How to Set Up a PayPal Account to Receive Money in Nigeria

If you do an online business and want to know how to set up a PayPal account in Nigeria and start receiving money from abroad, the best answer is here.

A lot has been said about how to start an online business in Nigeria.

You will see a collection of 101 businesses you can do to make money online on this website.

But when it comes to using PayPal in Nigeria to receive money online, most people are stuck.

It is disappointing after selling a service to someone online, only for you to receive payment and realize you cannot.

There are third-party wallet services you can use to receive money online but none of them exist without some limitations, which make most small businesses suffer in Nigeria.

If you know how to open an account on PayPal in Nigeria, you can connect with buyers or sellers from any part of the world without any payment issues.

PayPal served more than 377 million users with a total transactions of about $936 billion in 2020.

Statista

The achievement is lopsided as most Nigerian businesses, individuals or freelancers still cannot receive money via their Nigerian PayPal accounts.

This is due to regulatory policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria on money transfer services which prevent FinTech companies from exploiting the Nigerian market.

After seeing the problem, FlutterWave entered a business collaboration with PayPal to help merchants in Nigeria and Africa as a whole to do business online and receive payment from around the world via PayPal.

Consequently, receiving money with PayPal in Nigeria is no longer an issue if you know what to do.

There are three ways to open and use a PayPal account in Nigeria. Each of these techniques will be discussed in this guide.

But before that, I want you to quickly look at these frequently asked questions to determine the value put together in this guide and why this is the best for you to create a verified PayPal account in Nigeria.

What is PayPal and how does it work in Nigeria?
How can I receive money with PayPal in Nigeria?
Where can I use PayPal in Nigeria?
How can I open and use a PayPal account to receive money in Nigeria?

If you need answers to these questions, then this guide is for you. It will show you how to open a PayPal account in Nigeria and receive money from abroad.

What is PayPal and how does it work in Nigeria?

PayPal is an online payment platform used in more than 200 countries, most especially where online money transfers are supported as an alternative to traditional checks and money orders.

Paypal

The service is provided by an American FinTech company called PayPal Holding Inc., with headquarters located in San Jose, California, United States.

When dealing with international customers, you need PayPal as your payment gateway.

A payment gateway can help you process online payments and receive money in your local bank account.

After creating an online presence for your business, nothing comes next except payment integration.

With PayPal, your customers can purchase on your eCommerce website and check out in one click.

In the absence of an eCommerce website, you can still receive payments through PayPal if both you and your clients have an account on PayPal.

All it requires to receive such payment is the email address with which you created your PayPal account.

The customer will log in to his account and use your email address to send the payment to you.

At the time of setting up your account on PayPal, you will be required to link your ATM card – Mastercard, Visa, Verve, or any.

N.B. You may not be able to link your Naira card to PayPal. So you need a Dollar card which is only possible with a domiciliary account.

Once the payment is done, your account wallet will be credited and PayPal will alert you via your email address.

You can withdraw the money by releasing funds to the ATM card that you linked to your PayPal account. Having done that, your bank account will be credited in dollars. Walk up to the bank and make a withdrawal.

PayPal works as simply by making all forms of transactions possible without sharing financial information with anyone online.

For this reason, most people prefer the PayPal payment option because the system is safe.

If your customers do not feel safe making a transaction on your website with their ATM cards, having the PayPal payment option will do a great job of closing more sales internationally.

By so doing, PayPal can protect the private data of the users from the risks of cyberattacks.

The system is designed to remove payment barriers that online merchants or freelancers have when dealing with foreign customers.

Meanwhile, PayPal is believed to be the biggest, most flexible, reliable, and cheapest global payment gateway among others.

It officially came to Nigeria in July 2014 and was recently listed among the accredited 47 international money transfer operators in the country by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The CBN, in a tweet in March 2021, released a list of approved online money transfer operators in Nigeria and PayPal made it to the list.

This did not remove the limitations of using PayPal in Nigeria as most Nigerians still cannot receive payment with their local PayPal accounts.

There is a regulatory transactional limit set by the CBN for both inbound and outbound money transfers which makes it difficult to use a Nigerian PayPal account. You would need a foreign PayPal account to bypass the restrictions.

Just read on to discover the secret.

Limitations of a Nigerian PayPal account

When you open a normal Nigerian PayPal account, whether it is a business or personal account, all you can do with it is send money.

You cannot receive money with a Nigerian PayPal account.

On your attempt to use a Nigerian PayPal account to receive money, the sender will receive an error message that says he should visit your website instead and make the payment via your checkout page.

So, while Nigerians are being denied full access to PayPal services, it is difficult for most small businesses to recover their return on investment (ROI) in the country, especially those who do not have an eCommerce website.

This means, that if you do not have an eCommerce website, where having a checkout page is possible, you cannot use PayPal in Nigeria.

The fact is PayPal works differently across different countries. The way it works in Nigeria is quite different from the way it works in the US or any other part of the world.

And the best reason for this is the government policy regulating online money transfer operators in different countries.

Over a period of time, Nigerian users have found a solution to this problem.

After discovering the secret, I had to suspend my previous PayPal account and create another one that has all the features to send and receive money in Nigeria.

With the kind of PayPal account, I am about to show you how to open, you can also generate and send invoices to your customers online.

Most people who know this technique would not be happy because I let the cat out of the basket.

People charge as much as $50 just to help set up the kind of PayPal account that has all the PayPal features, that is a standard PalPal just like it is in the United States.

I had to share the knowledge because payment is one of the major problems of online business which need urgent attention in Nigeria.

Why need a PayPal account in Nigeria

Many people both in Nigeria and abroad prefer PayPal to any other payment platform because it has so many benefits which others do not have.

The benefits are many but a few of them will be discussed.

So, if you know how to open a PayPal account in Nigeria, you could enjoy the following benefits that come with your PayPal account.

Customer trust

If you run an e-commerce or any platform that requires users to pay for a product or service online, a lot of risks are involved.

For this reason, the customers’ number one concern is to avoid sharing their card details online and prevent their data from being stolen or compromised by hackers.

Taking care of the customers’ concerns will make you gain their trust and get more sales.

With the PayPal payment method, you can cut out the need for your customers to use their card details or private data and reduce the risks involved.

Online payment

Another benefit of using PayPal in Nigeria is to enable you to pay for items you buy online with ease.

When the need arises, PayPal is a reliable and very secure payment platform for paying for things you buy.

You can credit your wallet or enable PayPal to deduct directly from your card whenever you initiate a payment through a merchant’s website.

This will help you reduce the risk of using your credit or debit card on every website you visit.

Easy to use services

PayPal supports almost all types of ATM cards, be it credit or debit cards, including Mastercard, Visa card, Verve card, and so on.

You can even add and verify more than one card on your PayPal account without any hassle.

The service is available to mobile and desktop users. That is, you can use any internet-enabled device to access the platform and complete your transaction.

This gives the platform a lot of flexibility and a great user experience.

Reversible payment

Another benefit of opening a PayPal account is to be able to reverse payment when there is a dispute between sellers and buyers.

You may need to request a refund if you did not get what you paid for through the PayPal platform.

This feature works after PayPal intervenes and justifies the reversal.

If the circumstance truly warrants getting your money back, PayPal will reverse the payment from the account of the seller and you will have your money back.

Payment integration

You can integrate PayPal into your website to raise funds for a course or generate payment for a product or service.

This will require having an eCommerce website.

With PayPal, you can receive money sent to you by another PayPal user in your local bank account without stepping out of your home.

Requirements for opening a PayPal account in Nigeria

It is free to open a PayPal account either for personal or business use in Nigeria.

The only thing that is required to set up a PayPal account is just your personal information, which is to guarantee that you are real and the bona-fide owner of the account.

So, you must have the following information ready before you can open and verify a PayPal account in Nigeria.

Means of identification: PayPal requires you to have a valid means of identification, preferably any government-issued identification card such as a national identity card, driver’s license, or international passport.
Full name: It must be noted that you cannot use a fake name to create a PayPal account. The name you want to use must be as it appears on your ID card.
Valid email address: PayPal works with the user’s email address to send or receive money. So, you need a valid email address that you have not used before on the platform.
Phone number: In the course of opening a PayPal account, you need to add your phone number. You will need it to verify and authenticate your account down the line.
Contact address: PayPal wants to know you and where you can be located. So you have to make your address available. It can be your business or home address.
Domiciliary account: Because of the CBN limitations on Naira accounts for making online transactions, you need a domiciliary account with which you can generate a dollar ATM card.
Valid dollar ATM card: PayPal will use your dollar ATM card to connect your account to your domiciliary account. So the card information is required to withdraw or deposit money in your bank account.

Once you have all these requirements in place, you are qualified to create your PayPal business account in Nigeria and start receiving money from any part of the world.

You can use your smartphone or computer to launch the PayPal website and begin the registration.

All information you share with PayPal stays on PayPal, it is safe and protected.

How to set up a PayPal account in Nigeria

If you want to create a PayPal account that receives money in Nigeria, you have three good options:

Use FlutterWave to access PayPal
Integrate PayPal into your website
Create a direct PayPal account

Now let us go into detail and see how each of the 3 methods works.

#1. Use FlutterWave to access PayPal

The collaboration between FlutterWave and PayPal makes it possible for you to use PayPal to receive money in Nigeria.

This method does not require you as a merchant to have a PayPal account. But at least, your clients must be PayPal users to make this work for you.

All you have to do to unlock this opportunity and start receiving payments from PayPal users from any part of the world is to open a business account on FlutterWave.

PayPal has a very big user base as a leading global payment platform. So, no doubt your client is one of the 377 million-plus PayPal users.

The implication is that your clients will have to own an account on FlutterWave and use the PayPal payment option on the platform to send money to you.

FlutterWave will help you receive the payment from the PayPal account of your clients and send the money to you through your FlutterWave account.

To use FlutterWave for receiving money on PayPal, take the following steps:

Visit the FlutterWave website.
Create a business account (follow the prompt instructions to complete your registration).
Once your account is ready, go to your FlutterWave account dashboard to enable your preferred payment method.
Select PayPal from the list of options available on the platform.

After setting up your account on FlutterWave, PayPal will start displaying on your checkout page.

This will make it possible for your customers to use the option of paying you.

So when a payment is made to your account, FlutterWave will help you receive the payment from the PayPal account of your clients and send the money to you through your FlutterWave account.

#2. Integrate PayPal into your website

Another way to use PayPal to receive funds in Nigeria is to have an eCommerce website and integrate PayPal into your checkout page.

This makes it easier for your clients to pay you directly from your website cart with PayPal.

It means, that before you can receive payments with this approach, the sender must have bought something, product, or service via your website.

And secondly, if you do not have a PayPal account that can receive money, this approach may not work.

In finding a permanent solution to this problem, I recommend the third option, which is to open a PayPal account that can send and receive money in Nigeria.

Much of this option will be discussed in the next section.

What is most important about the second option is to look at the requirements to create an eCommerce website and integrate the PayPal payment option into it.

Design a product or service you want to sell.
Find a name for your website (it can be your brand name or product name).
Choose any of these web hosting providers to register your domain name and host your website.
Install an eCommerce platform to your website.
Integrate PayPal into your website.
Hire us to set up your website.

You can learn more from our dedicated guide on how to create an eCommerce website or hire us to open a PayPal account for you.

We provide very affordable web and app solutions for businesses.

#3. Create a direct PayPal account

It is obvious that not all PayPal accounts can receive money and not everyone will like the first two options.

If you have been looking for the best way to open a PayPal account in Nigeria, there are steps you need to take and beat the limitations posed to Nigerian users.

This is different from the normal account you open when you visit the Nigerian PayPal website.

And it does not involve the use of a VPN and falsely claiming to be in another country while you are in Nigeria.

With the following steps, opening a PayPal account to receive money in Nigeria is possible.

Choose a foreign PayPal platform

To create a PayPal account that works in Nigeria, you need to choose a foreign PayPal platform. For the purpose of this guide, the three countries I recommend are:

South African PayPal
Lesotho PayPal
Iceland PayPal

Using any of the three foreign PayPal platforms above has been tested and confirmed okay for opening a PayPal account in Nigeria.

So, the following links will take you to any of the foreign PayPal platforms you prefer to use for opening your own Nigerian-verified account.

Country	Website
South African PayPal	Visit the South African PayPal platform to create a Nigerian PayPal account
Lesotho PayPal	Visit the Lesotho PayPal platform to set up a Nigerian PayPal account
Iceland PayPal	Visit the Iceland PayPal platform to open a Nigerian PayPal account

N.B. To avoid glitches, I advise you to use a computer – laptop, or desktop to launch the platform. After successfully creating your account you can use your mobile device for subsequent operations.

Assuming you prefer Iceland PayPal, click the Iceland PayPal link to launch the platform.

Once the page finishes loading, go to the site menu at the top right of the page and click “Sign Up” to set up your account.

Select account type

PayPal offers two different account types:

Personal account
Business account

Since the scope of this guide is all about how to set up a PayPal business account, the account type to select is Business Account.

Creating a PayPal business account will give you more business opportunities and, most importantly the chance to send invoices to request payment from your clients.

If you are more of B2B, dealing with brands as a brand, you will be required to send an invoice ahead of receiving payment.

This will allow the company to document the details of your service or product so they can easily track you the next time they need your service.

Select your account type and click the “Continue” button to proceed.

Enter your valid email address

Enter a valid email address that you would like to use to sign up for your business account on PayPal.

Make sure you have access to the email address because PayPal will be sending important information to you through it.

On the next page, create a strong unique password for your account, and remember not to lose the password or share it with the public.

When you are done with the password, click the “Continue” button to proceed to the next page.

Describe your business

You need to describe your business by specifying the type of business you offer and assigning a suitable or relevant keyword to your product or service.

If you have a website, try to add it to the form.

Your CC Statement Name can be your first name which is required.

PayPal does not want you to add your business information for nothing. They want to be familiar with your business. So, you need to tell them about your business.

You would be required to give the legal name of your business contact person. This can be your name if you are the owner of the business.

Your legal business name can be your brand name or the name you would like your clients to use to identify you in all your transactions.

If you have a CAC registered business name, you can use it.

Use your normal verifiable business or home address and contact me for your postcode if you don’t know what to put. If your business does not have an address yet, use your home address alternatively.

When you are done, click the button to continue.

Enter your personal information

Another important step for opening a PayPal business account is to identify yourself as a genuine human being.

What you are meant to do here is to personalize your account.

Add your date of birth, and Nigeria as your nationality. It does not matter if you are using a foreign PayPal platform.

You are to choose your means of identification – National ID, International Passport, or Driver’s License and enter the correct number on your preferred means of identification document in the form.

Both your home address and phone number can be the same as your business address and phone number.

When you are done, click the Submit button.

On the next page, PayPal will welcome you to their platform and show you a summary of all the features of your account.

This is an indication that you have successfully set up your PayPal business account.

Confirm your email address

Before you can begin sending or receiving money on your account, you are required to confirm your email address.

Your email address is what you will use for any transaction you make through PayPal. So, you have to confirm it first.

Look through the menu of the PayPal site at the top left of the page and click Summary.

You will see your PayPal account balance and options to confirm your email address and link and confirm your debit or credit card.

To confirm your email address, click See Details right below the tab.

On the next page, you will see all your details. Go through them and make sure all the information is correct. Then, click Submit.

Go to your email inbox and look for the PayPal confirmation email. Open the mail and click the “Confirm Your Email” button.

You will be redirected to your PayPal login page.

Your email address will display by default. Just enter your valid password and then click “Confirm Email Address” to log into your account.

Link and confirm credit or debit card

Linking your ATM card to your PayPal account is the last step to setting up and verifying your PayPal account.

Although you can use your PayPal account to receive money at this level without linking your card to it.

Meanwhile, linking your card is to unlock PayPal’s advanced features which make it possible to use your local bank account to withdraw the money someone sent to you via PayPal; to also generate and send an invoice ahead of payment, and lots more.

You must note that PayPal does not accept all dollar cards as some specific banks in Nigeria cannot make their cards work with PayPal.

If you attempt linking your card and PayPal declines it, it means you cannot use the card. PayPal may suspend your account as a result of abuse, linking a wrong card repeatedly.

In this circumstance, approach another bank and request an account type with which you can obtain a dollar card that can be linked to your PayPal account.

I use Union Bank and I think you can try them if your bank does not provide the service you need in this regard.

Once your card is ready, go to the menu of the PayPal site as seen in the step above, and click Summary.

On the next page, look for “Link and confirm credit or debit card” and follow the prompt instructions.

Conclusion on Setting Up a PayPal Account to Receive Money in Nigeria

Without leaving the corners of your home, you can get customers from any part of the world.

That sounds so good!

But when it comes to receiving payments from foreign customers, the story is different.

You may not be able to receive money via PayPal in Nigeria, except you know the way around the limitations that the CBN places on Nigerian PayPal users.

If you would like to tap into this opportunity, you need to know how to set up a PayPal account to receive money in Nigeria.

All you need to know is in this guide.

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