My primary currency is USD and my entire paypal balance is in USD. I recently moved to Canada and would like to convert some of my balance to CAD so that I can transfer money or pay online in local currency. If I do this, will I pay the same 2.5% fee that I would pay if buying an item in a foreign currency with my USD balance, or is this fee free, with the only loss to me being the roughly 3 cent difference between paypal's conversion rate and the official rate?
rkathleen- You are correct in your assumption. Anytime a currency conversion is involved, you would pay the 2.5% fee to convert. Be it sending or receiving a payment or converting within your account balance.
