You can use PayPal in Nigeria to make payments only. You cannot receive payments with a PayPal account registered in Nigeria. But if you would like to know how other Nigerians use PayPal account to receive payments in Nigeria, read on.

Meanwhile, the picture above is what it looks like to have a PayPal account in Nigeria.

First of all, How can I use PayPal in Nigeria?

Step 1: Signup on PayPal.com

You would need to head on to paypal.com, which would redirect you to paypal.com/ng. The “/ng” is the Top Level Domain (TLD) for Nigeria. Like many other companies, PayPal usually use country specific TDL per country.

This will also determine the level of privilege you will have on PayPal.

If you visited paypal.com/ls, which is a TLD for Lesotho’s PayPal, you would have certain privileges that is not on the “/ng”.

Privilleges such as:

• Can receive funds into your PayPal balance as family and friends (fnf). With fnf, PayPal usually will charge the sender a flat fee of 4.99 USD.
• Can send funds to another PayPal user as goods and service (gns). With gns, PayPal usually will charge the sender a percent of every amount you send out of your PayPal account.
• Can withdraw or transfer funds to your Visa card balance in your country.

So that is one way to explain the visible difference between the various PayPal TLDs.

At the signup page, the first thing you would see is the provision to input a phone number

After you have input your number, you would be required to verify your phone number. After verification, you should proceed to input your email and verify accordingly.

Since you can only use your PayPal Nigeria account for payments, you would have little stress opening a paypal account in Nigeria.

Next would be to input your details like your name, date of birth etc.

Then you would need to add a payment option, which is a debit or credit card to your PayPal account.

This will be the only option from which you can spend on PayPal.

A Nigerian PayPal account does not have a PayPal balance. Hence you will always spend from your card each time you want to make payment with PayPal.

The Cons of PayPal for Nigeria

There are a few thing to note if you want to determine the use case of a Nigerian PayPal.

Especially after you have heard it can only be used for payments.

You may be wondering on if there is anything wrong if you only had to make payments with your PayPal account.

Especially that you have seen PayPal as a payment option in many of the websites you shop online.

If you could only have a PayPal account that enables you transaction on such websites, what could be the disadvantage.

First, you can only spend on your card

This is the same thing as putting your card details on these websites and just simply make your payments.

Rather than having to go through the “hurdle” of adding it to a PayPal account.

Thereafter login to your PayPal account before you can make payments.

So the question would be why do you have to go through so many process rather than one.

In an attempt to make payments online?

Can I use PayPal in Nigeria?

Second, you will not have a PayPal balance

Not having a PayPal balance means you cannot send or receive funds from and to other PayPal users.

This gives you very limited privilege of PayPal

Can I use PayPal in Nigeria?

Third, you will really have no need of a PayPal for Nigeria

This is because why many Nigerians use PayPal for payments over a credit or debit cards is thus:

The Nigerian Naira has a track record of growing weaker almost every year since its inception.

And this impacts negatively when a Nigerian buys online with their credit or debit card

One is with the exchange rate.

Two is with the spending limit.

How do you explain the frustration of being restricted from spending your own money due to stringent bank or national policies?

The screenshot above, was me trying to make payment on Alibaba with my Nigerian card.

The payment was about $420.00 USD (184,314.00 in Naira).

I was told it would exceed my monthly limit of $100.00 USD (43,945.00 in Naira).

This was with an exchange rate of N438.84 NGN / $USD.

Can you imagine such limitation?

Can I use PayPal in Nigeria

The Pros of PayPal for Nigeria

Can you imagine that after I had gone through numerous frustration and then I finally bought a PayPal funds for 340 naira per dollar?

That would have been an amazing cost saving option for me.

But with a PayPal for Nigeria, this is not yet the case.

It is really hard to figure out one way PayPal for Nigeria is of an advantage.

Nevertheless, some have said it helped them run a Facebook ads.

And this was counted as an advantage where their card was initially refused by Facebook.

Even if this works, you would be charged from your card.

And this means still at the same rate as using a card directly to run your ads.

Can I use PayPal in Nigeria

So what are the known ways Nigerians use PayPal in Nigeria?

Many Nigerians utilize neighboring African countries PayPal to fill in the gap.

Countries such as Lesotho, Mozambique, Kenya and South Africa are some of the prominent African countries where a PayPal account has full function.

In this post on how to open a Lesotho PayPal account in Nigeria, I broke down everything you need to know about this country’s PayPal option.

With each of these countries, you can open a PayPal account from Nigeria. Add your Nigerian card, and still have a PayPal balance.

With this PayPal balance, you can buy PayPal funds from freelancers at an affordable rate. For as low as 340 Naira per Dollar and save huge amount.

What other means do you use PayPal in Nigeria, leave a comment below.