Need a PayPal account? Easy if you live in a country where PayPal is active. How do you know if PayPal is active where you live? Well, just try to create a PayPal user application, and before filling all the information in the user creation form, check in the countries field if your country is present. You may think at first that all countries are there, but I have realized some years ago that Lebanon is not among the countries available in the PayPal application form countries list, and later on while communicating with friends from Egypt, I realized that Egypt is also not available among the PayPal countries, and neither are a lot of other countries, so how to proceed if you cannot create a PayPal email in your country.

Along the years, I have tried many methods to have a PayPal account active. Why? Because more and more, PayPal is becoming the official currency online. On many sites, it’s only possible to purchase software or books or even goods if you don’t have PayPal. I first tried to register myself as a US citizen. Actually, I have a US address that I use for shipping goods from the United States through Aramex, and using that address I was able to create a PayPal email. Having a PayPal email, I began looking for ways to fund it. I tried assigning a credit card to it, but this was not possible, because all the time the credit cards I assigned were rejected as not valid. What I understood later on was that it was necessary for the credit card to be accepted to be in the same country as the PayPal account, that is USA.

I also thought about creating a bank account in the US through friends or relatives that I have there, or through a local bank that has a branch there, but then I found a way to fund my PayPal account without linking any card or bank, by selling things online and getting paid to my PayPal address. But then, I got a terrible surprise, when I tried to purchase something with the funds I have in my PayPal account, my purchase got rejected, because it said my account wasn’t verified.

Long story short, the only way to have a usable PayPal account in your country (if your country is not available in the country list of the PayPal application form) is to create a US issued credit card. The surest way to do that is to get an American Express Credit Card, because from all the Credit Cards available, the American Express Cards are the only ones always issued in the USA, and carrying the most security for the online transactions, and this is probably what makes them acceptable as per PayPal terms.

Once you have your American Express Credit Card, link your PayPal account registered in the US with your American Express Credit Card, and fund it, then you can use for all your purchases online, and that’s it. Easy but efficient way to use PayPal in any country and by anyone around the world.