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 remain split across a few clear categories: domestic Goods & Services payments, international payments, and personal Friends & Family transfers.
For most standard sales within the same country, PayPal charges around 2.99% of the transaction plus a small fixed fee. This is the rate that applies to the majority of freelancers, online store owners, and service providers invoicing local clients.
When a buyer pays from a different country, PayPal adds an extra percentage on top of the standard rate to cover currency conversion and cross-border processing. 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 Goods & Services sale at different price points, using the standard 2.99% + $0.49 rate:
| Sale Amount | PayPal Fee | You Receive | Effective Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| $20 | $1.09 | $18.91 | 5.45% |
| $50 | $1.99 | $48.01 | 3.98% |
| $100 | $3.48 | $96.52 | 3.48% |
| $500 | $15.44 | $484.56 | 3.09% |
| $1,000 | $30.39 | $969.61 | 3.04% |
Notice the pattern: because the fixed $0.49 component matters less as the sale price grows, the effective rate drops from 5.45% on a $20 sale to 3.04% on a $1,000 sale. 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 issue a full refund, PayPal returns the percentage fee to you, but historically the fixed $0.49 portion was not always refunded depending on your account type and region — this has changed over time, so always check your specific account's refund policy rather than assuming. For disputes and chargebacks initiated by a buyer's bank (as opposed to PayPal's own resolution center), PayPal may charge a separate dispute fee regardless of the outcome. 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 standard rate has crept upward over the years — it wasn't always 2.99% + $0.49 for domestic Goods & Services. Rate changes are typically announced with 30 days' notice via email and in-app notification. 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.