On 1st October 2025 we stopped accepting USD donations via PayPal. Here's why. To begin with, PayPal changes a whopping 4.89% (base 2.90% + 1.99% US surcharge) + 0.30 USD fixed fee. As an example: On 50 USD they change 2.75%, so effectively 5.5%.
And that's not where it stops. With a PayPal account in Europe we are forced to convert USD to Euros at PayPal's atrocious conversion rates. That's were they pocket another 3% of markup. So effectively, for USD donations, PayPal help themselves to 8.5% of the incoming funds.
A while ago we researched ways of transferring the USD to an account or debit card denominated in USD. For starters, our European PayPal account does't allow linking to a USD denominated bank account, they only allow you to link Euro accounts from European banks.
When trying to "push" funds into a VISA debit card, PayPay stops such transfers with dubious error messages, like you can see in the picture: "We're sorry but we were unable to approve your request to transfer $XXXX.00 USD to your card". During the transaction, we see this:
And we're not the only ones. The message varies, see this Reddit post:
"There's a problem. Right now, we are not able to complete this transaction" (from Feb. 2024)
"These can't be used for Instant Transfers: Revolut Bank UAB" (July 2024)
but the facts are the same: PayPal wants to enforce their additional fee.
UPDATE: We talked to three PayPal customer fooling agents, and these were their statements:
- Number 1: We at PayPal did everything correctly, the credit card company declined the deposit.
- Number 2: Change the account's main currency to USD and wait two hours, I will call you back. They never did, and their suggestion didn't work.
- Number 3: We received a lecture that the currency in Spain was the Euro and that it was therefore simply not possible to transfer anything out except in Euros.
So two ignorants and one outright condescending.
UPDATE 2A: We filed a complaint and this was there answer:
I see you have tried to complete a fast withdrawal to your card X-xxxx several times but have been unsuccessful. However, this is not due to your PayPal account having some kind of restriction or block for this process. [...] The reason for this error could be that, since it is a fast withdrawal, in which we need an immediate response from your bank, due to not receiving a prompt response from their system, the process fails, and it cannot be completed. This is something rather common with cards issued by international online banks [...].
Then they went on to suggest converting the USD to Euros at 3% commission and transferring them out via the bank account option.
UPDATE 2B: Yet another PayPal answer saying the same thing:
Keep in mind, this does not mean there is something wrong with your card, it's simply that the system determines automatically whether a card can receive a transfer from our accounts or not, if you do not see it listed, or you see an error when trying to select the card for the withdrawal, it is due to it not being compatible with that process in PayPal. In this case, I'd recommend you use your bank account linked to PayPal so you can transfer this balance.
UPDATE 3: Answer from the so-called "international online bank":
Although PayPal allows sending money to Debit or Credit cards, [the bank] only accepts transfers [using] account details, not to the card’s 16-digit number.
So we don't have 100% certainty, but it looks like PayPal did the "right thing", however, it conveniently for them didn't match with the receiving system. Still, it doesn't excuse the mind-blowing (quoted from the Reddit post) exchange rate they apply and the fact that they only allow linking Euro accounts.
UPDATE 4: We tried to link three more different credit cards, but those were rejected right away, two of them seen here:
We're in the process of closing PayPal altogether and setting up Revolut instead.
Note: Screenshot of a genuine PayPal e-mail (logo cropped/blurred for trademark reasons)