Move USD from PayPal to USD account in Canada

ocgltd
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I have a large USD balance in my PayPal account, and I want to transfer it to my USD bank account, in Canada.  I don't want to move the money from USD -> CAD -> USD as I will incur significant exchange fees.

 

I've tried several times to add my Canadian USD account to PayPal but it refuses (says Canadian accounts must contain CAD).  I tried to add this as a US bank account but that didn't work either.

 

Help - how do I get my money out without all the exchange fees?

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118 REPLIES 118

Musicman20
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Is your USA account associated with a Canadian bank like RBC Georgia?? And what information does transfer wise require?
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NeverAgain3
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Here's a guide on how to add a US TransferWise bank account to your Paypal account: https://icomparefx.com/library/guides/how-to-send-money-from-paypal-to-transferwise/

 

All you need to do is:

1. Sign up for Transferwise (you will be required to verify your identity with some government ID, I used my Driver's License)

2. Within Transferwise, you will have to activate your borderless account. (I believe you click Balances on the bottom left)

3. Click on the USD currency and you will have to make a deposit of a minimum of $20 USD. (You can pay in CAD, there is a fee for each payment method but using a direct debit it was only 5 cents. The conversion rate will be the market conversion rate.)

4. Once that's done, you will be able to get the details of the US bank account (routing and account #). Now head over to Paypal and add the bank account by clicking "Add a U.S. bank account instead." Enter in the info and you might be required to receive an sms to verify that it's you. If you instead get an error message saying "sorry, we can't add your bank account at this time" then you will have to contact customer service to get it done. If you don't, then you are done!

 

Note: the guide I posted also seems to say it works for OFX Global Currency Account.

 

Edit: Oh, my Transferwise is directly linked to my Canadian bank account. TransferWise comes in handy because once you withdraw your USD funds to TransferWise, you can use TransferWise's conversion rate (which is the real conversion rate). There might be a small fee, and withdrawing to your bank might have another, but it's overall much less than Paypal's 3% currency conversion rate.

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me_212
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@NeverAgain3 any luck? It didn't work for me. 

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NeverAgain3
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I haven't actually called yet as I'm still a student; midterms are coming up soon and this isn't a priority. When I do call and if it does work I'll follow up here.

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cali1122
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me_212
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@PepperMill how long ago did you do this?  I'm curious because I'm not sure if it's my US bank account that's the issue or if it's PayPal. 

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PepperMill
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I opened an OFX account a few years ago to do USD CAD exchanges at a better rate than the banks, but just recently got the Global Currency account attached to it so I can have USD from my Amazon account, and now USD from my PayPal account deposited. I use to have an RBC USA (Georgia) account set up to transfer to, but it was a personal account, and they sent me a notice saying they won't accept deposits from a business account (Amazon) I to a personal account anymore. So the OFX Global Currency account was the only solution I could come up with.
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Musicman20
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Hi Ok so if I open an OFX global account and can get my USD out of PayPal to an account that I will not be double exchange fees! Is there a website to join to get and OFX global account? Thank you
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Gasore
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I have also just came to a realization that PayPal won't allow to link with my US dollar TD account. Can someone advise how or if it's possible to open a US based account as a Canadian. Would that help as far as keeping money in US dollar currency so to avoid the ridiculous conversion fees charged when you withdraw to a Canadian account.

One more thing is it pretty easy to transfer from USD based account to a US dollar account domiciled in Canada.

Appreciate your insight on this!

Cheers! 

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bernk
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These are questions to ask your bank. I can't speak to how things work at TD, but with RBC I was able to link my US account to PayPal and it's very easy and instant to move money between my US account and Canadian USD account. I'm pretty sure I remember reading in this thread that TD also has a US-based branch.

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