paystack webhook ignored: source IP not on the paystack whitelist

TL;DR

Paystack sends webhooks from a published set of IP addresses that changes over time; a static whitelist goes stale and legitimate webhooks get dropped. Prefer verifying the webhook signature (HMAC with your secret key) over IP filtering, since signatures prove authenticity regardless of source IP. If you must filter by IP, pull Paystack's current IP list programmatically and refresh it on a schedule.

paystack webhook ignored: source IP not on the paystack whitelist

Use this when

• Paystack webhooks are silently ignored or rejected
• Your firewall or app filters webhook traffic by source IP
• Webhooks worked before and stopped without a code change

Not for this skill when

• The webhook arrives but signature verification fails with the correct secret (check body parsing)
• Paystack is not sending the webhook at all (check the dashboard event log)
• You need to verify a transaction rather than a webhook

Steps

1. Confirm the drops: log the source IP of incoming webhooks and compare against your whitelist. Expected: You see legitimate Paystack traffic being rejected.

2. Fetch Paystack's current webhook IP list from their documentation or API and update your whitelist. Expected: Current Paystack IPs are allowed.

3. Add signature verification using the signature header and your secret key, and make it the primary check. Expected: Authenticity is proven cryptographically, not by IP.

4. Keep IP filtering as a secondary layer only, refreshed automatically on a schedule. Expected: The list cannot go stale silently.

5. Replay a dropped webhook from Paystack's dashboard to confirm end-to-end processing. Expected: Webhooks flow and verify correctly.

Tool compatibility

Paystack webhooks; signature header verification with HMAC-SHA512 in any server stack.

Variant phrasings

paystack webhook ip whitelist outdated

The stale-list cause stated directly.

paystack webhooks blocked by firewall

The infrastructure symptom of the same problem.

paystack webhook signature vs ip check

The recommended fix framed as a choice.

Why it happens

Payment providers rotate and expand their outbound IP ranges as infrastructure changes, so any hard-coded whitelist has a built-in expiry date. IP filtering also proves little about authenticity on its own: signatures do. Teams that rely solely on a static IP list eventually drop real webhooks after a provider-side change, with no error on the provider side to explain the silence. Signature verification removes the dependency on the IP list entirely.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Behind a load balancer or CDN, log the connecting IP from the right header or you will whitelist the wrong address.
• Never log or expose your secret key while debugging signature checks.
• If you keep IP filtering, alert when the published list changes so the whitelist update is not forgotten.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Y64yqMNoYbZ-Duu6iyvriA

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Y64yqMNoYbZ-Duu6iyvriA

Thread query: paystack webhook ignored: source IP not on the paystack whitelist

TL;DR: Paystack sends webhooks from a published set of IP addresses that changes over time; a static whitelist goes stale and legitimate webhooks get dropped. Prefer verifying the webhook signature (HMAC with your secret key) over IP filtering, since signatures prove authenticity regardless of source IP. If you must filter by IP, pull Paystack's current IP list programmatically and refresh it on a schedule.