Everything you need to know on how to open a business PayPal account in Nigeria and verify it

[FREE GUIDE] How to open a PayPal business account in Nigeria

PayPal is an online payment service that makes it easy to send and receive money online. With PayPal, users can transfer money, receive money, withdraw money, send invoice to clients and many more.

In this post, I’ll show you how to open a business PayPal account in Nigeria. PayPal is Based in the United States of America and it is accepted in up to 200 countries worldwide! Before now, there was restriction on Nigerians using PayPal to send or receive money. Nigerians were not allowed to open a Paypal account. But in 2014, that restriction was lifted and Nigerians were allowed to operate a personal account.

But the account can only send money. There was no possibility to receive money. In 2018, PayPal business account was made available to Nigerians. Through PayPal Business account, Nigerians are able to receive money. But with certain conditions. The account is only open for businesses, entrepreneurs and freelancers who conducts business online.

The business account gives Nigerians the opportunity to receive payments through their website. You can also request payment from customers, create invoice and more with the PayPal business account.

Unfortunately, there is now a new restriction on the Nigerian business PayPal due to CBN policies. I would discuss this update at the end of this post so ensure you read this post to the end. 

To receive payments online with PayPal with or without a website and without any restrictions, follow this link to get the information https://aderonkebamidele.com/how-to-open-a-paypal-account-in-nigeria-and-receive-payments/

But if you are only interested in receiving payments on your website, then continue reading.

In this free guide, I would show you step by step how to open and verify a business PayPal account in Nigeria.

If you want to open a personal PayPal account instead, please follow this link https://aderonkebamidele.com/open-paypal-account-nigeria.

With a business PayPal account, you can receive payment globally from any PayPal account holder anywhere in the world and you can also send payments to millions of merchants around the world that accept payment through Paypal. If you are a business owner, a freelancer or an entrepreneur, then this account is highly recommended for you.

Here are the requirements to open a PayPal business account in Nigeria:

• Your name. It has to be your legal name that is on your birth certificate and documents
• Your business name. You should have a registered business name if you want to open a business account unless you are a freelancer
• Your business information will be required (e.g. services that you render or the type of business that you do)
• Your Government issued ID card. Preferably international passport. You can also use a driver’s license
• Valid email address. This must be a business email. Something like admin@aderonkebamidele.com. You cannot use a free email like yahoo.com, gmail.com or outlook.com. It must be a custom domain email address.
• Phone number

Step 1

Note that you should only provide truthful and accurate information or else you will lose your account no matter how much you have in it. To get started, visit this link https://www.paypal.com/ng/merchantsignup/create. You will be taken to the page below.  

Make sure you fill the form correctly. Enter your name, email, the password that you’ll like to use to access your account. Make it very strong and write it down somewhere so you don’t forget it.

The password format can be something like Bams=2021

Your legal first name is the same as your first name. While your legal last name is your real surname. 

Your business name is the name of your company. Don’t worry if it’s not yet registered with CAC. Simply use the current name you are using for your business. 

If you don’t have a dedicated business phone number, use the current phone number you are using. 

Your business address is your office address. Put your home address if you don’t have an office address yet. 

Leave the business address line 2 blank except you want to enter another address in line 2.

Enter your city, your state and postal code.

You can get your postal code from Google. You can also get your postal code directly on https://www.nigeriapostcodes.com

Leave the default currency as US Dollar.

Ensure you use your accurate address, name, phone number etc.
Mark the box that says you should consent and agree to PayPal’s User Agreement.

Click on Agree and Continue

You can also use my illustration below to fill the form correctly.

  Mark the button that says you should agree to user agreement and privacy. Click on Agree and Continue button and you will be taken to the page below.     

STEP 2.

Select the type of business you do from any of the drop down options and click on Continue

You would be taken to the page below

Submit the form and you will be taken to the page below

STEP 3

Click on set up payments

Under the notifications, you will see two options. The first one is to confirm your email address while the second option is to link and confirm your debit card. 

If you open this PayPal account with your free email address like gmail or yahoo, you will not receive the confirmation email in your inbox and after a few days, you will not be able to access this PayPal account again. That is why it’s very important that you use your business email address to open the business Paypal account. 

Login to your custom domain email address to confirm your business PayPal email address. 

Click on the confirm email button. And you will be asked to login to your PayPal account again using the email and password you used at the point of registration. 

STEP 4

The next step is to link and confirm your debit card

THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU LINK A DEBIT CARD TO YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT

• The name on your card does not have to be exactly as the name you used in opening the PayPal account, but ensure your name on the PayPal account matches the name on your means of identification. You may run into any issue with PayPal in future and they may request that you verify your identity.
• You can use your sister’s/husband’s credit card to verify your PayPal account if you don’t have a bank account yet, but make sure you can confirm any money deposited through it.

There should be at least $3 in this account or the equivalent amount in Naira if you are using a Naira debit card.

PayPal would try to debit this card to make sure the card is working well and you would be asked to verify this deposit in order to confirm that you are authorized to use this card or to confirm it’s yours.

Important Details On The Card That Would Be Required To Verify Your Business PayPal Account Are As Follows

Card Number – This is the long digits written on the same line at the front of the card

Expiry Date – Written in the format 11/25 or 11-25 at the front of the card. What it means is that, the card would expire by November 2025.

Cvv/CVV / CVV2 / CSC / CID/Security Code – This is a small three digits written together at the back of the card.

It’s time to link an ATM card (Debit card) to your PayPal account.

Linking an ATM card to your PayPal account is the same thing as verifying it.

The one debit card I have been able to successfully used to verify a Nigerian business PayPal account is First bank debit card.

I used the naira card in this guide. But I am sure their dollar card would also work just fine. So go to Firstbank and open a Naira savings account or a dollar account. Use the debit card to verify your Nigerian business PayPal account. If you already have a bank account with First Bank, then you can use the Mastercard or Visa card issued to you on this account.

Once you enter your card details in the right format as explained earlier, click on Link Card, it would bring out the image below.

Click on done and you will be taken to the page below

Click on see details and you will see the option to get a code to confirm your card. Click on Get code and you will be taken to the page below.

Click on “Enter the code to confirm your card” and you will be taken to the page below

Most of the times, you will get the debit alert instantly on your phone and sometimes it may take a few days. I got the code for this particular account the following day.

When you get a debit alert from your bank for this PayPal transaction, the debit alert would look similar to the one below.

The 2442 in that debit alert is what is needed to verify your PayPal business account.
I hope that is clear? Great! Let’s move on…

Enter the code and click on Confirm and you would be taken to the page below

CONGRATULATIONS! 

You have successfully verified your Nigerian business PayPal account. Now you can receive payments globally for your products and services on your website. You can also make/send payments online to any PayPal account holder globally. They only need to give you their PayPal email address and you can also use the PayPal payment button on their website to make payment.

The paypal email address in this case is like the account number needed to send money to a PayPal account holder anywhere in the world. 

HERE ARE THE CURRENT LIMITATIONS ON YOUR NIGERIAN BUSINESS PAYPAL ACCOUNT

When the Nigerian business PayPal account was introduced, people can only receive payments on this PayPal account on their websites. They can also request payment from customers, create invoice etc.

But they cannot give anyone their PayPal email address to send payments to them. If they try to do that, here is the message they will get.

 

The latest restriction right now is that you can no longer receive payments on the Nigerian business PayPal account. You can only send payments. After opening the account and verifying it, if someone wants to make payment on your website, this is the new message they will get when they try to login to their PayPal account to transfer the funds to you.

 

They will not be able to login to their account. This was the message I got when I tried to make payment using the PayPal payment button I integrated on my website after setting up this Nigerian business PayPal account. 

When I tried to create an invoice, this was the message I got

If you also check the PayPal website for Nigerians on this link https://paypal.com/ng

You will notice that the business PayPal page has been removed as you can see in this image.

Check out the PayPal Website on other countries with no restrictions

 

I was able to send money successfully to my other PayPal account as you can see in the image below

The money was deducted directly from the First Bank naira debit card that I used to verify it.

What’s the point in opening a business PayPal account that can only send payments? You can go ahead and open the account to confirm what I said, and let me know if you are successful at it. You know how things can be in Nigeria, the restrictions may be removed at a later time. Kindly update me on aderonkebams@gmail.com when this happens so I can update this post.

But for now, to receive payments online with PayPal with or without a website and without any restrictions, follow this link to get the information https://aderonkebamidele.com/how-to-open-a-paypal-account-in-nigeria-and-receive-payments/

If you find this information useful, kindly share with others.