Between countries

[ozsubrosa]

Hello, I'm probably not the only person this could apply to, but I haven't seen it resolved elsewhere. I'm a UK resident, but I've owned a property in Spain for many years and used it for holidays. Now I'm retired, I'm still a UK resident but I spend longer periods of time in Spain. I have a Spanish bank account but, as a non-resident, I don't have any debit or credit card on a Spanish account.

I'd like to purchase items on ebay (for example) but I don't want to keep having them sent to my UK address and physically bringing them over to Spain myself. I tried adding my Spanish address to my current Paypal account but that didn't work out. Can I add my Spanish address and pay directly using my UK bank account? Are UK debit/credit cards unuseable on Paypal if I request sending to Spain? Is my only option to set up a new, different Paypal account with my Spanish address and bank details? That's my least favourite as I'd be constantly switching money around. Any ideas?

[kernowlass]

@ozsubrosa

Paypal is country specific so if you move country you have to open another paypal account in that country and add an address / phone number / and bank accounts from within that country.

[ozsubrosa]

Thanks for the quick response. As most of my affairs are in the UK, I was hoping to just add an additional address. Still, for small/cheap items, it shouldn't be too much of a headache to create a Paypal account that takes money out of my Spanish bank account. But... this is Spain! It's never easy.

[ozsubrosa]

Something has made it difficult, as I thought, but not what I was expecting. I opened a new Paypal account, with my Spanish address, 'phone number and bank details. I went through the confirmation and verification steps and Bingo! I had a Paypal account that I could send and receive money from linked to my Spanish address.

However, I used ebay.es to purchase an item from Hong Kong and clicked "Buy it Now" (Spanish equivalent). The price was in GBP and, when I opt to pay by Paypal, it didn't open up so that I could pay. Instead, it insisted that I add a debit or credit card. As a non-resident, my account doesn't offer me a debit or credit card (tried all of my UK cards and AmEx with no success).

I'm stuck now having clicked "Buy it Now" but can't pay by Paypal unless I revert to my UK Paypal account, and it will be sent to the wrong address for my purposes. I've messaged the seller (in English, seeing as it's Hong Kong) to ask if a separate invoice can be sent as Spanish Paypal seems to operate fine outside of ebay. Other than that, I'm out of ideas. Anyone else have a suggestion?

[PayPal_DavidR]

Hi there,

You could send funds from your UK PayPal account to your Spanish PayPal account before making the purchase. You can also use prepaid cards on your Spanish account as a workaround.

-David R

[ozsubrosa]

Thanks, David. Sorry I didn't thank you earlier. In the end, the seller was happy to take from paypal UK and send to my address in Spain. Of course, Correos in Spain lost the item...