To accept contributions through PayPal on your campaign, your PayPal account should meet the following requirements:
1. Your PayPal account is Verified.
Unverified PayPal accounts have limits on what services they can use. Online crowdfunding may not be supported in your region through online checkouts without a Verified status. Being Verified will also increase the chances for your supporters to contribute successfully to your project.
Note: Your region may support Person-to-Person payments through PayPal, but this does not mean the region can support online PayPal checkouts.
Click here for information on verifying your PayPal account.
2. Your PayPal email address must be Confirmed.
If your email address hasn’t been confirmed on your PayPal account, no one will be able to contribute to your campaign – PayPal’s system will show them an error message instead.
Important: “Confirming” your email address is different than “Verifying” your PayPal account.
Click here for more information on confirming your PayPal address.
3. Your PayPal account must be capable of accepting one of our Supported Currencies.
If your account is not set up with a supported currency, nobody will be able to contribute to your campaign – PayPal’s system will show them an error message instead.
Most users will instinctively choose their local currency when they set up their campaign. (For example, US PayPal accounts automatically accept USD so that most US users would choose USD as their accepted currency on their campaign).
However, if you want to accept contributions in a currency that you don’t normally accept (for example, a British user may want to accept contributions in EUR instead of GBP), you’ll need to make sure you have an open balance in that currency inside your PayPal account, and also make sure that currency is on this list.
Click here for information on how to change your balance currency.
Important: If you’re planning on enabling a new currency in your PayPal account because you want to accept funds in that currency through our system, then you need to make sure that you select the same currency in your campaign.
Why do I need to select the same currency?
Because PayPal can only process contributions through campaigns in one currency at a time. It’s not possible to let your contributors choose which currency they want to send. You decide which currency you want to receive, and PayPal will only deposit that currency into your PayPal account.
In other words, if someone from Canada donates to a US campaign accepting US Dollars, then PayPal takes Canadian Dollars from them, converts them into US Dollars, then deposits those US Dollars into the PayPal account listed on the campaign. All of this is done in the background during the transaction, and the conversion rate PayPal uses is shown to them onscreen before they complete the transaction.
4. If you want to accept credit cards, but you only have a Personal PayPal account, you’ll need to upgrade your account
Most Personal PayPal accounts can only receive PayPal-to-PayPal transactions, but most contributors prefer to use credit cards to make their contributions.
In other words, you’re losing out on contributions if you only have a Personal PayPal account. PayPal doesn’t charge you to upgrade your PayPal account, and your fees for using our system won’t change either.
How do I upgrade my PayPal account? #
Click here for information on upgrading your PayPal account.
*Important! If you’re just running a Personal Campaign and you’re not raising money as a Business or Organization, but you still want to accept credit cards, PayPal has advised us to tell our customers that when they upgrade their PayPal account, they should list their own first and last name as the Business Name, and select “Services – Other” as the Business category.
Still not working? Try Stripe! #
Have you gone through all the steps on this page to make sure your PayPal account is set up to use our system, but your campaign still isn’t able to accept contributions?
If you’re located in one of Stripe’s supported regions, we recommend using Stripe instead. Click here to find out why.
Unfortunately, your Stripe account won’t work with our system if you’re located outside these regions. We are sorry for any frustration this may cause.
We highly encourage you to add a Stripe account to your campaign if you are eligible. Stripe specializes in credit and debit card payments, so they have a much higher success rate for completed contributions! This article explains the differences further.
Note: We don’t process payments directly – payment processing is done inside PayPal or Stripe’s system, and we cannot see any financial information.
We also don’t have access to PayPal’s system, so our Customer Service agents cannot provide direct help in getting through any of the steps on this page. The information on this page is for reference only and may become outdated over time.
