As discussed in previous posts, once you’re using PayPal to sell your stuff online, you will also want to eventually withdraw the money you make into your bank account so that you can actually use it. Here’s where things get a bit nasty, unfortunately.
If you have a US bank account and a US PayPal account, you can stop reading right here. You’re in luck. All you have to do is attach your bank account to your PayPal account and withdraw USD from your PayPal account to your bank account. There are no currency conversions to worry about, and the transfer itself is free from PayPal’s side.
If you are the owner of a non-US PayPal account and you don’t have a US bank account, things are not so pretty.
You are given two options (depending on your home country, it might even be just one option):
- Withdraw to a debit or credit card
- Withdraw to your local bank account.
If you sell online you probably use USD as the main currency on your store and hence your PayPal balance will be in USD. What happens is that since your local credit card or bank account are not in USD, an automatic currency conversion takes place on PayPal’s end as the money is on the way out. The conversion rates are bad, to put it mildly. Hence you’re going to lose a lot of money on that conversion.
Before we continue, it would be a good move on your end to check whether other services like TransferWise or Payoneer would be an even better fit for you than PayPal. In general, I recommend trying to find an alternative to using PayPal for whatever you are trying to do, since PayPal has terrible customer support and charges high fees.
Withdrawing to Cards
In the case of cards, you can ask PayPal to switch off automatic currency conversion, and have the conversion happen on your bank’s side, which will give you a better rate. I wrote about how to do this in my earlier post on currency conversion and PayPal. There are still two inconveniences when withdrawing in this manner:
- You will be forced to convert USD to your home currency upon withdrawal.
- There is a limit per transaction of $2,500, and an associated fee per transaction.
These two points are problematic. Let’s say that your home currency is in a weak position and you would therefore store money in USD and convert later when things improve. You cannot do this as you can’t do a straight through USD-USD transfer, given that your card will be denominated in the local currency. You can open a local bank account in USD but you won’t be able to get a card associated with it. At least that’s the case with all the banks I’ve checked so far. If you find a bank that lets you do that, please leave a comment and let me know.
The limit per transaction poses some obvious problems. Let’s say you are a high volume seller and you want to withdraw $100k per month from PayPal. You will have to make 40 separate transactions and you will be charged for every single one of them. Of course, all you ever wanted to do is one transaction, if only PayPal let you do that. Apparently this limit per transaction is dictated by the card providers (for example MasterCard or Visa). Still, it’s not convenient for serious sellers.
If your bank does not provide good conversion rates, remember that some PayPal users have had success linking their PayPal account to digital banks such as Revolut, TransferWise and N26. They typically provide much better rates than your local bank. You might want to give that a shot since opening an account with these digital banks is free anyway.
Note that as from April 2020 the $2,500 limit seems to have been modified, as I have been able to make significantly bigger transfers to the debit card. I’m not sure if this is a glitch or whether something really changed from PayPal’s end.
Withdrawing to a Local Bank Account
Withdrawing to a local bank account does not present any limits, so you can pull out that $100k without any problems at one go, however you will be hit by PayPal’s bad exchange rate plus currency conversion charges. It is usually easy to open a USD account with your local bank, the big problem is that PayPal will not allow you to transfer USD from your PayPal balance into your local USD account if you are based in Europe, as they consider all European bank accounts as Euro-based.
Note that in April 2020 I was able to add a USD account to my PayPal business account, so there seems to be a way to get a non-Euro bank account added. I had to ask PayPal to add it manually, as the link in the dashboard did not let me do it. I will be testing a few withdrawals with this method and will update the section below if I see that it becomes more advantageous to withdraw to the USD bank account instead of the debit card.
Real Example – Withdrawing to Card vs Local Bank Account
As an example at the time of writing this article, if you transferred $10k out of PayPal via a bank transfer to a local bank in Malta (the country where my bank is account is located in), you would have ultimately received €8,839 in the bank account. My bank does not charge any fees for currency conversion.
On the other hand, if you were to withdraw that same $10k out of PayPal to a debit/credit card linked to the same account, you would get €8,911. That amount is after deducting PayPal’s card withdrawal charge ($2.50/€2 per withdrawal, up to a max of $2,500 per withdrawal; hence four withdrawals would be needed in this case to get $10k out).
The local bank was using 0.8921 as the exchange rate between USD and EUR.
PayPal, on the other hand, was using 0.8839, a significantly different rate.
PayPal includes the charges within the exchange rate, so if you accuse them of having a really bad exchange rate their excuse will be that it includes the currency conversion fees.
At the end of the day then, we would be better off when withdrawing to a card by €72.
Not that small of an amount, especially if you start considering transferring higher amounts. The difference would be around €700 on a $100k transfer, which is ridiculous.
Another problem is that PayPal does not send you any kind of bill for the currency conversion fee, hence you cannot expensive it in your company’s books. It is totally hidden within the exchange rate they use so there’s nothing you can do about it from an accounting point of view.
Other Options
The difficulties detailed above affect every country in the world except for Canada. In Canada, users have found a loophole that allows them to perform USD to USD transfers without any charges. See here and here. Once again I had this confirmed by a PayPal support agent, as can be seen in the email excerpt below:
While not being familiar with all of our 200+ countries’ user agreements, I am fairly confident saying that Canada is the only country we have with an exception that allows a local USD denominated bank to be added and used.
I believe this is also related to how the US and Canadian bank network is cooperating. Regardless, this is not something we offer to a Maltese account, other than if you had an actual bank account registered in the US to withdraw USD to.
There are some other options one could explore:
- Use BrainTree instead of PayPal
- Open a non-resident Canadian bank account with RBC
- Open a Canadian PayPal account connected with an HSBC bank account in Malta
- Use Payoneer
- Use Etrade
- Open a US bank account
I’ve written about BrainTree already, so you can refer to my earlier post about the service, although I don’t really consider it a full alternative to PayPal as buyers would need to use their credit card instead of a PayPal account when paying.
Opening a Canadian bank account with RBS is easier than opening a US bank account. I don’t have much experience in this area except checking if it’s possible and confirming that it is. What one would do then is use the routing number of that bank account to add it as a US bank account within PayPal and withdraw money into the RBS account. Then one would use TransferWise to transfer the funds to a Maltese bank account. I am still checking to confirm 100% whether PayPal would allow this setup on a Maltese bank account or not.
The Canadian PayPal account plus Maltese HSBC USD account is an option that I’m still checking about, so I can’t make any recommendations at this stage.
Until a few months ago it was possible to open a Payoneer account and then add that to PayPal as a bank account via the routing number you are given. The idea was to then withdraw the money into your Payoneer account as you would have done with a US bank account. From then you would then be able to transfer to your local bank account or else pay using the Payoneer Mastercard or even withdraw cash from an ATM. It appears that this is no longer possible, although it’s worth monitoring this option as things may change in the future or an alternative to Payoneer might crop up.
Opening an Etrade account and withdrawing money to it is also another option that I’ve seen being discussed, and again I need to look into it in more detail.
The last option would, of course, be to open a USD account with a US bank, something that is easier said than done. Usually, a Social Security Number (SSN) is required, however some banks allow you to open an account without it when visiting the branch in the US. There might still be limitations though (for example, no bank transfers possible) which would limit the practicality of such an account for my particular desired usage. Some people have also asked me whether it is possible to open a US bank account for their non-US company. As far as I know this is impossible unless you are going to deposit a few million dollars into that account.
If you have found a solution I’d love to know how you managed, please go ahead and leave a comment!
I have a Nigeria PayPal account, but it doesn’t receive money from other countries.
Is there any solution to that.
Hello guys,
Please is there any possible means I can create a Nigeria PayPal account that receives money from other countries.
Urgent reply please.
Thanks.
Why in rwanda can not reveive money????we ate not required to receive money why???
Dear. I have a tbc 009 coin wallet. end I have a pay pal wallet I’ll like to add from my tbc Wallet to pay pal wallet. how to do that transmission?
kind regards
pheko moeng
call ( 0736064716 )
This is stupid. Why does Paypal make it hard for US$ in Canada. The 2 currencies allowed in Canada are Canadian and US$ but banks make it hard to move US$ for some stupid reason. Doesn’t make sense. I have seen so many of these online with how to hook it up but it seems Paypal keeps changing and blocking them so have to keep doing something different. I am trying a third time and 3rd different routing # in order to make it work.
“Note that in April 2020 I was able to add a USD account to my PayPal business account, so there seems to be a way to get a non-Euro bank account added. I had to ask PayPal to add it manually, as the link in the dashboard did not let me do it. I will be testing a few withdrawals with this method and will update the section below if I see that it becomes more advantageous to withdraw to the USD bank account instead of the debit card.”
This is super interesting, were you able to avoid the currency conversion within Paypal?
We’re a UK company and are looking for a way to add EUR and USD bank accounts to our PayPal business account.
I am from Israel and I can’t withdrawal more than 2500$ through my visa.
Someone is having the same experience?
What can I do about it?
Thanks for the help!
Hey Jean, great article. I plan to setup an ecommerce business from UK, however I will charge customers based in the US in USD via PayPal. Can I transfer the earned amount without hassle to a UK bank account and withdraw from here!
Thanks in advance.
Rgds
Kumar
Hello, So I send money from my PayPal to my Bank account for the first time this month. On the 7th, I put in 5 euros to make sure everything was going through fine. The 5 euros went into my bank account fine the next day. So the next day I went to transfer a larger sum into my bank account, and it’s been over two weeks and I have not received my money into my bank account. On the PayPal site it says everything is complete, But I haven’t received my money into my bank account. It is the 23rd today, I have written PayPal twice asking what’s going on with no response. I’m not sure if I should call my bank? I’m not sure if everything is taking longer because of the Coronavirus? It’s a large amount that I need, and I’m freaking out.
Am in the same shoes as you. I made a huge transfer to my bank on April 1st, it’s been 3 weeks and still nothing. In February and March, the money showed up within 14 days(Paypal automatically make transfers to my bank on 1st day of each month). It could be the Coronavirus issue maybe, I must be honest am a little relieved knowing am not alone. I don’t know what to do but to keep waiting. I doubt my bank will help, my last transfers have been successful, I haven’t changed anything in my PayPal nor my bank, am thinking Covid-19 could be the reason for this unusual delay. It is also my first time having a huge transfer, perhaps big transfers take some time to clear? I guess we will see.
Hi I belive my question is slightly different. I have money in a US paypall account but no longer live in the US or have an US bank account. I have been talking to on line chats for months and each agent has a different idea but I know from trying nothing works.
I live in the UK and have a UK paypall account
Does anyone know how I can get my money?
Thanks Sally
Hello
I’m new to paypal, I have a US PayPal account and I’m unable to link my local bank with it ,I tried Payoneer and its displaying an error. Please what can I do so I’ll be able to withdraw from my PayPal to my bank account here in Nigeria ??? Love to read back from you …..
I have local bank account in EUR and paypal account in EUR aswell. I need to pay to my landlord $1750 onto his paypal account. What is the best way to get EUR from my bank account into $ on his paypal. Paypal exchange rate is like 4% worse compared to mid rate.
Thanks
Mate, thnx
I am in Malta as well and I am losing a lot of money in this way.
When I was a self-employed I solver this issue with a Revolut VISA card and converting with Revolut.
Now I have a LTD Company and Revolut is not supported for Maltese Companies. So I am still struggling
PS: Revolut currency exchange rates ar much better than TW and everybody else, plz try that out
Yes, unfortunately I haven’t found a way to withdraw to a Maltese company without suffering the automatic currency conversion. Let me know if you do!
The comments section has become too big, most of the time information is missing (such as which PP subsidiary people are referring to when they say PP). In addition, it is not always clear what the current state of affair is, since some deeply nested posts sometimes indicate that “no, that no longer works”.
Is it not time to create a slack with pinned posts linking to a google doc to see which withdrawal work for which combination of PP country / Bank country / Method(bank or card)? I’ve been looking for such a USD withdrawal mastermind for some time, and this one post is the closest I’ve come to it. Let’s scale this up…
Hi guys, I just want to find out if I can still “RECEIVE” payments into my paypal account, even though the account is not yet linked to a CARD or a BANK ?
Please reply if you’ve been receiving payments on your paypal account in this condition.
Hello Jerry,
Yes, you can easily RECEIVE the funds or payments in your PayPal account without linking the Bank and Credit card. Though, you will have some limitations on how much you can receive in your account to remove which you need to add your Bank account.
Regards,
Rahat
Jean, I am avoiding Paypal as everywhere says it’s so bad but when I withdraw I only get charge 5 US for any amount, how is this possible? I mean, is very good to be true. I have a Chilean Bank that gave me a credit card in USD so I withdraw there, Paypal only charge me 5 US and there is no currency conversion, what I did good? I don’t know but could be useful for other people, would love to know your comments on this!
I have a payoneer card which has a Bank of America virtual account attached. Payoneer gave me this option some years ago. My Bank of America account is linked to Paypal. I withdraw and funds appear in my Payoneer account. I use my Payoneer mastercard to make payments or withdraw cash at any atm. The exchange rates are minimal and most paypal withdrawals are free. However, there is a high charge for withdrawing cash, so I try to make only one withdrawal a the charge seems to remain the same regardless of the amount. I usually access the money within a day.
When I first started working online I withdrew from Paypal to my local account and the charges were ridiculous on small amounts! I also waited up to 8days for every transaction.
Payoneer is the best! I’m in South Africa.
Hello
Can you help or tell me how I can get a Payoneer account accepted by PayPal?? I have a Payoneer account, I tried connecting it to my PayPal ,it’s displaying an error, what should I do ???
What if I receive EUR and want to withdraw to transferwise etc? I checked and the US PayPal will convert to USD before sending it to transferwise. I have a US PayPal, any idea how I can solve this? I know I can open a PayPal account in eu but then I also need to have proof of address and business…
I think PayPal hates us in Nigeria.
I’ve been a freelancers for years and I have not for once seen a good thing in using it.
To avoid story that touches, I would advice you to create a payoneer account in Nigeria, where you can get your own MasterCard delivered to you.
That’s what I’ve been using so far.
But if anybody now a possible way out to create a PayPal account that can withdraw to bank or card in Nigeria, I will be grateful because most of my clients comes from USA and they always offer to pay with PayPal.
Thanks
Still wondering if This PayPal withdrawal Method still works fine especially in Nigeria
Hi. I am actually having a hard time linking my UAE bank account in PayPal, Along with this I cannot withdraw my funds using my personal account. Can somebody help me with this one. Thanks in advance.
Hello,
I have a question regarding my PayPal account. I created an account in the Philippines. All the information in my PayPal are Philippines (address and phone numbers). I also linked my Bank in the Philippines and have been transferring money to my local bank. Now, I opened a bank account in Croatia. My question is, Is it possible to link my Croatian bank to my PayPal account and transfer money from PayPal to my Croatian bank?
So as of now, May 2019, can anybody confirm they successfully linked a TransferWise card to their EU based Paypal account and successfully transferred US$ from their EU based Paypal to their TransferWise card, and the dollars arrived without any conversion whatsoever?
If so, please share, and which country you’re in.
I’m currently in the process to try this, but have to wait for my TransferWise card to arrive yet (a few weeks, apparently). The comments that i read elsewhere on this website don’t promise any good, but i’m keeping my fingers crossed. I will share the result.
Hi! I plan to try this.. my transferwise account will hopefully not convert the dollars into pounds. Any luck doing this?
Is it possible for me to open a PayPal account with a UAE bank account and transfer the received money to a USD account or standard chartered account of a country where PayPal doesn’t operate?
Paypal isn’t allowing me to transfer dollars into my Standard Chartered bank account Ghana.
For the eager minds I propose a solution, a business model
After 15 years suffering, I mean working with Paypal I have found that’s its a necessary bad. You can’t love it or hate it but like the USD you can’t trade without it.
There can be a community of Paypal users which we can ask bid different amount in different currencies.
Say you need to withdraw your PayPal USD dollars in Malta. You can make an offer. Some guy in Malta that needs to make a payment in PayPal will purchase from you with a local bank / mobile transfer in maltas currency. You will have your PayPal USD exchanged to your local currency without actually having exchanged them at all.
Seems cumbersome and it is. But think about connecting a lot of people needing a private car and a lot of drivers needing to work. And in several countries WITHOUT ACTUALLY BEING THERE. yes this is Uber.
So. Who will lead this “Uber Paypal” initiative?
Hi, I m Mahesh Gosh, new to paypal, how does paypal considers someone as NON-USA, what if I open an account with USA address from India. Then add a Payoneer Card to paypal account. Then withdraw money from Payoneer..
Actually you can do it
Paypal has some automated tools for chasing you like IP address phone and so on
But the definitive limit is when they ask you to write the social security number SSN
and upload the document
Then you realize you are not USA
“Then you realize you are not USA”
Ha ha ha ha ha