30 min read How to Use PayPal in Banned Countries

What is PayPal?

According to Wikipedia, PayPal Inc. is an American company operating a worldwide online payments system that supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders.

Why Do We Need a PayPal Account?

If you are on this page, you probably know what PayPal is, what it does, and why it’s a must to have an active PayPal account.

For those that are still wondering why we need PayPal, well, to put it simply, we need it to get paid and thrive online.

The truth is that if you are looking to make some money online, you will need a PayPal account one way or another.

Please don’t get me wrong, there are other ways to get paid online, but most of them are stressful to set up compared to PayPal.

Some of the top-rated payment providers out there include Payoneer, Payza, and so on. Payoneer, for example, allows you to own a US checking account that can receive payments from any business in the world (not individuals).

Your Payoneer US account is linked to a card that will be sent to you for you to withdraw your cash anywhere, anytime.

The card works on most ATMs, and you get to receive your cash in your local currency. You can get your Payoneer account for free here.

Why PayPal Doesn’t Work in Your Country

Getting an answer to this one was quite tough. I had to browse through a lot of articles online to get this fact. I mean, why on earth would PayPal not support certain countries?

Well, it’s quite simple. Government and security.

That’s the valid reason why PayPal doesn’t work in some countries. It’s worth pointing out that most of the restricted countries come from the Middle East and Africa.

By the way, if you want to receive funds from abroad but can't, look into this https://www.zintego.com/

And it’s due to the lack of security in some countries, and a proper banking system that supports PayPal integration without compromising the customers.

Enough about PayPal and their story. Let’s learn how to open PayPal in an banned country like a pro.

How to Use PayPal in Banned Countries

Please follow the steps below carefully if you want to use PayPal in a banned country.

As with any proper guide, it’s always an excellent idea to list out the things we will need for this operation to work out.

The Requirements

For this to work out well, please get the following ready before proceeding to the next section;

• International passport
• An active email address
• A phone number
• Physical address

Now that you have everything in place, let’s bust PayPal’s door open, shall we?

Step 1 – Visit the URL

In order to create a valid PayPal account, we need to change the default URL we are redirected to when we visit PayPal’s website.

To achieve this, visit the link; https://paypal.com.

Wait for the redirection; now you should have a URL similar to this in your browser’s address bar; https://www.paypal.com/COUNTRY-CODE/home.

Change your “COUNTRY-CODE” in the URL to “is” (image in step 2), then press ENTER. You will be redirected to PayPal Iceland’s homepage.

Step 2 – Sign Up

On the new homepage, click the “Sign Up” button at the top right corner to register an account.

Choose a business account, then click continue. This should bring you to an email form. Enter a valid, and active email address to proceed.

After entering your email address, it should take you to a signup page asking for additional details.

Fill in the signup form with your details and click continue.

It’s also worth mentioning that you can use a fake address or fake phone number without any problems, but I wouldn’t recommend that.

Keep in mind that if you intend to scam people by creating a fake PayPal account, you will be caught! I’m very serious about that, and you shouldn’t try it either.

You might have a little problem bypassing the postal code. Use any of the following to move to the next step: 00233, 760, 765, 310, 620, or 820.

Click “continue” to move to the next step.

Step 3 – Business Information

Here, you will fill in more details about your business. For business type, choose whatever applies to your business, but since it’s not fully legit, go with “Individual.”

Choose a business category that fits your business, and enter your business website, if you have one. It’s optional.

The account holder’s information follows next. This is where your international passport or driving licence comes into play.

This step varies, because some are asked to upload a scanned copy of their ID while others have to input their ID number and date of birth.

Whichever comes your way, just follow through with it. It’s not that serious, believe me.

Click “continue” to finally create your PayPal account.

You should now see a page asking you to confirm your email address.

Congratulations! You now have an active PayPal account in a banned country.

How to Link a Card to Your PayPal Account

You can add any card that has a MasterCard or VISA logo on it. Most of them work well for this verification. From your dashboard, click to add a new card and input your card details.

You will receive two small charges of under $2. It might take 24 hours. This charge will come with a code in your transaction history, and that is what you will use to verify your card.

Once that’s done, you will receive an email stating that your restrictions have been removed, but have they really been removed for good?

Removing PayPal Account Limits

I should warn you about the limits, though. PayPal has put a security measure in place to reduce fraud, so there’s a sending limit of $3,400+ yearly on every new account.

In order to remove this limit, you need a valid bank account in the country (Iceland) to do this (from a relative or friend).

But I’ve heard rumours that you can use Payoneer’s checking bank account to remove the limit.

But I doubt if it will work because you get a US checking account from Payoneer, but the country we used is different (Iceland). So I don’t see how that plays out.

But you can try it out, and let me know in the comment section below. ** This doesn't work any more, and it will cause more restrictions on your PayPal account.

Why Didn't We Create a US PayPal Account?

Creating a US PayPal account is very stressful, and also requires a serious workaround to make it work, and most of them need a VPN.

Also, we will need to provide some real documents in the long run, which might get our account suspended or deleted.

How to Withdraw Your PayPal Funds

As I mentioned earlier, this method is not fully legit because we’re probably breaking some rules in PayPal’s terms and conditions page.

The normal way to withdraw funds would have been to link your bank account to your PayPal account and wait for PayPal to settle the funds under some hours or days.

But since it’s not really legit, the way around this is to visit exchange forums to trade PayPal funds for cash, gift cards, or buy bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency with it.

The best way to get your money in your bank account is to trade your PayPal funds for crypto on P2P exchange sites. And Paxful is the best place to do just that.

In case you are wondering what Paxful is. Paxful is a Peer-to-Peer Cypto marketplace connecting buyers with sellers.

You simply select your preferred payment method and type in how many bitcoins you want in exchange for your PayPal funds, and you pay with your PayPal balance.

Once you have your PayPal funds changed to Bitcoin, simply sell the Bitcoin to someone in your country and receive your cash in full in your bank account.

Your money is safely held in escrow until you’ve confirmed your funds in your bank account or vice-versa.

NB: Always check the rating of the buyer on Paxful before opening a trade with them.

So that’s it.

If you feel this post has helped you in some way, don't forget to share it with your friends.

If you are still here, drop a comment below and find help with expect on your paypal issues.