PayPal is a well-known digital wallet and online payment system. These days PayPal is regarded as one of the safest and reliable methods of online payment.

Aside from sending and receiving payments, PayPal is also used in e-commerce, as means of payment for products and services on platforms/markets, where traditional debit and credit cards are not accepted.

If you often shop on eBay or Amazon, or any other less known marketplace, you may have come across a button similar to this:

Actually, some sellers states PayPal is the only means of payment they accept.

If you are having troubles, please remember that you can link the majority of credit and debit cards issued by major Polish banks, so if you have a bank account in Poland, and you got a debit card with it, there’s a 99.9% chance that this card can be linked to your PayPal account.

Why use PayPal to transfer money?

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we would like to take a closer look at using PayPal as a method of transferring money.

This method is used by many freelancers who work with international clients from outside the EU area, such as States, Asian Countries, and Eastern Europe.

Furthermore some countries create additional obstacles for freelancers, by imposing the so-called „foreign exchange controls” or „currency controls”.

Freelancers from countries, where such governmental controls are in place, are often forced to look for alternative solutions, so that they can keep working with their regular clients.

It should be mentioned, that the applicable Polish law does not impose any limitations or mandatory requirements similar to those mentioned above.

So, if you live in Poland and would like to work with clients from overseas, you can do that without any worries, and receive payments to your personal banking account directly, using SWIFT or IBAN wire transfers (or SEPA if your client is from the EU area, and the payment is made in EUR).

If you are curious if your foreign income is taxed in Poland or how to use UpWork here — take a look at our articles:

Sometimes however, clients just prefer to use PayPal rather than dealing with wire transfers and correspondent banks.

If that is your case, or you are just planning to start selling goods on various marketplaces, we will explain how to create a PayPal account in Poland.

How to create a PayPal account in Poland

First of all, if you come from a country where PayPal offers limited service, you don’t have to worry about such things in Poland, where you get access to PayPal’s full range of solutions, including withdrawing money to your personal banking account.

There are no restrictions to Polish accounts.

If you would like to open a Polish account, please follow this link: Create an account.

As you can see you can create two types of accounts: a personal one and a business one.

If you’re planning on using PayPal to shop online or to receive money from your clients abroad, working as a freelancer, personal account (made for individuals) is enough.

However if you are planning on running a marketplace, online store, you would like to operate under a company name, you should choose the business one (made for merchants).

PayPal may need to verify your account, so if you are currently residing in Poland, and using the PayPal services here in Poland, you may need to confirm it by providing such documents as:

  • Phone bills (landline or mobile);
  • Utility bills (electricity, gas);
  • Credit card statement;
  • Bank account statement;
  • proof of residence (address), issued by the local authorities.

You can find the full list here on PayPal’s website (the link is Polish). For business accounts additional verification may be needed.

Once your account’s been verified you can withdraw money to your personal account in a Polish bank.

Please remember: even though you can use PayPal as your digital wallet by linking your PayPal account to your credit or debit card, the actual withdrawal has to be made into a bank account.

Please, make sure that the legal name you used to register a PayPal account and the account holder name of your bank account are the same, and your bank account is denominated in PLN.

As for additional costs: there are no withdrawal fees.

Having troubles with PayPal? Not planning on moving to Poland? Take a look at our Virtual Company solutions.

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