Paypal multiple countries

January 25, 2010 5:39 AM

I live in Australia and I have a Paypal account there with an Australian bank account attached to it. If I open a bank account in another country can I associate it to the same Paypal account?

If that's not possible, is it legal to have two paypal accounts in different countries?

posted by neworder7 to Work & Money (4 answers total)

When I moved from Tokyo to London to New York, I had to actually close my account and reopen it each time. Although that is the process for *moving* countries, which may be different to what you want to do.
posted by avex at 7:22 AM on January 25, 2010

I know from experience that the same account cannot have both Canadian and UK credit cards configured with it (specifically, a Canadian PayPal account refuses the UK card and vice-versa).

However, it is possible to attach and detach email addresses from a PayPal account, and I have done so a few times. Currently I have both a Canadian and a UK PayPal account and have "moved" one of my email addresses between them in both directions.
posted by joeycoleman at 7:46 AM on January 25, 2010

I have bank accounts in two countries (although a credit card in only one). In my experience, you can't change the country on any address that PayPal has for you (that is, you can't change the country of the address associated with your bank account or credit card).

If you try to add a new bank account, the Web site defaults to the banking requirements for your country. For example, I originally created my PayPal account using a bank account and credit card associated with a mailing address in the U.S. So PayPal asks me for an American routing number and bank account number. There isn't a place to select a different country.

If you try to add a new credit card, you can start entering information, but a) the site will only offer you the credit card types that are available in your "home" country, and the "country" portion of the address isn't changeable.

I know someone who recently had a long, drawn-out e-mail argument with PayPal support about wanting to change the country on his account. They instructed him to open a new account. So that's not only okay, it's what PayPal wants forces you to do.
posted by transporter accident amy at 9:08 AM on January 25, 2010

I have associated a bank account in the USA with a Paypal account in Canada. Of course, your situation will be different, but why not just try?

I also have had both US and Canadian accounts simultaneously. There is no problem that I am aware of, though of course, you can't associate the same credit card with both of them simultaneously.
posted by ssg at 9:52 AM on January 25, 2010