Everything sellers need to know about what PayPal charges, updated for 2026 rates.
If you accept payments through PayPal, understanding the fee structure isn't optional — it directly determines how much of every sale you actually keep. In 2026, PayPal's fees fall into a few clear categories: payments through PayPal Checkout, direct Goods & Services payments, international payments, and personal Friends & Family transfers.
PayPal's US merchant fee page lists three rates that cover most everyday sales. Payments through PayPal Checkout — the PayPal and Venmo buttons on a website — cost 3.49% + $0.49, and so do invoices the customer pays from a PayPal account. Card payments processed through PayPal Checkout cost 2.99% + $0.49. And a direct Goods & Services payment, where a buyer sends money from their PayPal account and marks it as a purchase, costs 2.99% with no fixed fee. For in-person sales, PayPal's QR code rate is 2.29% + $0.09.
When a buyer pays from a different country, PayPal adds 1.5% on top of the domestic rate, so PayPal Checkout becomes 4.99% + $0.49. If the payment also needs a currency conversion, PayPal's conversion spread applies on top of that. This can push the effective fee noticeably higher, so sellers working with international clients should price accordingly.
Personal transfers funded by a bank account or PayPal balance are typically free domestically. Funding a Friends & Family payment with a card usually adds a small fee. Note that using this payment type for business transactions violates PayPal's terms of service and can result in account restrictions.
Numbers make this concrete. Here's what a seller actually receives on a domestic sale through PayPal Checkout (3.49% + $0.49), the rate most online stores pay:
| Sale Amount | PayPal Fee | You Receive | Effective Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| $20 | $1.19 | $18.81 | 5.95% |
| $50 | $2.24 | $47.76 | 4.48% |
| $100 | $3.98 | $96.02 | 3.98% |
| $500 | $17.94 | $482.06 | 3.59% |
| $1,000 | $35.39 | $964.61 | 3.54% |
Notice the pattern: because the fixed $0.49 component matters less as the sale price grows, the effective rate drops from 5.95% on a $20 sale to 3.54% on a $1,000 sale. A direct Goods & Services payment has no fixed fee, so it stays at a flat 2.99% at every amount. This is why bundling smaller purchases into fewer, larger transactions genuinely helps your margins — it's not just a rule of thumb, the math backs it up directly.
PayPal doesn't apply one flat rate to everyone. The category your account falls into changes what you pay:
Here's something many new sellers don't discover until it happens: when you refund a sale, PayPal doesn't charge you anything to issue the refund, but the fees you originally paid to receive the payment are not returned — for a full or a partial refund. On a refunded $100 PayPal Checkout sale, you're out the $3.98. For disputes and chargebacks initiated by a buyer's bank (as opposed to PayPal's own resolution center), PayPal may charge a separate fee: $15 for a standard dispute and a $20 chargeback fee on card payments in the US. Sellers with high dispute rates can also be moved to a reserve or higher-risk fee tier, which is a strong incentive to keep clear return policies and responsive communication.
When a cross-border payment requires converting currencies, PayPal applies its own exchange rate, which typically includes a markup of around 3-4% above the mid-market rate you'd see on Google or a currency converter. This is separate from the international transaction fee itself. For a seller doing significant international business, this conversion spread can add up to more than the percentage-based transaction fee — it's worth checking PayPal's current conversion rate against the mid-market rate before assuming your international fees are "just" the international percentage.
PayPal's rates change from time to time, and PayPal publishes upcoming changes on its Policy Updates page before they take effect. If you've had a PayPal Business account for several years, it's worth periodically checking the current rate against what you remember, since assuming an old rate is still in effect is a common source of pricing miscalculations for sellers who set prices once and don't revisit them.
Rather than estimating manually, use our free PayPal Fee Calculator to instantly see your exact payout for any sale amount and payment type.
PayPal's fees are predictable once you know which category your transaction falls into. Building these costs into your pricing from the start — rather than discovering them after the fact — is the simplest way to protect your margins.