Why I Can't Donate Money By GitHub Sponsors? (Account Restrictions)

[Mike-Solar]

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I live in China and my collage haven't been sanctioned by the United States. But I can't change my payment information and I can't donate money via GitHub Sponsors. Why? I've submitted two tickets but one month passed and nobody replied.

[Talha-Dogan]

Hi there! 👋

I understand how frustrating it is to wait over a month without a reply.a

The reason you are likely facing this issue isn't necessarily because your specific college is sanctioned, but because automated payment systems (like Stripe or PayPal used by GitHub) often flag accounts from certain regions for a manual "Trade Compliance Review."

When an account is flagged for compliance review:

1. Payment methods are locked: You cannot add cards or sponsor anyone until a human reviews the account.
2. Support delays are normal: Unlike technical support tickets, compliance tickets go to a specialized legal/compliance team. Unfortunately, the queue for this specific team is currently very long, and wait times of 30+ days are not uncommon.

My recommendation:

• Do NOT open a new ticket: Opening a 3rd ticket often merges with the old ones and pushes you to the bottom of the queue.
• Check your spam folder: Sometimes the compliance team asks for a document (like an ID) and the email gets lost.
• Wait it out: Since you have already submitted the ticket, your account is in the queue. They will eventually clear the flag if your college is indeed not on the Entity List.

Hang in there!