How to Easily Open a PayPal Account in Nigeria (and Verify It)

How can I open a PayPal account in Nigeria, Is PayPal available for Nigerians, Can I send and receive funds using PayPal in Nigeria A lot of queries related to “PayPal Nigeria” are trending on search engines till this moment.

And I’m sure it is because you are among these smart entrepreneurs who are earnestly in need of a PayPal account in Nigeria, that’s why you landed on this page either from social media or a search engine.

But whatever the case may be, I will teach you right in this blog post how to create your own PayPal account in Nigeria that sends and receives funds.

In case you’re just hearing the term “PayPal“, it’s the world’s most popular method of payment used and accepted by many countries across the globe.

With a PayPal account, you can receive money from people living abroad (US, UK, Canada, India, etc.) and you will not provide them details of your Nigeria bank account. All you need to do in order to receive money from people through PayPal within and outside Nigeria is to provide them with your email address as used in the PayPal Account creation.

Unfortunately, PayPal doesn’t support users from Nigeria and this has become a major threat to making money online in the country because most of these online business requires PayPal for funds withdrawal.

But PayPal is gradually considering us but many of us in Nigeria still face some difficulties opening a PayPal account that sends and receives money efficiently.

PayPal’s consideration of Nigerians is not that okay because most Nigerians with PayPal accounts are unable to make money online due to the fact that a Nigerian PayPal account can not send or receive money conveniently and accurately.

Although there are ways to bypass this by using VPN etc..

But, this post seeks to enlighten Nigerians who intend to make money online on the official procedure for opening a PayPal account in Nigeria that sends and receives money.

Let’s talk about it right now…..

How to Open a PayPal Account in Nigeria

1.      Define your purpose

Before going on to set up your Nigeria’s PayPal account, you’ll need to have a well-defined purpose for opening.

This is what I mean, Are you a merchant, freelancer, affiliate marketer, or an internet marketer who wishes to accept payment through PayPal, you’re good to go.

Although PayPal isn’t made primarily for online businesses only, you can still make payments if you’re into the analog (offline) business world, but it’s not recommended.

Simply put; if you do digital business, accept digital payments through PayPal in Nigeria. If on the other hand, you’re on the analogue side of the divide, it’s best you stick with your conventional mode of payment.

The bottom line is knowing what you need for the PayPal account but, before thinking of opening a PayPal account in Nigeria.

The requirements to open a PayPal Account in Nigeria?

You don’t need much in order to get a verified PayPal account in Nigeria. But you’ll need the following:

• An active email address
• A government-issued ID card (National ID card, Voters card, Driver’s license, etc.)
• Your debit card (MasterCard or Visa)
• And your computer (or smartphone) with a data connection.

If you have gotten those items listed above, then let’s start creating your PayPal account together.

2.      Visit PayPal’s official website

Make sure you’re doing this on a PC or a good smartphone in “Desktop Mode” using a good browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

Then, Go to www.paypal.com and you will be redirected to https://www.paypal.com/ng.

PRO TIP: PayPal Nigeria has a lot of limitations, I recommend opening a PayPal account in other countries.  For instance, Lesotho’s PayPal works perfectly and without a VPN. Got to https://www.paypal.com/ls.

3.      Click on SIGN UP

After visiting the official PayPal account website, at the homepage (the header), choose sign up since you’re creating a new PayPal account.

Afterwards, fill in the following details:

• Choose your country (Nigeria)
• Fill in your first name
• Fill in your last name (Your Surname)
• Input your valid email address. I’ll advise you to create a new email for this purpose (you’ll be asked for a phone number later on).
• Choose a suitable password. Note that Passwords should include alphabets, decimals, and special characters like !?&-*;:#@.
• Re-enter your password to CONFIRM and
• Select NEXT.

4.      Fill In Your Correct Personal Details

The next page will request your personal contact details. It’s a common trend among Nigerians to provide incorrect details while filling out forms either online or offline. Some do this on purpose to scam or to hide their privacy while others do it due to an error of some sort.

When it comes to filling out information on sites like when you’re trying to open a PayPal account in Nigeria, using correct/official details is important as a little mistake could lead to you not being able to add a card for receiving payment or make payments yourself.

Be sure to use official details when filling out forms on payment sites like this. Data like Full name, date of birth, residential address, and postal code should be correct as any discrepancies noticed may invariably render your account useless.

NOTE: What I mean by using your official personal details is to use the information provided in your government-issued means of identification such as your National ID card, Voter card, Driving license, or international passport.

To correctly open a PayPal account in Nigeria, do the following

• Choose your nationality. (Which should be Nigeria)
• Your residential address comes next. You’re provided with two lines, ‘Address line 1’ and ‘Address line 2’. Make sure your address matches the address used in your ID card or the means of identification you’ll be using.
• Your city and postal code is the next option. You already know your city but you probably don’t know your postal code. It’s easy to get any information we need these days via the Internet. So you could Google “State postal codes“, Let’s say you live in Lagos State, just Google “Lagos State postal codes” and you’d have a complete list of postal codes for various areas in Lagos State.
• After filling out your city and postal code you’d need to input your state. This isn’t your state of origin, rather it’s your state of residence which should contain your city above. If your city is Port Harcourt, it means your state will be Rivers State.
• Your date of birth. This also should be the same as what’s on Government issued ID card you’ll be using
• Lastly, you will have to input a valid phone number. The mobile number of choice should be an active number because PayPal will send an OTP to confirm you’re the real owner of the account.

5.      Accept the PayPal Terms

After this, you’re left with two unchecked boxes, the first one being “Stay logged in for faster checkout“, Once checked, you don’t need to log in each time you want to pay or receive money as long as you don’t change the browser.

The second box lets you confirm PayPal’s ‘User agreement’ and “Privacy statement’. Though it’s quite lengthy, reading these terms and policies helps in reducing future issues. After reading the agreement and statement, accept and click on the blue “Agree and Create Account” tab.

Congrats, you’ve successfully opened your new Nigeria’s PayPal account! But hey, don’t get too excited as you can’t send or receive payments yet.

No worries, you did nothing wrong but just continue with the steps below;

6.      Verify (and Activate) Your Nigeria’s PayPal Account

After the first steps above (Opening an account), it’s now time to verify the PayPal account in Nigeria and you will do so by first adding a card to it.

Your email address will be used to make payments directly to your PayPal account and in order to activate this you need to first of all confirm your email address.

Go to the email you used to register for PayPal and on getting to the email, you will see a new message (from PayPal) asking you to confirm your application.

A four-digit PIN will be sent to your email, After confirmation, you’ll be able to send and receive payments and more using your Nigerian PayPal account. You’d also be assigned a unique ID called “Merchant ID” which is a 15-character key used in identifying your PayPal account.

Happy? Cool but you need to do something to perfectly set up your PayPal account in Nigeria. Here is what you need to do:

After confirming your email address, you’ll be taken to a new page where you are asked to “Add a card to your PayPal account“. You can decline, if you wish to add your card later.

But, if you choose to add a card to verify your PayPal account as a Nigerian, note that Verve cards won’t work!

You’re to use either Visa or MasterCard which should work perfectly with your Nigerian PayPal account. Your bank of choice also plays a role in determining if your card will work on PayPal. UBA, Zenith Bank, Access Bank, and GT Bank MasterCard are among the top cards that work perfectly for international payment and they’re acceptable by PayPal.

Update: These cards no longer work, kindly use a virtual card provider like Chipper Cash.

So contact your bank to see if your card is compatible with international online payments.

How to Add a Card to Verify PayPal Account in Nigeria

If your card is compatible, go ahead and link it to your PayPal account. Here is what you need to note:

• Credit Card Number: This is the sixteen (16) digit number you usually see on the back of your debit card
• Expiring Date: The month/year that your debit card will expire. It’s like 12/30, 12/19 etc.
• CVV (or CSC): This is the 3-digit number usually seen at the back of your card, above the signature. It’s very important, it serves as your password to access your card. Don’t let people see it at all because scammers are scavenging everywhere.

If you have added your card details to the recent PayPal page, your card has been successfully linked to your PayPal account and you can now send or make payments. You need to complete your card linking as follows;

Get 3 3-digit numbers to finally complete your PayPal account opening.

But Note: You need to have approximately $2 in your bank account which is equivalent to around N500.

PayPal will deduct $1.95 (let’s say N750) but don’t worry as this money will be sent back to your account after verifying that you’re the real owner of the account.

Your bank will send you the notification that it was deducted from your account (as usual credit alert) and a few hours later when you’re refunded, you will see another notification on your phone with some random text consisting of alphanumeric data.

The data looks like PP*5685CODEkhgdkmg and so on.

You just need the 4-digit number after that PP* to complete your PayPal account verification and card linking.

After entering the 4-digit number sent to your phone in the PayPal account verification, congratulations as you have perfectly completed everything!

What next? Start transacting with your account!

This is how you can open a PayPal account in Nigeria and get verified. Kindly share this article with your friends on social media and don’t forget to ask any question you have below.