Jerri L. Ledford has been writing, editing, and fact-checking tech stories since 1994. Her work has appeared in Computerworld, PC Magazine, Information Today, and many others.
Updated on December 3, 2021 Reviewed byRyan Perian is a certified IT specialist who holds numerous IT certifications and has 12+ years' experience working in the IT industry support and management positions.
This article explains a couple of ways to receive money at your PayPal account. One is by email and one requires a PayPal.Me link. It includes information on fees related to receiving money and transfering balances.
Receiving money through PayPal is as easy as having an email address. When someone sends you a payment, you get an email from PayPal notifying you of the transaction. The money is automatically credited to your available PayPal balance.
If you do not have a PayPal account, you can sign up in just a few steps.
Another way to receive money on PayPal is to share a PayPal.Me link. PayPal.Me allows users to share a URL instead of an email address to receive payments. This is helpful for vendors who would prefer not to give their email address out to customers.
If you have a PayPal account, you can create a PayPal.Me link by following these instructions.
Log into or sign up for a PayPal account. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll be prompted to set up your PayPal.Me address.
Choose this link wisely. You can only create one, and once you’ve created it, it is yours for as long as you have a PayPal account.
If you already have a PayPal.Me link but are not sure where it is, you can find it on your PayPal profile.
Here’s how to find your PayPal.Me link:
When receiving money through PayPal, there are no fees applied to your PayPal balance so long as:
If the sender is using a credit or debit card to send you money (rather than a PayPal balance), they pay a 2.9 percent fee plus a fee of up to $4.99 depending on the amount of the transaction.
Senders that are transferring money to you from another country pay a fee of $0.99 to $4.99, depending on the total value of the payment. There will also be a 2.9 percent fee and a fixed fee determined by the country of origin. You can find those fees on PayPal's list of fixed fees for sending in other currencies. As the recipient, however, you pay any conversion fees that are necessary to convert the funds from a foreign currency to U.S. dollars.
If you are a U.S. PayPal account holder, it is usually free to transfer payments you receive from your PayPal account into a connected checking account. The transfer is reviewed and can take 3-5 business days to complete. If you need your money faster, you can use an eligible debit card to get an Instant Transfer, which usually takes about 30 minutes to complete. There is a fee associated with Instant Transfers of 1% of the total amount transferred, with a maximum of $10.
There are also transaction limits for transferring funds from your personal PayPal account. They are:
Receiving money through PayPal is easy. Transferring funds is where things get tricky. However, you can usually transfer money to your connected checking account without much difficulty.