The international preset is the US domestic rate plus PayPal's 1.5% cross-border fee. Invoices, PayPal Checkout and Goods & Services payments all use the commercial rate.
PayPal rates checked October 2026 — edit the fields if yours differ. Fees vary by country and account type; your PayPal statement is the final word.
Effective fee rate: 3.98% of the amount charged.
Estimate only. PayPal rounds fees to the nearest cent, and extra charges — currency conversion, for example — are not included.
How PayPal fees work
Every commercial PayPal payment — a customer paying for goods or services, an invoice being settled, a PayPal Checkout button on a store — is charged the same way: a percentage of the payment plus a small fixed fee, taken before the money reaches your balance. For a US account receiving a domestic commercial payment, the standard rate is 3.49% + $0.49. There is no separate monthly fee for receiving payments, and sending personal payments to friends and family within the US is free when funded by a bank account or PayPal balance — but the moment a payment is for goods or services, the commercial rate applies, even if the buyer meant it as a personal one.
A worked example makes the shape of it clear. Charge a client $100 on a US domestic commercial payment:
- Percentage part: 3.49% of $100 = $3.49
- Fixed part: $0.49
- Total PayPal fee: $3.98
- You receive: $96.02
Notice the effective rate: $3.98 on $100 is 3.98%, not 3.49%. The fixed fee is why — it weighs more heavily the smaller the payment. On a $10 sale the same rate structure takes $0.84, an effective 8.4%. On a $1,000 payment it takes $35.39, an effective 3.54%. Sellers of small-ticket items feel PayPal fees far more than sellers of large ones, which is exactly what the micropayments rate below exists for.
PayPal fee rates by transaction type
| Transaction type | Percentage | Fixed fee | Fee on $100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| US domestic commercial (goods & services, invoices, checkout) | 3.49% | $0.49 | $3.98 |
| International commercial (domestic rate + 1.5% cross-border fee) | 4.99% | $0.49 | $5.48 |
| Micropayments (designed for small payments) | 4.99% | $0.09 | $5.08 |
| Charity / confirmed nonprofit | 1.99% | $0.49 | $2.48 |
These are the standard published US rates as of October 2026, and every one of them is editable in the calculator above, because PayPal's fee schedule is not one-size-fits-all: rates differ by the country of your account, some accounts sit on older or negotiated pricing, and PayPal changes its fees from time to time. Treat this calculator as an accurate estimate built on the current standard rates — and if your statement shows a different fee, type your actual percentage and fixed fee into the fields and the math will match your account exactly.
Two charges sit outside this table and catch people out. First, currency conversion: if a buyer pays in a currency your account does not hold, PayPal converts it at a rate that includes a markup over the wholesale exchange rate — typically a few percent — on top of the transaction fee. Second, refunds: when you refund a commercial payment, the buyer gets the full amount back, but PayPal keeps the original fee. Refunding a $100 sale costs you the $3.98 on top of the $100 you return.
The reverse calculation: what to charge to receive what you want
Sellers and freelancers usually think backwards: "I need to end up with $100 — what do I invoice?" Adding the fee on top does not work, because PayPal takes its percentage of the bigger charged amount too. The correct formula "grosses up" the target:
charge = (target + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − percentage)
To receive exactly $100 on a domestic payment: ($100 + $0.49) ÷ (1 − 0.0349) = $104.12. Check it: the fee on $104.12 is $4.12, and $104.12 − $4.12 = $100.00. Switch the calculator above to "I want to receive an amount" and it does this math for any target and any rate, with the breakdown showing the charge, the fee, and the net side by side. One honest caveat: deciding to pass fees to your buyer is a pricing and policy choice — some platforms and some jurisdictions restrict explicitly adding a surcharge for using a payment method, so many sellers simply build the fee into their prices instead.
How to reduce your PayPal fees
- Use micropayment pricing for small sales. If most of your payments are small, the micropayments rate (4.99% + $0.09) beats the standard rate (3.49% + $0.49) — on a $5 payment, $0.34 instead of $0.66. The two rates break even at about $26.67; below that micropayments wins, above it standard pricing wins. Micropayment pricing applies to the whole account, so it only makes sense if small payments are genuinely your norm.
- Build the fee into your price. The most reliable "reduction" is not paying the fee out of your margin at all: price with the reverse calculation above so the amount you receive is the amount you planned on.
- Avoid unnecessary currency conversion. If you regularly receive a foreign currency, holding a balance in that currency (where PayPal allows it) avoids paying the conversion markup on every single payment; convert in larger, less frequent amounts when rates suit you.
- Keep cross-border sales deliberate. International payments add 1.5 percentage points plus possible conversion costs. That is worth paying for customers you could not otherwise reach — less so when the same buyer could pay you through a domestic channel.
- Reduce refunds. Because PayPal keeps the fee when you refund, every avoidable refund costs you the fee twice over — the original charge and the lost sale. Clear listings, accurate sizing and honest delivery times are, arithmetically, fee-reduction tools.
- Claim the charity rate if you are eligible. Confirmed 501(c)(3) organizations pay 1.99% + $0.49 instead of 3.49% + $0.49 — a saving of $1.50 on every $100 donation, which compounds quickly for fundraisers.
Selling on marketplaces as well? Run the same sale through the Etsy fee calculator, the eBay fee calculator, or the Amazon FBA calculator — the fee structures differ enough that the cheapest channel for an item is not always the obvious one. Or browse all 42 free tools.
Frequently asked questions
How much does PayPal charge on $100?
On a standard US domestic commercial payment, $3.98 — that is 3.49% of $100 ($3.49) plus the $0.49 fixed fee — leaving you $96.02. An international payment of $100 costs $5.48, a charity payment $2.48. The effective rate is always higher than the headline percentage because of the fixed fee, and the smaller the payment, the bigger that effect.
How do I calculate the PayPal fee backwards?
To receive a target amount, charge (target + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − percentage). To net $100 at 3.49% + $0.49, charge ($100 + $0.49) ÷ 0.9651 = $104.12: the fee on $104.12 is $4.12, leaving exactly $100.00. The reverse mode in the calculator above does this for any amount and rate.
Does PayPal refund its fee when I refund a buyer?
No. For commercial transactions, PayPal keeps the original transaction fee when you issue a refund — the buyer is made whole, but the fee is not returned to you. On a $100 domestic sale you received $96.02 after the $3.98 fee, yet the refund pays the buyer back the full $100, so the refund leaves you $3.98 out of pocket. It is worth factoring expected refund rates into your pricing.
Why was my PayPal fee higher than this calculator shows?
Usually one of three reasons: the payment came from another country (add the 1.5% international fee — use the international preset above), the payment involved a currency conversion (PayPal's exchange rate includes a markup on top of the transaction fee), or your account is on a different rate schedule than the current standard — some older and high-volume accounts differ. Edit the percentage and fixed-fee fields to match your statement and the calculator will reproduce your fees exactly.
Is there a fee for personal (friends and family) payments?
Within the US, personal payments funded by a bank account or PayPal balance carry no fee for sender or receiver. Funding one with a card, or sending internationally, adds fees. Important line: personal payments are for gifts and splitting bills between people who know each other — using them for sales removes buyer and seller protections and violates PayPal's terms, which is why this calculator covers commercial rates.
Is this PayPal fee calculator exact?
It uses PayPal's published standard US rates (checked October 2026) and the same percentage-plus-fixed math PayPal applies, rounding to the cent — for standard accounts it matches statements to the cent. Fees vary by country and account type and PayPal can change them, so treat results as an estimate, edit the rate fields if your account differs, and rely on your own PayPal activity report for accounting.