When you start working online, you need a mode to send and receive payment. Usually, you can use your credit card or debit card to make payment online, but to receive payment, you need to take help of services like PayPal.
PayPal has been one of the oldest and most-trusted services to send and receive payment. In particular, if you are from Asia or the United States, you will find PayPal’s service to be the best when it comes to receiving payment from overseas.
Do remember, most advertising networks (if you are a blogger) pay using PayPal, so it’s essential to have a PayPal account.
When you open up a PayPal account, you can start sending payment right away (after linking your account with your debit or credit card), but to receive payment, you need to link your PayPal account to your bank account.
This will remove the withdrawal limit from your PayPal account, and you will be able to withdraw money from your PayPal account directly into your bank account.
Benefits of using a PayPal account:
- You will be able to make online payments without exposing your credit card details.
- You can use your debit card to make payment. This helps many people who don’t have a credit card.
- You can receive payment from overseas accounts. (Such as clients or advertising payments.)
- Many online services charge recurring payments. When you pay with PayPal, you can cancel the recurring payments at anytime.
- You can send mass payments using PayPal. [Read Tutorial]
- You can create and send invoices directly to your client. [Read Tutorial]
How To Create Your PayPal Account
First of all, head over to PayPal.com and click on to “Sign Up” to create your PayPal account.
On the next page, you have an option to select between a “Personal and business account“. For bloggers, I would recommend you to start with personal account and if you ever need a business account, you can instantly upgrade it from PayPal dashboard.
On the next page, you need to sign up by filling up a form, you can enter your Credit/Debit card detail then or can skip it for later to send Payment. Do remember, when you open a Paypal account in India, it’s a limited PayPal account. You can use it to send Payment to anyone using your Credit or Debit card, but to receive Payment you need to complete these 4 tasks:
- Add your PAN card
- Confirm your Email (When you sign up, you will get an Email from PayPal to confirm your account)
- Add bank account (This will be the bank account where your Paypal money will be withdrawn to)
- Purpose code (From the long list, select the purpose on which you are receiving payment on your Paypal account)
Here is the link to the page which you can access anytime to see if any verification is pending for your account.
Link Pan Card to PayPal:
Your Pan Card name should be same as your PayPal account name. If you are a minor without a Pan card, you should open a PayPal account in the name of your parents.
Linking Bank account to your PayPal account:
This process will take 2-3 days if you initiate now, so I suggest you to create your Paypal account right away, as if in future you need to receive money from any of advertising company or client, you don’t have to wait then. Click on Start in front of Add bank account and you will be taken to the next page where you need to enter just few fields such as :
- Your Name
- Your Bank account
- Your bank IFSC code. (If you don’t know the IFSC code of your bank branch, simply go to your bank official site and search for it). If not, Search in Google with “Your Bank Name, Branch and IFSC code”. Ex: ICICI Bank, VasantKunj IFSC code”. You can also select No in front of “Do you know your bank’s IFSC code?”, and select your bank, state and branch using Drop-down from there.
Once you are done adding the bank account detail, Paypal will send you 2 small deposits in your bank account. After receiving the deposit (In my case it took only 24 hour to receive two small transactions), you need to login to your PayPal account, click on verify at top and enter the amount to complete verification of your Bank account and PayPal linking.
Add PayPal purpose code:
Next step is to add the purpose code for your transactions. If you are receiving Payment for affiliate commission or advertising, select “Advertising and market research” or select what is appropriate in your case. However, this will be your default purpose code, and at the time of withdrawing money from PayPal account to your Bank account, you can select any other.
Note: Money in your Indian PayPal account will be withdrawn automatically every day. You can also manually withdraw money to your bank account. Usually it takes 5-7 working days for money to be credited in your bank account.
Linking Credit Card/Debit card with PayPal account:
When you are linking a credit card to your PayPal account you will face no issue. You can always add a new one, edit old one or remove old one by going to Profile > Link/edit credit card. Debit card from selected bank works fine with PayPal and according to users comment, these are the Indian bank debit cards that I’m aware of which works fine with PayPal. (If you know of other bank Debit card, let us know via comment).
- Axis Bank
- ICICI Bank.
- HDFC Bank Platinum Chip Debit card
- CITI bank
While adding ICICI bank debit card if you see this error:
“The bank that issued your card didn’t approve this transaction. Please contact the card issuer’s customer service department if you have any questions. Or you can add a different card now to continue.”
You need to call up their customer care and ask them to enable the international online transaction. Or you can also SMS INTL to 5676766 from your registered mobile number & it will enable international transactions.
For other bank debit cards, in most of the cases they will say it’s an international debit card, which works fine when doing a transaction at ATM, but you need to ask customer care if you can use the card for online transaction without 3D secure pin verification. If not, ask them to enable it. If they can’t, it’s time to change your bank.
Withdrawing funds from PayPal to Bank account:
Alternate methods of activating your PayPal account:
Credit card:
Many bank issues a credit card in lieu of a fixed deposit. For example, you can open a fixed deposit of 10K and you will get able to get the credit card with a limit of 8K. I got my first credit card like this and it worked perfectly fine. Especially if you are building a career online, you should have a credit card.
When you add a new bank account or a credit card, you also need to complete the verification by the method given below. It’s easy & increases your PayPal limit
Create your free PayPal account
I hope this guide helped you to know everything about creating and verifying your PayPal account. If you have any query or want to share more tricks related to PayPal, let us know via comment.
Enjoyed reading this guide? Do share it on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Here are a few hand-picked articles to read next:
- Top 7 Paypal Alternatives For Bloggers and Freelancers
- How To Create an Invoice Using PayPal & Request Money
- PayPal vs. Payoneer: Which one helped me earn an extra $1,700/year?
- How To Send Money Using PayPal Mass Payment
- How To Export PayPal Transaction Details For Accounting Purposes
Hello Harsh,
I have been using paypal successfully for the past 3 years and it has never been a problem for me so far. I tried adding a new bank account today (14th November 2017) and it was confirmed almost instantly without any of the small deposits, I want to know if that is fine.
Thanks.
The following debit cards can now be used with PayPal India.
State Bank of India ( Any Visa Debit Card )
HDFC Bank (Platinum Chip Debit Card)
AXIS Bank (Chip Card)
Kotak Mahindra Bank (Gold Chip Debit Card)
ICICI Bank
Indian Bank (EMV MasterCard World)
Standard Chartered Bank
CITI Bank (EMV Chip Card)
IndusInd Bank
Indian Overseas Bank (EMV Platinum Debit Card)
YES Bank (EMV Silver MasterCard)
I had similar issue with my clients, I called up paypal toll free number, its there in the contact section and they informed me that my pan was not verified, but I had added all the necessary details, so I informed them that, then they verified and after my re login I could see the verified message again and this time it worked!
Harsh sir i want to purchase Theme from Themeforest. of 63$ i have SBI Debit card. i pay using Paypal (ALL verifications done) but i am unable to complete payment transaction. please help me
Hi Harsh ! I am a travel blogger who wishes to start with affiliate marketing and for the same I wish to start with creating a paypal account. What do you recommend for Indian bloggers? A business paypal or a personal paypal?
@Tanvi
If you are doing your blogging business under a company name then open a business account. Else, start with Personal PayPal account.
Hi Harsh,
I’ve created a PayPal account and while typing in the necessary info to confirm my identity, there’s a box where I need to give my “middle name”. But I don’t have a middle name so it’s saying I can’t receive payments from abroad. What do I do? Can you please help?
Harsh
A very nice and elaborate,informative article.
My major business transactions would be in India and Indian Rupees and limited transactions in foreign currency. Would you suggest me to use paypal for business or is there any other equivalent alternative suitable for India
Thanks
Dear Harsh,
Many are having issues opening a PayPal account through their website because while entering the address, it’s showing “invalid city”. Using their mobile app to register solves this problem. It would be really helpful to many, if you can include this in your article.
What is the alternative to paypal? In my country, paypal limits users to payout or making payments. You do NOT use your paypal account to receive payments. What then are other options for receiving payments?
Thanks for sharing how to open a PayPal account..actually I don’t know how to open but now I understand the process…thank you..
Now Sbi debit card also support Paypal. I have Gold and platinum International Debit cards and both linked with my PayPal account.
First you need to enable international usage and e-commerce usage, then you can link your card with PayPal.
Great article about paypal . Thanks a lot for sharing this.
Dear Sir,
When tried to open account in PayPal and filled all info and submitted than msg appears invalid city.. Sir I am from India Gujarat and my country and city is not listed. Is there any other way to open account in Paypal its very necessary to open account. Please give me advice. Regards
Download the PayPal mobile app and register with it. It worked for me.
Hello Harsh,
My bank is newly opened and PayPal doesn’t have it’s IFSC code listed in their system, that is why I am not able link my bank account to PayPal account any suggestions?
Is it necessary to give the same bank account name as on my Pan card?
Please answer…
@Akash
Yes, it’s important.
HI Harsh,
I have verified my paypal india account. But my client from Australia is not able to send money to my Paypal. A message is showing that “We can’t send your payment right now.” The client is saying that he has sent money to Indian customers via paypal. When I called to Payal support, they are saying that my account is verified and there is no restrictions.
So why the client is not able to send money. I have linked a Bank account, back account name and PAN card name match, linked Debit card also.
Does the verification step takes 24 hours? I couldn’t find what is the reason?
@Amrit
I see you commented few days back. Is this issue resolved?
If yes, what was the resolution?
one of the best guide on Paypal verification, Thank you Harsh, for sharing with us! 🙂 Keep Sharing..
Hi
Thanks but i need a help.
I am from india and have recieved 377 dollars in my account,But paypal says that the amount will be on hold for first 21 days.
What does that mean,I mean i just want to make sure whether i have recieved the money or not and whether it could be transferred to my account after 21 days or not.
And the money is in dolaar so how will iot be transferred to my indian bank account,As our currency is in rupees.
Hi rishu saxena
Here is my video reply to your comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLxoPnH-p8o
Let me know if you have further question.
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Your PayPal account is business and you need to fullfil three criteria mentioned there, then only your payment will be available to your instantly.
You can deduct 10â„… of the amount which includes PayPal fees and currency conversion. PayPal currency exchange is not good and may bother you.
Hey Harsh !
Ur blog is very informative!
I am having a SBI savings acct. I wanted to ask whether it is necessary to activate internet banking or mobile banking for my SBI acct. to link it with Paypal.
Thanks in advance!
Does anyone operate a SBI Current a/c and use it with Paypal? I am looking to open a current a/c and nationalised banks don’t ask for a hefty deposit or min. average balance unlike private banks.
My concern is most nationalised bank employees will probably have no idea of Paypal, so if there’s an issue with remittances via it, these banks will be reluctant to understand or resolve issues.