Payments
How Much Does PayPal Charge? Every Fee Explained
For a standard commercial payment in the US, PayPal charges 3.49% + $0.49 per transaction — a $100 payment costs $3.98 in fees and lands $96.02 in your balance, and a $1,000 payment costs $35.39. Around that headline rate sit the charges people actually get surprised by: an extra 1.5% when the buyer is abroad, a margin hidden inside the exchange rate when currencies are converted, and fees that are not handed back when you refund. This guide goes through every PayPal fee one by one, with the true cost at common amounts.
The standard commercial fee
Most people who ask what PayPal charges mean one thing: the fee for being paid as a business. In the US that is 3.49% + $0.49 per commercial transaction. It is the rate for PayPal Checkout on a website, for PayPal invoices, and for card payments processed by PayPal, and it is deducted before the money reaches your balance:
PayPal fee = payment amount × 3.49% + $0.49You receive = payment amount − PayPal feeThere is no fee to create or send an invoice — the charge lands only when the customer pays. Personal payments are a different system, covered below.
What PayPal really takes at common amounts
The headline rate understates the cost on small payments, because the fixed $0.49 is charged in full on every transaction however tiny. The PayPal fee calculator shows the real deduction at any amount; this table uses the amounts sellers most commonly receive:
| Payment amount | PayPal fee | You receive | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | $0.84 | $9.16 | 8.4% |
| $20 | $1.19 | $18.81 | 5.9% |
| $50 | $2.24 | $47.76 | 4.5% |
| $100 | $3.98 | $96.02 | 4.0% |
| $500 | $17.94 | $482.06 | 3.6% |
| $1,000 | $35.39 | $964.61 | 3.5% |
Source: PayPal’s official US merchant fees page (paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees). Last verified: November 2026
Two lessons fall out of the numbers. First, the effective rate on a $10 payment is 8.4% — more than double the headline — which is why sellers of low-priced items feel PayPal fees so sharply. Second, the rate glides down towards 3.49% as payments grow, because the fixed fee fades into the percentage.
International payments and currency conversion
When the buyer is outside the US, PayPal adds an international fee of 1.5% on top of the standard rate. A $100 payment from an overseas customer therefore costs $5.48, not $3.98, and you receive $94.52. For exporters this is not an edge case — it is the rate on every cross-border sale.
If the payment also has to be converted into dollars, a second, quieter cost applies: PayPal converts at its own exchange rate, which includes a margin over the market rate. It never appears as a line item, so the only way to see it is to compare the converted amount with the market rate at the time. On large international payments, the conversion margin can cost more than the extra 1.5%.
Friends and family is not a business shortcut
Personal friends-and-family payments within the US are free when funded from a PayPal balance or a linked bank account, which tempts sellers to ask customers to pay that way. Resist it. Friends-and-family payments carry no purchase protection, and PayPal’s terms require commercial payments to be sent as commercial payments — using personal payments to dodge the fee can get an account limited and the money held. The fee is the price of protection for both sides: it is what makes a buyer willing to pay a stranger.
Refunds do not refund the fee
When you refund a commercial payment, the customer gets their money back in full — but PayPal does not return the transaction fee. A refunded $100 sale leaves you $3.98 down, having sold nothing — for high-return businesses, a real cost of selling. Chargebacks and disputes carry their own separate fees again, so a payment that is reversed through the buyer’s bank can cost the fee, the dispute charge, and the goods.
PayPal fees in the UK
UK sellers pay a little less. The standard UK domestic commercial rate is 2.9% + 30p, so a £100 payment costs £3.20 and lands £96.80 — against the $3.98 the same payment costs in the US. International payments to a UK account add an international fee, and currency conversion uses PayPal’s own rate, just as in the US. If your customers are in Britain, run your figures through the PayPal fee calculator UK rather than converting the US numbers.
How to pay less in PayPal fees
The rate itself is not negotiable on a standard account, but the amount you pay is not fixed. Consolidating small orders into fewer, larger payments attacks the fixed fee, which is where small sellers lose most. If your products sell for under about $10, ask PayPal about micropayment pricing — a higher percentage with a much lower fixed fee, designed exactly for that case. And if most of your revenue arrives as card payments on your own website, compare the alternative honestly: Stripe’s standard rate of 2.9% + $0.30 takes $3.20 from a $100 payment against PayPal’s $3.98, a gap of $0.78 on every sale. Our Stripe fees guide breaks that rate down the same way, and Venmo — also owned by PayPal — charges sellers less again, as the Venmo fees guide explains.
Do the maths in seconds
Type any amount into the calculator and see the exact fee, what you receive, and the effective rate. Reverse mode tells you what to charge when a specific amount has to arrive.
Frequently asked questions
How much does PayPal take from $100?
On a standard US commercial payment, PayPal takes $3.98 from $100 — the 3.49% percentage fee ($3.49) plus the $0.49 fixed fee — leaving you $96.02. If the buyer is outside the US, the 1.5% international fee raises the deduction to about $5.48.
How much is the PayPal fee on $1,000?
The fee on a $1,000 US commercial payment is $35.39, leaving $964.61. At that size the fixed $0.49 has almost disappeared into the percentage, so the effective rate is 3.54% — noticeably closer to the headline rate than the 3.98% effective rate on $100, or the 8.4% on $10.
Can I pass the PayPal fee on to my customer?
Not as a PayPal surcharge — PayPal’s user agreement does not allow sellers to add one specifically for paying by PayPal. The standard approach is to build the fee into your price. To receive exactly $250, for example, charge ($250 + $0.49) ÷ 0.9651 = $259.55; the reverse mode of our PayPal calculator does that maths for any target.
Why was my PayPal fee higher than 3.49%?
Almost always one of two reasons. The fixed $0.49 is added to the percentage on every payment, so small payments carry effective rates far above 3.49% — 8.4% on $10. Or the buyer was abroad: international commercial payments add a 1.5% fee, and currency conversion adds a margin inside the exchange rate on top.