Move USD from PayPal to USD account in Canada

[ocgltd]

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?

[PepperMill]

Not sure it's already listed here, but I have the same problem, so I opened up an OFC Global Currency Account. They give you a US based USD bank account you can have the USD transferred into. There's no monthly fee for the account, but they do take a % when you transfer. Ends up way less than USD - CAD - USD fees.

Also, the exchange rate to go from USD to CAD is less than PayPal or your bank will charge.
Let's see if this gets trough the PayPal message screeners.

[ZekeDeEspanada]

@PepperMill I assume you mean OFX and not OFC? I searched OFC to see if there was a system I missed and could only find the Ottawa Flying Club!!! 🙂

If OFX, yes, they work great for large amounts and if you are moving over $5k, they waive the flat rate $5 fee. For smaller amounts, we've found Transferwise to be much cheaper. World Remit is close but each time I check, Transferwise is always better. Monito (.com) is a great site to get an instant comparison of the best rates of all the major transfer/exchange sites.

No, the PayPal message screeners didn't remove this post! Honestly, they should be monitoring these and using info like this to stay ahead of the competition. Honestly, there are so many new platforms and systems appearing to move funds internationally, PayPal (and the Banks) is going to have to adapt or be out competed. I liken it to IBM and their Personal Computer. A big company like that with a great hold on the early PC market but was too self confident and didn't innovate. As such, they are no longer in the PC business. Apple who started at the same time but kept finding new ways to keep customers loyal are still going strong. 

PayPal will need to adapt or find themselves irrelevant. 

Honestly, there are so many new platforms and systems appearing to move funds internationally, PayPal is going to have to adapt or be out competed. I liken it to IBM and their Personal Computer. A big company with a great hold on the early PC market but didn't innovate and are no longer in the PC business. Apple on the other hand keeps 

[Musicman20]

Hi, I am still very confused. I have US funds in my Canadian PayPal account and I have tried for years to try to get rid of it and make it to my US account. I have an RBC US account in Georgia and I could never sent money to it could you please explain one more time in point form how you went about it thank you

[ZekeDeEspanada]

@Musicman20 

Ok, real simple without the verbage:

1. Create a new email account
2. Set up a new PayPal Account using the new email account and the EXACT name used for your US Bank Account
3. Before you do anything else with the new PayPal Account, link your US Bank Account. Don't connect this account with your Canadian bank account. It will take a few day to send a micro deposits to your US Account to confirm your account.
4. Send USD in your original account to your new account using "Family and Friends" so that you don't pay fees.
5. Withdraw the balance in your new PayPal Account to your US Bank.
6. If you need the funds back in Canada, chose another platform with more favourable exchange rates to get the funds directly into your Canadian Account.

Clearer?

[me_212]

@ZekeDeEspanada Paypal CA definitely cracked down.  Both my friend & I tried it using different bank accounts (both checking & savings) & kept getting the same error message. ARGH! 

[ZekeDeEspanada]

@me_212 Sorry to hear this. It’s entirely possible they locked this out this past year. I do know how angry and frustrated I was with PayPal tech support this past year. All I know is that I spent a lot of time... and money ... trying to get this to work. And now it does. Hope I didn’t jeopardize this by posting our solution here. That said, we were only reliant on PayPal for one last tutoring platform, Preply, and they are days away from offering Transferwise as a mass pay option. So we will not need PayPal anymore in the next week or so. I hope PayPay realizes they need to awake to the competition staring them in the face.

[me_212]

@ZekeDeEspanada no worries.  it was actually really nice of you to try to help us & you've been really responsive :-). It's PP's fault. You're so lucky that you looked into this & was able to find a solution. I was told by PayPal that I had no choice 3 years ago so let it drop. 

Is there a way I can DM you?

[NeverAgain3]

This is unfortunate. I created a TransferWise account and almost succeeded in adding the US based account to my Canadian PayPal account. Why almost? Because once I typed in the routing and account number, I had to verify that it was me via an SMS text. However, my cellphone wasn't available at the time so I decided to add the bank account later. The following day I tried and now I get the error message "sorry, we can’t link your bank account right now." This sucks. I always wonder if I would have gotten it to work the first time... This was 3 days ago.

[ZekeDeEspanada]

@NeverAgain3 Transferwise recently updated their US Bank info. I received an email from them Jan 15. It indicated you could connect your account with PayPal and Stripe. So I tried connecting to our PayPal account and voila! Worked perfectly. You have to confirm with micro deposits like with the bank. I also connected the TransferWise USD account with my US bank account. The bank initially balked but after providing verification ID, they now just treat it like any other US bank transfers. So keep trying!

[NeverAgain3]

Yep you're right! I talked to an online support agent yesterday and initially they said that I could only link a bank account to a paypal account within the same country. I replied back saying that was untrue, and they replied back with the same response worded in a different way. I then took a screenshot of the "Link a U.S. Bank instead" option and questioned them why Paypal would even have that option if it wasn't available for use, and this time a different agent replied back saying that I CAN add a U.S. bank account (NOT a Canadian account holding USD funds) to a Canadian Paypal account. However, the system was preventing me from doing so, thus giving the error "sorry, we cannot link your bank account at this time." The agent said I just need to give a call to verify some things before allowing me to link my U.S. bank.

I'm not sure if failing my first attempt to verify via sms when linking my U.S. account triggered the system to give the error msg the second time, consequently requiring me to call customer service to get it resolved. Anyways, for anyone else having trouble, I suggest linking a U.S. based account from TransferWise to your PayPal account, as TransferWise's exchange rates are the same as the market exchange rate. They have a fee but it's so much less than PayPal's currency exchange fee. This is finally over.