Receiving Paypal payments in Nigeria

If you have a Paypal account that can receive payments, you can receive the money other users sent to you wherever you are and that even includes Nigeria.

As at the time of writing this, Paypal works in Nigeria but doesn't offer local users full service yet as they can send money but can't receive money yet. The ability to receive money with a Nigerian Paypal account may become available in the near future.

If you however do have a foreign Paypal account such as a US or Canadian one, you can receive money anywhere you are and can withdraw it in the local currency in Nigeria using your bank issued card.

Let's assume that you have a Bank of America account that you've linked to your Paypal account, you can withdraw Paypal money in cash using a Visa or Mastercard ATM in Nigeria. You would make use ot your bank issued debit or credit card for that purpose.

When using a foreign Paypal account in Nigeria or in any other country which is different from what the country where you got an account, it's always safer to always log into your account using a similar IP address that is identifiable to your country so that your account doesn't get limited. Paypal may flag your account when they feel that a foreign user has hacked into it and that's why they limit certain accounts when a user logs into them using an Nigerian IP address.

It's not that Paypal blocks IP addresses from Nigeria to restrict people from having access to it but they limit accounts when they suspect that the IP address a user is using is way different from the country location where his Paypal account was registered from. So, if your Paypal account is a foreign one, you should avoid using it in Nigeria if you don't want to get limited or blocked. To avoid that, you can change your IP address to a foreign one that matches that of your Paypal account.

The ideal way to use a foreign Paypal account safely in Nigeria without getting limited is to always use it with a foreign IP address but if you are using a Nigeria issued Paypal account that is linked to a local bank, then it's ok to use a Nigerian IP address.

You can still use your foreign Paypal account in Nigeria without getting limited or blocked by changing your IP address using a VPN service. A VPN service allows you to change your IP address to a different one and it could be a US, Canadian or een Hong Kong IP address. The VPN service works with your internet connection so as to make your IP address look different from what it really is.

You can still receive payments into your foreign Paypal account while in Nigeria and withdraw them in cash through a local ATM in Naira as long as you have an accepted card(e.g. Visa or Mastercard).

If you are withdrawing Paypal money through a foreign bank a/c or card while in Nigeria, you will receive payments in the local currency after the money has been converted using the bank's accepted rate for forex transactions.

If your foreign Paypal account allows you to send, receive and withdraw money, then you can still do it in Nigeria but you'd also need a foreign IP address if you don't want Paypal to get suspicious and limit or block your account.