How to create a PayPal Account: A Quick Guide
Layla Mansoor
PayPal can be a great tool for individuals and businesses to receive payments due to its integrations into a large number of popular marketplaces and websites. Historically it has been useful for residents in countries where receiving international payments has traditionally been difficult (e.g. South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria).
If you’re from one of those countries, and looking to create a PayPal account, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ll take you through all the steps you need to open a PayPal account as either an individual or a customer.
Here’s a simple step-by-step process, starting with individuals:
Head over to the PayPal website and you’ll be redirected to your country-specific page (e.g. PayPal Kenya, PayPal Egypt, etc…).
Select the “Sign Up” button placed on the top right-hand corner of the page.
You’ll then be prompted to choose from either a “Personal” or “Business” account. This of course depends on your use case. Most users will require a “Personal” account that can be used to receive and send payments as well as shop at the many places PayPal is accepted. Business accounts are typically for those who need to accept payments through PayPal as part of their online store. Business accounts will also require additional information in relation to taxes such as your local Tax ID.
You’ll then need to provide your name, email, a secure password, and a mobile number to confirm your identity. Your mobile number will be validated through a 2FA code that is sent to your phone. When providing your name make sure you provide your full name and that it matches your bank account to prevent any issues when withdrawing your balance from PayPal.
PayPal will then ask to add your residential or business address.
The final step is to verify your email address and you’ll then be setup to use PayPal.
For residents in emerging markets withdrawing your PayPal balance directly to your local bank account can come with high transaction and exchange fees. You can save money by withdrawing with no charges from PayPal directly to a US-based USD account provided by Elevate and our partner Bangor Savings Bank.
Pros and Cons of Creating a PayPal Account
PayPal is without a doubt a very functional product but while there are some great pros, there are also a number of cons. Let’s dig into key ones.
Pros
It’s absolutely free to create a PayPal account.
PayPal is relatively straightforward to use.
PayPal is a well-known wallet that is accepted by many of the world's leading marketplaces and websites.
It’s free to send and receive money to other PayPal users.
It’s a well-known and secure form of payment.
Cons
Withdrawing from PayPal to non-US accounts can be prohibitively expensive with bad exchange rates.
Fees aren’t very clear and can sometimes surprise the user.
Accounts have been known to be frozen relatively quickly and take a while to reactivate.
If you’d like to avoid high exchange fees when sending money back home then Elevate is a great choice. We partner with leading pay out providers to give you the market exchange rates when sending money back home. If you already have a USD account in your home country, we also offer the lowest USD-to-USD transfer rates in the market, over 4x cheaper than SWIFT.