Does PayPal work in Nigeria? Can Nigerians receive money with PayPal?

Does PayPal work in Nigeria? Nigerians have had a long ordeal with using PayPal. First, it was not available to us: if you were resident in Nigeria, you could not open a PayPal account. Trying to register, you’d find that your country was not listed. If you found a way to register an account using another country, you risked your account being blocked, and losing any funds in it.

Then, after years of that, PayPal finally opened up to us. But, with a catch. You can not receive money with it; you can only send. So, if you are a Nigerian resident in Nigeria, PayPal is useless to you as a means of receiving cash. You cannot earn and be paid via PayPal. You can only send funds. But how does that work?

How does PayPal work in Nigeria?

When you sign up for your Nigerian PayPal account, you are required to to add a bank account. This is how the ability to send money is implemented. Once your bank account is added, when you want to send funds, PayPal does the conversion and pulls the money from your bank account to send. That is how it works.

Of course, not every bank account is supported. It has to be a bank account that has a debit card that supports international payment.

Can Nigerians access PayPal and receive funds in dollars?

Your Nigerian PayPal account cannot receive funds in dollars or in any other foreign currency. It is useless for earning or receiving money. Why is this so? Fintech industry insiders say it has to do with restrictions by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Will this ever change? Who knows? We can hope.

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Author: Mister Mobility

Master storyteller and founder of Mobility Nigeria, Mister Mobility, has used and reviewed hundreds of mobile phones since 2001.