Calculate PayPal fees for checkout, invoicing, goods & services, friends & family and international payments, with reverse fees and currency conversion.
Published rates, verified August 5, 2026. Your selected type is highlighted.
| Transaction Type | Rate | Fixed Fee |
|---|---|---|
| PayPal Checkout | 3.49% | $0.49 |
| Goods & Services | 2.99% | — |
| Guest Checkout | 3.49% | $0.49 |
| Pay with Venmo | 3.49% | $0.49 |
| Standard Credit/Debit Card | 2.99% | $0.49 |
| QR Code Transactions | 2.29% | $0.09 |
| PayPal Invoicing | 3.49% | $0.49 |
| Pay by Bank (ACH) | 1.00% | — |
| Donations | 2.89% | $0.49 |
| Charity (Pre-approved) | 1.99% | $0.49 |
| Micropayments | 4.99% | $0.09 |
| Pay Later | 4.99% | $0.49 |
| Advanced Card Processing | 2.89% | $0.49 |
| Virtual Terminal | 3.39% | $0.49 |
| Friends & Family (Bank) | 0.00% | — |
| Friends & Family (Card) | 2.90% | $0.30 |
Rates are PayPal’s published standard fees for the selected country and may differ if you have negotiated pricing, a business account tier, or a promotional rate. Always confirm against your PayPal fee page before pricing.
You might also find these calculators useful
PayPal charges a different rate for every way money can reach you, and the rate card is not the same in every country. This calculator carries PayPal's published fees for each supported market — checkout, invoicing, goods and services, QR codes, micropayments, donations, charity rates and friends-and-family transfers — plus the cross-border surcharge and the currency-conversion spread that most fee calculators leave out. Enter an amount to see the exact fee and what lands in your account, or work backwards to find what to charge so you receive a precise net figure.
A PayPal fee has up to four parts. A percentage of the transaction, a flat fee per transaction, a cross-border surcharge when the payer is in another country, and a currency-conversion spread when the money changes currency. In the United States, PayPal Checkout costs 3.49% + $0.49, goods and services costs 2.99% with no flat fee, QR code payments cost 2.29% + $0.09, and approved charities pay 1.99% + $0.49. Cross-border commercial payments add 1.50%, and conversion adds 3.00% above the base exchange rate. Friends-and-family transfers funded by a bank account or PayPal balance are free within the same country, but cost 2.90% + $0.30 from a card, and 5% (minimum $0.99, maximum $4.99) across borders.
PayPal Fee Formula
Work out what to invoice so the payment nets your actual rate after the 3.49% + $0.49 invoicing fee, and check whether asking the client to pay by bank transfer — 1% capped at $10 in the US — beats the card rate on a large invoice.
Price goods and services payments at 2.99% into your margin before you list, so a thin-margin item does not quietly sell at a loss.
Add the 1.50% cross-border surcharge and the 3.00% conversion spread to see the real cost of an overseas payment, which is routinely two to three times what people expect from the headline rate.
Compare the standard donation rate of 2.89% + $0.49 against the 1.99% + $0.49 rate for pre-approved charities, and work out what a campaign actually clears per donation.
Put QR code, standard card, advanced card and Pay Later side by side at your typical sale value, and pick the route that costs least at the amounts you actually take.
PayPal publishes a separate fee card per market, and those cards change. Every rate here is read from PayPal’s own page for that country and stamped with the date it was verified, so you can see for yourself how current the figure is before you price anything on it.
Reverse mode solves for the amount to charge so the money that lands in your account matches your target after the fee. It rounds up to the cent rather than down, so the figure it gives you never leaves you a fraction short.
Compare mode prices every transaction type your market offers at your amount and sorts them cheapest first. The gap is often larger than people assume — a QR code payment and a Pay Later payment on the same sale differ by more than two and a half percentage points.
A payment from another country adds a surcharge, and converting the currency adds a spread on top of that. They are charged independently, and a calculator that models only the headline rate can understate an international payment by several percent.
Micropayments pricing trades a higher percentage for a smaller flat fee, so it only wins below a break-even amount. The calculator works out that crossover for you instead of leaving you to guess.
On a $100 domestic PayPal Checkout payment in the US the fee is $3.98 — 3.49% ($3.49) plus the $0.49 flat fee — leaving you $96.02. As a goods and services payment it is 2.99% with no flat fee, so the fee is $2.99 and you receive $97.01. An international payment adds 1.50%, taking the Checkout fee to $5.48.
A $500 domestic PayPal Checkout payment costs $17.94 in fees — 3.49% ($17.45) plus $0.49 — so you receive $482.06, an effective rate of 3.59%. The flat fee matters less as the amount grows, which is why the effective rate falls even though the percentage is unchanged.
A $1,000 domestic PayPal Checkout payment costs $35.39 — 3.49% ($34.90) plus the $0.49 flat fee — leaving you $964.61, an effective rate of 3.54%. If the payer is overseas the 1.50% surcharge adds $15.00, and converting the currency adds a further 3.00% spread.
You cannot waive the commercial rate, but you can often pay a lower one. A friends-and-family transfer funded by a bank account or PayPal balance is free within the same country. QR code payments are 2.29% + $0.09 rather than 3.49% + $0.49. Pre-approved charities pay 1.99% + $0.49. In the US, an invoice paid by bank transfer is 1% capped at $10, which on a large invoice is far cheaper than any card rate. Note that using friends-and-family for a genuine sale breaks PayPal’s rules and removes the buyer’s and seller’s protection.
In the US, receiving money for goods and services costs 2.99% of the transaction with no flat fee. That makes it cheaper than PayPal Checkout at every amount. An international goods and services payment adds the 1.50% cross-border surcharge, taking the total to 4.49%, and currency conversion adds 3.00% on top.
Within the same country, a friends-and-family transfer funded by your PayPal balance or a linked bank account is free. Funding one with a debit or credit card costs 2.90% + $0.30. Sending to another country costs 5% of the amount, with a minimum fee of $0.99 and a maximum of $4.99 — so the cap makes large international personal transfers proportionally cheap.
Commercial transactions add a 1.50% cross-border surcharge on top of the domestic rate, so a US PayPal Checkout payment from abroad costs 4.99% + $0.49. Personal transfers work differently: they take a flat 5% with a $0.99 minimum and a $4.99 maximum instead of the surcharge. If the payment also changes currency, a 3.00% conversion spread is charged separately.
A PayPal invoice paid via PayPal Checkout or Venmo costs 3.49% + $0.49. Paid by standard credit or debit card it is 2.99% + $0.49, and via Pay Later it is 4.99% + $0.49. The one most people miss is Pay by Bank, which is 1% capped at $10 per transaction — on a $5,000 invoice that is $10 instead of $175.
Divide your target net plus the flat fee by one minus the percentage rate: charge = (net + fixed) ÷ (1 − rate). To receive exactly $1,000 on a US PayPal Checkout payment you would charge $1,036.67. Reverse mode on this page does it for you, including the capped cases where a simple rearrangement gives the wrong answer, and rounds up so you are never left short.
The rates here are PayPal’s published standard fees for the country you select. Your actual fee can differ if you have negotiated volume pricing, a specific business account tier, a promotional rate, or if your account is registered in a different country from the one selected here. The rate card on this page shows which market and which verification date the figures come from, so you can check it against your own PayPal fee page.