ll need to be at least 18 years old.
Some parents worry that this limit prevents their minors from learning to make simple transactions. However, in this article, we’ll discuss why there’s an age limit and what to do about it.
So, let’s delve in.
RELATED READ: Can You Have Venmo Under 18?
Do You Have to Be 18 to Create a Venmo Account?
Yes, to use a Venmo account, you’ll need to be at least 18 years old. While the digital transaction app is bent on making financial services available for a wide range of people, it doesn’t make provisions for minors.
Read: How Do I Know If Someone Received My Venmo Payment?
Can a 16-year-old have Venmo?
No, a 16-year-old cannot have a Venmo Account. According to Venmo’s terms of service, you must be 18 years old. You can make a Venmo account with a Facebook and email account along with a valid phone number.
What Are Venmo’s Requirements?
You may have read these Venmo requirements before opening a Venmo account or agreed to them in the user and policy agreement.
Here’s a list of Venmo’s essential requirements for setting up an account:
- You must be physically residing in the United States. Venmo is a country-bound application that works nowhere else.
- You must have an active U.S. cell phone that can send/receive text messages from shortcodes (this phone number must not be registered with another Venmo account).
- You must be at least 18 years old.
Now, let’s look at the reasons for this age limit.
Reasons Why Minors Can’t Have a Venmo Account
Why wouldn’t Venmo allow minors to have accounts of their own? After all, most teenagers, especially those in high schools and colleges, may need it for various transactions.
However, below are some reasons why Venmo won’t allow persons under 18 to own an account.
First of all, it goes against Venmo’s mode of operation. Venmo is stringent on its requirements, and until the rule is changed, Venmo only allows adults to have accounts. If Venmo finds that a minor created an account, it’ll freeze the account immediately, and the user will lose any funds in the account.
What’s more, minors stand a higher risk of being scammed than adults. Scammers and fraudulent persons often target online payment platforms.
Another reason is the misuse of funds. You’re aware of the habits of minors when it comes to buying stuff with money. There’s a high tendency for them to purchase unnecessary items. So imagine what could happen when they have a personal operational account such as Venmo!
Parent-Child Venmo Account Link
On Venmo, you can’t lie about your age when opening an account. Some people have found other means to escape this procedure in registration. However, your account may be suspended when Venmo finds out. And this can happen because you have to add your bank details and social security number for verification.
However, as a parent, there’s an alternative that you can use if your minor must have an account.
You can download the Venmo application and create an account for your teen using your details or without verifying your identity (a Venmo feature that doesn’t require much information about the personal details of a user).
You’d then link your teen’s debit card to the account. This could foster the learning of financial responsibility. You can then discuss the limits and points where you’d approve for them to make transactions.
So, only after your approval, they’ll use Venmo on your desktop or phone to make a transaction. This way, you’ll have enough supervision over their transactions and teach them the values of financial responsibility.
Venmo Alternatives for Persons Under 18
Here are some recommendations for applications similar to Venmo, which allow teens to freely transact digitally;
- Greenlight Card. With this, your teen gets flexible parental controls and alerts for each transaction in real time. In addition, the app allows you to choose the exact stores to spend in. And through custodial accounts, you can teach them about investments.
- Current. Like Venmo, it allows instant money transfers and spending alerts. With Current, you can bring money together with your teens and create goals.
- Acorns. It allows investment accounts and retirement packages and teaches ways to make extra money. It’s known for investing spare change automatically through Round-Ups. You can register a minor with just 3-5 dollars a month.
And now, let’s look at some safety tips to help parents with Venmo accounts.
Safety Tips for Parents
You’ll have to encourage your teens to make transactions private (sender and receiver only) to lower the risk of scams. Educate them to be conscious of the things that are appropriate to say and share on such apps.
Venmo is a social application, and teens are known to engage more on social media. So they may tend to engage their minds with Venmo. In addition, when Facebook is enabled, your Facebook friends will automatically be added.
The same can be done for your contacts via email addresses too. So, even though you don’t want to share your information with Venmo, online friends or phone contacts may choose to share your information with their accounts.
Final Words
In this article, we’ve learned that Venmo doesn’t allow minors to use the app to make any financial transactions.
This is because when you’re less than 18, handling financial responsibility should be done under good supervision.
We’ve also seen some measures to take, like the parent-child account link and other available alternatives for your minors. You might also consider following the safety tips to make the most of your Venmo account.
