After an overwhelming traffic to my previous post 2 Alternatives to Paypal in Nicaragua, I was asked to expand my comments on each case, so today I am bringing you more information about using Paypal in Nicaragua, and yes its thru our southern neighbor country, Costa Rica.

As many of you already know, we can receive payments but we can’t cash them out locally. So after research online and conversations with many friends, such as Hosmel Quintana, an awesome Nicaraguan Developer working on UpWork and making a living.

So let’s now get straight to the point. The how-to begins now.

How this works?

Simple, Paypal works in Costa Rica, for both making and receiving payments and cashing them out. But there is a trick, it ONLY works with Banco Nacional but you will be able to transfer your money from Paypal to your Savings Account, which is what we want access to our money!!!

What do you need?

1. Go to Costa Rica with a valid passport.
2. Go to any branch of Banco Nacional.
3. Open a Savings account with your passport. Do not explicitly state that you only want it for Paypal.
4. Be sure to get the token that they give you to access BN Internet Banking, you will need it afterwards when enabling Paypal.
5. Once your account is activated. You would need to open a new Paypal account and provide address of Costa Rica. You can look online and even  use any address listed here. You can check out this guide for step by step guidance.
6. Once your costa rican Paypal account is activated, you would need to link the bank account using the information of your Savings Account from Banco Nacional. Upon activation it will ask you for the token, which you will use to finish the setup.
7. You are done!

Restrictions and warnings: its not that simple

1. You can NOT transfer from Paypal to Banco Nacional USD999 or more. This will raise red flags and would probably be forced to legally open a business in Costa Rica pay all the according taxes.
2. If you want to cash out USD1,000 or more you would have to legally open a company, and open a business account with them. You would have a limit of USD10,000 per transaction and USD50,000 per day. That is a LOT if you ask me. These are the requirements for the business account. 
3. You need to use an email that was not previously activated on Paypal. Be sure to follow the proper instructions listed here.
4. The commissions, the ugly part, are these:
   1. Banco Nacional will charge you 0.5% if its more than USD 2,200.
   2. Banco Nacional will charge you USD 11 if its less than USD 2,200.

Getting the cash: How to transfer from Paypal to Banco Nacional?

1. Login to your BN Internet Banking with your username and password.
2. Once inside, look for PAGOS and then select PAYPAL.
3. On the left menu, you should see the following option: Retirar fondos de cuenta PayPal. Click there.
4. You will then have to type the number that was generated on your Token.
5. Banco Nacional will now list the terms and conditions, which you have to accept if you want to continue.
6. You will then select the Paypal account to which you want to perform the transfer to.
7. Next step is to define how much money you want to transfer.
8. Then you will have to confirm the transaction. Be sure to review the amount.
9. Once confirmed, the transfer takes up to 5 business days to hit your account.
10. After 5 days you should have your money ready. Awesome!

Conclusion

Even though is not the best option, it’s an option if you want to be able to cash out your Paypal funds on any ATM. I am still not sure about the specific ATM withdrawals fee, but that is something I am working on currently. If any one has already done it, I would appreciate you share the fees so I can include them here, and give you the proper credits on this article as well.

Thanks for reading and feel free to contact me for questions or suggestions. Jokes are welcomed too!