How to send money from PayPal to Wise?

If you’re a freelancer or the owner of a small business, you’ll always be looking for cheaper, more convenient ways to handle payments.

PayPal is a popular choice for people needing to make and receive international payments. It’s easy to see why – it’s quick, easy and global. However, PayPal isn’t always the cheapest option when it comes to currency conversion fees and exchange rates. You could save money by using an alternative such as Wise Business for receiving payment in different currencies.

But first, let’s look at the advantages of sending money from PayPal to Wise instead of your bank.

Why transfer money from PayPal to Wise, formerly TransferWise?

When a client, employer or even just a friend pays you in another currency using PayPal, the next step is to withdraw it to your bank account.

At this point, the currency will need to be converted to GBP or your home currency before it hits your bank account. It’s likely that PayPal will use an exchange rate with a mark-up added on top for this conversion, while also charging additional currency conversion fees.

However, you could consider opening a Wise Business multi-currency account. When you open a multi-currency account with Wise, you’ll get your own local bank details for a number of different countries. For example, the USA, Australia and many European countries.

If you use these local details to withdraw your money from PayPal, you can receive the money in the same currency and no conversion will be needed.

From there, you can spend using your Wise Business debit card or send a payment to another country. This can be handy for covering business expenses, or simply to send money to a friend or family member living or studying abroad.

You can also hang onto the money for future payments, or withdraw it to your bank account right away. You can do this easily, and for a far smaller conversion fee. Even better, the conversion will be done at the real, mid-market exchange rate (so no expensive mark-up).

If you're using PayPal to sell online, use our PayPal fee calculator to understand the fees you'll be charged.

How to send money from PayPal to Wise, formerly TransferWise

It’s easy to set up Wise as your go-to payment account for PayPal withdrawals.

1. Sign up for a Wise Business account. You'll do this process all online and we'll run some verification steps to be able to onboard your company.

2. Explore the features of your new account. In particular, take a look at your new local bank account details under ‘Balances’. You’ll see a number of options under currency symbols. From here, you can access sort code and account numbers for various countries worldwide.

3. Sign into your PayPal account and head to ‘Wallet’. This is where you link bank accounts and debit/credit accounts, which fund PayPal payments and enable you to withdraw your balance.

4. Link a new bank account to your PayPal account. Check back into Wise and find the local account details you need. Enter the Wise account details into PayPal, review and submit.

5. Skip the step relating to setting up Direct Debits (by clicking ‘Finish later’) – PayPal may ask you a few times for this, but Direct Debits aren’t an option with Wise accounts so you will need to keep skipping this step.

6. Verify your new bank details. PayPal verifies its users by sending a tiny transaction to their new bank account along with a unique 4-digit code as a reference. This can take up to a few days to arrive, but hopefully it will happen in under a few hours. Keep checking your Wise account under ‘Incoming payments’ to find this transaction. Enter the accompanying code in your PayPal ‘Wallet’ as part of the ‘confirming your bank’ process. This should verify your account.

7. And that’s it! Your Wise details should be added to PayPal and you can choose this account as your withdrawal method whenever you need to.

As you can see, it’s just like adding any new bank account to your PayPal wallet. You can set these new details as your preferred bank account if you like, or use it only when payments in a particular currency come in.

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Summary

So that’s it – all the essentials you need to know to withdraw money from PayPal to your Wise account.

From there, you can hold up to 55 different currencies at once. It’s completely up to you whether you spend, send, convert or withdraw, and the tiny fees are always clear and upfront. This means you’re in the driving seat at all times.

The Wise Borderless account is ideal for freelancers and small businesses who trade internationally. However, it can also be handy if you need to receive money from friends and family in other countries.

Start saving today with Wise

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Sources used:

1. PayPal article
2. PayPal Merchant fees

Sources checked on 14-January 2021.