How to Transfer Money From Venmo to PayPal

Two of the most widely-used online payments services out there, PayPal and Venmo offer speedy and secure payments between hundreds of millions of user accounts combined.

At first glance, transfers between the two might seem like they should be rather straightforward. Both offer mobile apps and websites linkable to your bank account, and both use email addresses to demarcate individual user accounts.

What's more, as the world's largest online payments system, PayPal has over 300 million users across the globe and allows for transfers to and from credit cards, as well as US bank accounts. Similarly, while it's only based in the US, Venmo is used by another 40 million users to transfer funds between user accounts and bank accounts instantly.

However, despite their many similarities between the two services (and although Venmo happens to be owned by PayPal), the two mobile payment systems aren't connected so they don't allow direct transfers from one to the other.

Fortunately, it's still possible to send money from Venmo to PayPal, although the speed and convenience you've come to expect from the respective services will no longer apply.

How To Transfer Money From Venmo To PayPal

Simply put, to transfer money from Venmo to PayPal, you will need to set up a common bank account that's linked to both services. This process can be done either online or over the mobile apps of the respective services.

To get started, you will need to (1) already have a PayPal account, (2) have a US bank account in the same name as your PayPal account, and (3) have a Venmo account in the same name as your bank account.

We discuss all three of these steps below:

Transferring From Venmo To PayPal: What To Avoid

If you're planning on sending money from your Venmo account to your PayPal account in the same currency, then the process should be very cheap, and in most cases, even free. However, if you're planning on making a currency conversion at any point along the way, then things can become a lot more expensive.

To transfer money from Venmo to PayPal in another currency, you'll need to convert the funds into foreign currency once they arrive in your PayPal wallet. At Monito, we generally recommend against using PayPal when exchanging currencies, especially when sending money to a different country and currency. This is because of a highly variable, nontransparent fixed fee that PayPal attaches to every international money transfer in addition to an exchange rate margin fee of anywhere between 2.5% and 4.5%. This quickly makes PayPal one of the most expensive ways to send money internationally and exchange currencies more generally.

Instead, if you're planning on sending money abroad, then we recommend you make an ordinary bank transfer to one of the many international money transfer specialist services out there — most of which allow you to take advantage of fees and exchange rates that come in at a fraction of the cost of PayPal or the high-street banks. Run a search on Monito's real-time comparison engine below to get the job done quickly and easily: