# Withdraw USD from PayPal?



## Kaitlyn (May 13, 2011)

I know It's been quite difficult to withdraw USD funds from PayPal. A few years ago I remember there was a way through RBC, but I am not sure that is still an option.

I was wondering if there was any way to withdraw the money to a Canadian bank account and maintain the USD? A number of the financial institutions now have US$ accounts.

Really I've left it for too long in PayPal. The money I would have "lost" through converting would have been gained in interest alone. However now I actually want to fund my US trading account at Waterhouse with US funds, but don't have any except what is in PayPal. Not much point in getting dinged USD->CAD only to get dinged again CAD->USD

Hope someone has a solution!


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

All Canadian banks have USD accounts. Find a free one, and use that.


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## Kaitlyn (May 13, 2011)

Sampson said:


> All Canadian banks have USD accounts. Find a free one, and use that.


I have ING, for example. But last time I tried payPal wouldn't let me withdraw to it


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

I set up my ebay auctions & request all payments in CDN dollars. Then when I withdraw to CDN bank account there are no bogus conversion fees. 

US bank accounts cost money in fees and represent an unnecessary step when it's easy to simply require payment in CAD.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

USD accounts may not be a bad idea, I don't use paypal so can't give advice on which bank allows transfers from paypal.

USD accounts are great. If you earn income in USD, if you buy USD denominated investments, if you travel or buy from the US, then you can save a lot of money. There are plenty of free USD accounts out there - some opportunity cost if you have to tie money in an account, but they double as emergency funds. Depends on how much USD you are talking about. It is clear for us that 2-4 trips, 1-5 annual spending, and lots of USD denominated investments means holding a USD account is very worthwhile.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

As far as I know, Paypal doesn't normally allow US$ transfers to Canadian US$ accounts. I tried with my CIBC account and no go.

According to this article (a couple of years old) - RBC allows it, but the OP seems to think it's not an option anymore, although it would be nice if she would explain why she has that opinion.

http://sustainablepersonalfinance.com/paypal-currency-exchange-usd-to-cad-workaround/

For those who ask for payments in Cdn$ and think they are saving money - you are probably paying higher conversion fees. If you make US$ and get it in Cdn$, there is a conversion cost and you are paying it.


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## sam (Mar 16, 2012)

you need RBC US$ esaving account


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## blin10 (Jun 27, 2011)

rbc is the only option and it works because I use it every week....


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## FrugalTrader (Oct 13, 2008)

What does rbc charge to convert from USD to cad? From my prev experience, PayPal charges about 3.5%


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## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

Four Pillars said:


> As far as I know, Paypal doesn't normally allow US$ transfers to Canadian US$ accounts. I tried with my CIBC account and no go.
> 
> According to this article (a couple of years old) - RBC allows it, but the OP seems to think it's not an option anymore, although it would be nice if she would explain why she has that opinion.
> 
> http://sustainablepersonalfinance.com/paypal-currency-exchange-usd-to-cad-workaround/


Thanks for highlighting our 'how to' FP.
I have had some readers confirm that this process still works for Paypal to RBC USD accounts - but you need the routing number (which is in the post).


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## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

FrugalTrader said:


> What does rbc charge to convert from USD to cad? From my prev experience, PayPal charges about 3.5%


Paypal is 2.5% I believe. I have no idea what RBC charges - I use Knightsbridge (over $10k) or XETrade (under $10k) to handle our fx transactions.


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## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

sam said:


> you need RBC US$ esaving account


The RBc "high interest" savings works as well - "high interest" b/c the rate is abysmal, but, better than nothing. The limit on this account is only 1 free transaction.


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

I've been trying to get a large amount of USD out of our paypal account. Because we are a Canadian company they say it is the Canadian Government that dictates that money transferred to our bank account in Canadian dollars. Sure doesn't make much sense. We deal mostly with US companies that pay us in US dollars. Why should Paypal be any different when the funds are already in USD?

They tried to do the test transfer to send 2 small amounts to our bank account but it was rejected. They seem to have different answers depending on the time of day (or the weather). The last gal randomly suggested we open a US paypal account.

Pretty stupid, but is it possible to open a personal US Paypal account and transfer the amount to our other US bank account which is held in the US (its a personal account not corporate however). Then write a bank draft to transfer the amount from our US bank account held in the US to our US bank account held in Canada? lol


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## Ihatetaxes (May 5, 2010)

dave2012 said:


> I've been trying to get a large amount of USD out of our paypal account. Because we are a Canadian company they say it is the Canadian Government that dictates that money transferred to our bank account in Canadian dollars. Sure doesn't make much sense. We deal mostly with US companies that pay us in US dollars. Why should Paypal be any different when the funds are already in USD?
> 
> They tried to do the test transfer to send 2 small amounts to our bank account but it was rejected. They seem to have different answers depending on the time of day (or the weather). The last gal randomly suggested we open a US paypal account.
> 
> Pretty stupid, but is it possible to open a personal US Paypal account and transfer the amount to our other US bank account which is held in the US (its a personal account not corporate however). Then write a bank draft to transfer the amount from our US bank account held in the US to our US bank account held in Canada? lol


Dave I had a similar issue but then opened a US account with RBC in Canada and connected that as a second account to my paypal account. This allows me to transfer US funds to Canada without having to exchange them for Canadian dollars at some terrible exchange rate.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Sounds like a CSR that doesn't understand their policies.


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

I checked what paypal would offer on a large amount of USD converted to Canadian vs my CIBC forex account. The difference was 2.6% so on every $10,000 for example Paypal is taking an additional $257. Not chump change on large amounts.

Have you done this recently? I checked with RBC and it would cost $9 a month for the account ($108/yr) which makes it easily worth while, although a bit of initial nuisance to setup.

A Google search reveals lots of discussions about doing this, but they all seem to be several years ago.


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## Ihatetaxes (May 5, 2010)

Just last November.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

I do not have recent experience with transferring money out of PayPal. However, I understand that the process that I wrote about originally still works. (the most recent confirmation is Feb/2013).

http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/transferring-us-dollar-funds-out-of-paypal/


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

After much research I've determined that RBC is the only option.

If we leave $2500 in the account there are no monthly costs.

Spent 2 long hours at the branch to setup a US biz account.

Wife has spent a few hours trying to get online access to the account with what little we came back to the office with.

As usual nothing is easy these days... Still I won't let Paypal have the satisfaction of forcing us to convert our USDs!

Hoping we can get our Paypal USD $$$'s out by the end of the month! lol


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

Pretty bad when the bank is so incompetent at opening up a bank account for us! lol

Turns out you can't open a US RBC account without having a Cdn account first. But we don't need a Cdn account. So now we have a Cdn account but we can only use it online. But to use it online you need a bank card. We don't have a bank card because we can only use the account online. We need to keep some minimum balance in the account we don't (and won't) ever use.

Hard to believe it is this difficult and complex to get a simple account opened up.

We've spent many days/hours working on this. Lots of phone tag and pulling teeth. All the savings in opening up the account in the first place are going out the window.

You probably know what I think of RBC by now and we haven't even attempted a single transaction yet! lol


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## blin10 (Jun 27, 2011)

ya all these banks make a ton of profit, but alot of times when you need something it's a huge pain in the *** to do anything... but rbc does work and is the only bank to be able to do that


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

At least I have access now to the US account online. Just waiting the 2 or 3 days now for the PayPal test transfer to appear (fingers crossed).


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## blin10 (Jun 27, 2011)

hopefully you read online how to add rbc usa account to paypal, and routing number... as I remember it was a little tricky



dave2012 said:


> At least I have access now to the US account online. Just waiting the 2 or 3 days now for the PayPal test transfer to appear (fingers crossed).


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

Supposed to be pretty simple actually.

Choose US account (not Canadian)
Use 026004093 for the RBC Routing Number (not your Canadian RBC routing#)
Enter your account # as transit#+account#

cross your fingers and wait a few days for the test transactions - confirm and voila. All setup.


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

Took a while, but finally are successful transferring Paypal USD to RBC USD account.


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