Updated 6/30/2022

I get questions a lot about what PayPal users in any given country can do. Admittedly, PayPal doesn’t do a very good job of advertising this. But hopefully, I can help shed some light on this. (There used to be a page you could access that would show you what PayPal supported in any given country. It’s still there — because we asked for it to be reinstated after it was taken down — and you can still access it if you know the URL; however, I’m not sure that the information is updated any longer.)

Disclaimers:

This information is accurate to the best of my knowledge on the date that this post was made; however, this information is subject to change and you should contact PayPal for official information on features supported in any given country.
This does not go into any sort of info on what you might have to do before you can access certain features (e.g., whether you have to verify your account to be able to send/receive money, etc), what you can/can’t sell in a given country, or what specific payments processing products are available in any given country. This is just intended to be a general overview to say “PayPal might or might not be able to do what you want to based on the country you live in”.
The “countries” listed here might be regions or territories that are governed by another country. However, PayPal treats them as separate countries for most purposes.
Some countries might not exist anymore or might go by another name. I believe PayPal still treats them as if they did exist and operate under their previous name.
This is not an exact list — capabilities vary by country. (For example, users in Brazil can hold Brazilian Real in their PayPal account, but users in other countries cannot.)
Country lists will be in alphabetical order according to their ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (even though I use the name of the country instead of their country code).
This is not an official statement by PayPal. This is just my attempt at being helpful.

PayPal groups countries into one of five groups (in order of “most restrictive” to “least restrictive”):

Group A
PayPal Zero
Group B
Group C
Localized

Let’s take a dive into each of these five groups:

Group A

Group A is considered “Send Only”. This means that PayPal users can only send payments — they can’t receive payments (with the exception of refunds/reversals/chargebacks) and they can’t hold money in their PayPal account. Typically, the only way you can pay for things is with a credit card.

As of the time of this writing, the following countries are considered Group A (note that these countries are in alphabetical order by their ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, not their actual name):

Argentina
Aruba
Azerbaijan
Burundi
Brunei
Bhutan
Belarus
Congo – Kinshasa
Congo – Brazzaville
Côte d’Ivoire
Cook Islands
Cameroon
Djibouti
Eritrea
Falkland Islands
Micronesia
Gabon
Guinea-Bissau
Ireland
Cambodia
Kiribati
Comoros
Laos
Sri Lanka
Montenegro
Marshall Islands
Macedonia
Mauritania
Montserrat
Maldives
Niger
Norfolk Island
Nigeria
Nepal
Nauru
Niue
St. Pierre & Miquelon
Pitcairn Islands
Paraguay
Rwanda
Solomon Islands
St. Helena
Svalbard & Jan Mayen
Sierra Leone
Somalia
São Tomé & Príncipe
Chad
Thailand
Tonga
Tuvalu
Taiwan
Ukraine
Vatican City
St. Vincent & Grenadines
British Virgin Islands
Vanuatu
Wallis & Futuna
Samoa
Yemen
Mayotte
Zimbabwe

PayPal Zero

PayPal Zero countries are countries where users can send and receive payments, but can’t hold money in their PayPal account. The name “PayPal Zero” refers to the fact that the user’s balance must remain at zero at all times. If/when you receive payments, you must tell PayPal how the money will be withdrawn from your account; any time you receive a payment, it’s immediately withdrawn to that withdrawal method. The exact list of withdrawal methods will vary by country, but I believe most of these countries support withdrawing to a credit card or a US bank account.

Note that PayPal Zero is an internal code name; you won’t see this name in any of PayPal’s public documentation.

As of the time of this writing, the following countries are considered PayPal Zero countries:

Antigua & Barbuda
Albania
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Barbados
Belize
Dominica
Algeria
Egypt
Fiji
Grenada
St. Kitts & Nevis
St. Lucia
Malawi
New Caledonia
French Polynesia
Palau
Seychelles
Turks & Caicos Islands
Trinidad & Tobago

Group B

Users in Group B countries can send and receive payments, and can do so in almost any currency PayPal supports. If you’re in a Group B country, you can also open currency holdings in almost any currency PayPal supports — when you receive a transaction that’s denominated in a currency you hold, it’ll automatically get added to the balance for that currency holding. From there, you can keep it in that currency or convert it to almost any of the other currencies PayPal supports. However, the only withdrawal mechanism in many of these countries is to withdraw the funds to a US bank account — and the funds will get converted into US Dollars when that happens. PayPal won’t allow you to withdraw the funds to a local bank and likely doesn’t support your country’s native currency.

As of the time of this writing, the following countries are considered Group B countries:

Andorra
United Arab Emirates
Anguilla
Armenia
Netherlands Antilles
Angola
Burkina Faso
Bulgaria
Bahrain
Benin
Bermuda
Bolivia
Bahamas
Botswana
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cape Verde
Dominican Republic
Estonia
Ethiopia
Faroe Islands
Georgia
Gibraltar
Greenland
Gambia
Guinea
Guatemala
Guyana
Honduras
Croatia
Indonesia
Iceland
Jamaica
Jordan
Kenya
Kyrgyzstan
South Korea
Kuwait
Cayman Islands
Kazakhstan
Lesotho
Lithuania
Latvia
Morocco
Monaco
Moldova
Madagascar
Mali
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Nicaragua
Oman
Panama
Peru
Papua New Guinea
Qatar
Romania
Serbia
Saudi Arabia
Slovakia
Senegal
Suriname
El Salvador
Swaziland
Togo
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Tunisia
Tanzania
Uganda
Uruguay
Venezuela
Vietnam
South Africa
Zambia

Group C

Like Group B, users in Group C countries can send and receive payments in almost any currency that PayPal supports. And, like users in Group B countries, you can open currency holdings in almost any of PayPal’s supported currencies and convert funds between them. The difference with Group C is that PayPal allows you to withdraw funds to a bank account in your country.

As of the time of this writing, the following countries are considered Group C countries:

Cyprus
Czech Republic
Ecuador
Finland
French Guiana
Guadeloupe
Greece
Hungary
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Martinique
Malta
Malaysia
New Zealand
Philippines
Réunion
Slovenia
San Marino

Localized

The last group, and the most feature-rich group, is the group of fully localized countries. If your country is in this group, PayPal likely has a legal license to operate in your country, supports your country’s native currency, allows you to send, receive, and withdraw funds in your country’s native currency, has a full site that is translated into your country’s native language, and typically has support resources that speak your country’s native language as well — in addition to all the capabilities that Group C countries get.

As of the time of this writing, the following countries are fully localized:

Austria
Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Switzerland
China
Germany
Denmark
Spain
France
United Kingdom
Hong Kong
Israel
India
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Sweden
Singapore
United States

What if my country doesn’t appear on this page?

Well…the likely answer is that PayPal doesn’t allow users in your country to use PayPal. Sorry.

PayPal Country Availability