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Does PayPal Transfer From Canada to India? No. Find Alternatives

Byron Mühlberg, writer at Monito.com
Jul 19, 2022
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India is one of the most popular destinations for international money transfers originating from Canada. PayPal, with its 300 million customers, is one of the most widely-used transfer platforms globally.

Therefore, it might seem logical that PayPal would be one of the best options to transfer money from Canada to India.

In reality, however, this is not possible. PayPal recently halted all international and domestic PayPal payments to and from individual mobile wallets in India, meaning all international payments (including those from Canada) are no longer supported.

To send money from Canada to India, you'll need to explore your alternatives instead. In this guide, we delve into three of them: Xoom (the convenient PayPal-linked international money transfer service), the best services in terms of cost (e.g. Remitly, Skrill, Wise, and others), and using an old-fashioned bank wire.

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Because PayPal is not available for transfers from Canada to India, we recommend comparing the market using Monito's real-time comparison engine if you'd like your recipient to receive a bank deposit or using WorldRemit if you'd like them to receive cash instead:

Why Doesn't PayPal Support US-to-India Transfers?

In short, PayPal doesn't support money transfers from Canada to India because it no longer operates domestic PayPal payments in India.

In a recent decision, PayPal suspended all domestic and incoming international transaction operations for individual accounts in India. While domestic and cross-border PayPal payments remain available for businesses, everyday Indian users face heavy restriction on how they can use PayPal. Besides no longer being able to make and receive transfers, for example, users aren't able to top up their PayPal balance, making PayPal wallets almost unusable in India, except for online shopping.

PayPal indicated in a Help Center post that they're working to restore personal payments in India, but didn't provide any information about when, or why they were suspended in the first place.

Alternative 1: Use Remitly

A smart alternative to making a direct PayPal payment from Canada to India is to use Remitly, a secure and savvy online remittance platform.

An all-around excellent option for sending money from Canada to India, Remitly is an especially good deal for cash pick-ups. Although it's usually not the cheapest for bank deposits, the service boasts fast and secure transfers through a wide variety of pay-out options from your mobile phone, tablet, or PC, including bank transfers and credit card and debit card transfers:

Alternative 2: Find Another Alternative

If you'd like to make a bank transfer from Canada to India online, you'll have a number of competitive choices to compare.

For example, if you're looking to send a smaller sum of money to India (between CAD 100 and CAD 500), then your best bet would be to use Remitly, a Seattle-based money transfer specialist that ranked as the cheapest service 53% on Monito's comparison engine for these transfers over the past twelve months.

For medium-sized bank transfers of between USD 1,000 and USD 2,000, Remitly was still the cheapest option, this time on 79% of searches, while for large transfers (between USD 10,000 and USD 50,000), CurrencyFair takes the lead, having the cheapest pricing on 46% of searches. Regardless of the amount sent, Wise is also worth mentioning, coming in as the cheapest service from Canada to India on 30% of total searches over the last twelve months.

Take a look at our in-depth guide on the topic to learn more. To find out which service is the cheapest in real-time for your desired transfer, run a search on Monito's comparison engine below:

Find the cheapest PayPal alternative:

Alternative 3: Use Your Bank

The final option for sending money from Canada to India in place of PayPal would be to send a wire transfer from your bank account in Canada to your recipient's bank account in India.

This option is usually the longest and most expensive, but it might be right for people who prefer sticking with the bank over third-party transfer services. However, it's worth noting just how much more expensive this option can be. Because funds are wired through SWIFT, they can take up to five working days to arrive, and incur unpredictable correspondent bank fees over and above usually high exchange rate margins imposed by US banks (often as high as 10% of the transaction value.)

There are also several money transfer services offered by Indian banks that are available to customers in Canada. These include ICICI Bank's Money2India and can be an excellent alternative if you're already a client. However, while much cheaper than direct bank wires, these services are usually not as cheap as the market leaders for US-to-India transfers that we discussed above.

Frequently Asked Questions About PayPal in India

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