Is there a residency requirement for a beneficial owner?

[derekp99]

A number of us have spent numerous hours on the phone and on the PayPal portal and PayPal community sites trying to resolve an issue and I have rarely in my career felt so frustrated or helpless...

Our PayPal account is connected to our USD and CAD accounts with the Royal Bank of Canada as well as to our corporate American Express.  After using PayPal for some time to make payments, we decided we wanted to be able to accept customer payments as well using PayPal.  

We were asked to go through the items on the Identity Confirmation Dashboard and all was fine except with regards to "Proof of Address" for our "Beneficial Owner" who owns 66% of the company and resides in Australia.  For obvious reasons, we were unable to upload any of the CRA documents that PayPal lists.

1 - does the beneficial owner have to reside in the country associated with the business/PayPal account?

2 - would it be acceptable to list myself instead, as I am ceo of the company and I reside in Canada?

I am on hold (again) with PayPal, and I have been waiting 25 minutes so far...

Please, someone, put me out of my misery!

[PayPal_JonK]

Hello @derekp99,

Welcome to our Community Forums! I understand this is a bit of a confusing process. When adding Beneficial Owners, we're normally asking for 1 controller and any other individuals who have a 25% or more equity interest in the company. There is no residency requirement for Beneficial Owners, however we may ask for supporting documentation proving date of birth, full name, position in company, residential address, and / or SSN / Passport / government ID number for each owner. 

I hope that helps!

 - Jon K

[derekp99]

Thanks Jon!  That is helpful to know... (but) we have repeatedly submitted various documents for him - passport, driver's license, bank statement, credit card statement, etc - and all have been rejected.  Our majority owner is Australian and he resides in Australia.  The docs listed as acceptable e.g. CRA statement, are not ones that he would have.