How To Create A Working PayPal Account In Nigeria [2022]

Not many payment platforms come close to PayPal in terms of their security and speed of processing international transactions. PayPal is a US-based online payment platform that operates as an intermediary for sending and receiving payments internationally. The platform also stands as a link for processing online transactions on many merchant sites and is currently available in more than 200 countries or regions of the world, including Africa, with support of over 25 currencies.

The list of countries currently supported by PayPal services is exhaustive, there is not enough time to list them all here. What is more interesting is that several countries have been blacklisted from using PayPal services fully and Nigeria happened to be one of them.

With the Nigerian PayPal account, you can send money to other PayPal recipients and buy products from merchant sites but you cannot receive money with it. This has caused many Nigerian freelancers, and other online business operators to lose deals or result in extreme difficulty when receiving money from abroad, as they will be forced to use other payment channels that are more cumbersome or that their client might not be comfortable with.

According to a source, it is believed that Nigeria was blacklisted due to the high number of credit card frauds that emanated from the country in 2014 but a better explanation is that the company may not have enough staff and facilities to ensure the verification of users from this region, also considering the political and security instability of the country.

PayPal has become very popular for sending and receiving payments globally but Nigerians have been denied this golden benefit for far too long.

I was going through the PayPal FAQs recently, and I saw how Nigerians were lamenting in the questions sections, painfully appealing to PayPal to allow full services for PayPal users in Nigeria. The best response I ever saw was “Sorry, you can only send money using a Nigerian PayPal account”, bla-bla-bla.

But here is some good news for you…

With this method I will show you here, you can have a fully functional PayPal account in Nigeria. You don’t have to forge any documents to get this done, just a little workaround. So sit back and enjoy the ride.

Before we delve into the working steps to creating a functional PayPal account in Nigeria, here are a few precautions you should not waste your time/money on.

• Do not try to open a US account while in Nigeria, or create fake documents online. Only do so if you stay abroad and you have access to applying and getting your official document there. You will get stuck at some point, you will have wasted efforts and your received funds will be gone too.
• There is no need to waste time and money to get apps that provide a foreign number for OTP, verifications, etc. Your Nigerian phone will work just fine.
• This article will take you through every step you need to get your PayPal account working. You do not need to pay anyone to get it, except if you feel so, and of course, you can tip me if you really feel you need to give out some money.

Just before I head on to show you how you can create a working Nigerian PayPal account, here are some reasons why you need a PayPal account.

Why You Need a PayPal Account in Nigeria (Advantages of PayPal)

Like you may have already known, PayPal is not the only platform for receiving funds internationally but it is by far the commonest among them. Other alternatives to PayPal include:

1. Payoneer
2. Western Union
3. Skrill
4. Bank Wire
5. 2checkout
6. Transferwise, etc

I’m quite certain you have never even heard of some of the alternatives listed above but it’s not your fault really. PayPal has showcased so many advantages over many of them, such that it is impossible to keep away from using their services. These are as follows:

Secure transactions

Transactions on PayPal are very secure. You don’t have to give out your credit card details to merchant websites. PayPal takes care of that for you once your card has been linked. Also, sending money to another PayPal user is as easy as it is when you do your normal bank transfer, only that in this case, it’s between two PayPal accounts.

Wide coverage and client-base

PayPal being the most popular medium for international transactions is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It is an advantage generally to everyone, but to Nigerians and other countries that have restricted access to PayPal’s services, this is a huge disadvantage. Hence, the need to find a way to create a local, hassle-free account that has all the functionality of standard PayPal accounts.

PayPal is very convenient for payment and most clients you would receive payments from would prefer it over other payment mediums.

Easy operation

I have said this countless times. PayPal is very easy to operate. It’s simplistic, with straightforward links that take you where exactly you want to be. Sending or receiving money is just a few clicks away. It also makes online shopping a much more interesting experience.

Flexible debit/credit card support

PayPal supports different kinds of credit/debit cards, from Mastercard to VISA, and can also be directly linked to your US Bank account if you have one.

Now, let’s get started on how to get your PayPal Nigeria up and running.

How To Create A Working Nigerian PayPal Account

In this section, I will show you the step by step of how to create a fully functional PayPal account in Nigeria that sends and receives money with all the functionality of a standard PayPal account. However, if you want us to help you create your PayPal account so that you don’t run into any irreversible errors, click here to contact us now.

Now, let’s see the requirements.

Requirements for Opening a PayPal Nigeria Account

Here are the requirements for opening a PayPal Nigeria account;

1. An active Nigerian phone number (from any service provider – preferably those that do not have problems receiving OTP
2. Any National Identity Card (e.g, NIN, Voters Card, etc)
3. A functional email that is not already connected to another PayPal account
4. An internet browser (of course, you visited this page with one eligible browser already)

Now, let’s get down to the steps of creating a working PayPal account in Nigeria.

Steps to Create a Working PayPal Nigeria Account

For sake of simplicity, I will break this into the following categories;

• Registration
• Accessing your account
• Updating information and linking your card
• Funding your account

Registration

• First, visit the PayPal website using this link. That will redirect you to the PayPal Lesotho page. Lesotho is an African country that is fully supported by PayPal’s services. If you are using your smartphone browser, you should switch to “Desktop Mode” in the browser. The page that opens will be as shown below;

• Next, click on “Sign up for Free”

• On the next page, select “Business Account” and click “Continue”. Do not use Personal Account.

• On the next screen, type in your valid email address not already associated with another PayPal account.

• Then, enter your desired password on the next screen while following their password instructions there.

• Thereafter, you will be asked to fill in your business details as shown below. Enter matching valid personal and business information or coin any new name for your business if you do not have a registered business name. (Not to worry, this will not require extra verification later)

• Then, click on the dropdown menu in the section for “business phone number” and select the Nigerian flag (corresponding to +234 telephone code). Thereafter, input your phone number in the space provided. Ensure that the Nigerian flag is selected and your phone number is correctly typed in.

• Next, input your state’s specific postal code or use “00234” if you don’t know it.

• In this next section, leave your primary currency as “US Dollar” and then tick the checkbox below it, to agree to the User Agreement and Privacy Statement. This is mandatory.

• Then, click on “Agree and Submit”.

• The next steps will be about verifying your business and personal information. Continue by providing details about your business (Type of business type, product or service category and website URL if any) and then, click on continue. If your business does not exactly match any category in the list, you can select any related option or “Miscellaneous General Merchandise”.

• On the next page, confirm your personal details (date of birth, nationality and type of identification document you want to use). Then, verify your identity by typing in the identification number on your national identification document (NIN can be used).

• If you have your NIN, select National ID and input your 11-digit national identification number in the popup box.

• Finally, check the checkbox you will find below the previous step (below “current residential address” to use the same address you provided earlier as your business address and click on “Submit” to complete the registration

• Very finally, an email will be sent to the email address you provided. Open the mail from PayPal and click on the link in it to confirm your registration. Congrats, you now have a fully working PayPal Nigeria account to send and receive money and to do all your online shopping.

Accessing Your Account

After your account has been confirmed, visit https://www.paypal.com again. This time, it may redirect you to the link you earlier used. Then, log in with the email and password you used in signing up. Note that, you need to ensure that you have full access to the phone number you used to register because this point might sometimes require you to verify your identity and possibly change your password but this does not happen all the time.

Updating Information and Linking Your Card

After logging in, first, secure your account by navigating to the “login and security” section in the profile settings menu.

Then, add a valid PayPal ATM card. Not all cards are supported by PayPal. In this post, I have shown you how to get an ATM card that can be used to withdraw money from PayPal in Nigeria. Note that, Flutterwave card is currently not supported by PayPal Nigeria.

Funding your PayPal wallet

If you want to fund your card for online transactions, the procedure is as simple as “ABC”. The best way is to send money into it from another PayPal account. You could ask a friend/relative to gift you money via PayPal or pay them some cash equivalent in return.

You can also fund your wallet from your linked debit card which will convert your money to US dollars at the exchange rate of the time. Alternatively, you can buy PayPal funds from online money exchanges at varying rates but this is not very recommended, except if you know the person personally.

For most transactions, PayPal can directly pay from your linked debit card without funding the Paypal wallet first.

You can also create invoices or request payments from clients, check your transaction history and many other benefits that PayPal ordinarily restricted from Nigerian PayPal users.