Paypal Users by Country 2025

The World Population Review tabulated that the United States has the most PayPal users with 213.7 million or 33% of global PayPal traffic, as of 2024. This is followed by Germany, which has 111 million users, or 17.14%, and the United Kingdom with 55.2 million users, or 8.52%. Rounding out the top five are Italy with 30.8 million users (4.76%) and France with 22 million users (3.39%). Interestingly enough, more than 200 territories and nations allow their residents to use the PayPal service to send and accept payments. Some notable exclusions, meaning residents of these countries aren’t allowed to use PayPal or its helpful services, include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, North Korea, Myanmar, Liberia, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Russia.

How PayPal Works

PayPal serves as a go-between offering a way for consumers to pay for services or products on a site without having to enter their banking information or their credit card number on that site. A buyer’s PayPal account is connected to either their credit card or their banking account. This allows buyers to purchase from various digital spaces without an excessive risk of having their information stolen.

History of PayPal

With over 430 million global active users as of mid-2025, PayPal has come a long way in the time it has been a part of the digital space. The service itself wasn’t named PayPal at first but was called Confinity. It was created back in 1998 by Max Levchin and Peter Theil. The idea behind the founding of what is now known as PayPal was to create an effortless digital payment platform that would be low-cost and user-friendly both on the business and consumer side of a transaction.

Around two years after the initial startup was launched as a low-cost payment service for digital payments, the name was officially changed to PayPal as it is known today. It was also reformed a bit to better serve the internet space, which was in its early years of practical use. In October 2002, PayPal was sold to eBay, an immensely popular online auction site, which completed the ideal marriage of online payments and digital auction or ecommerce services. By February 2006, PayPal had surpassed 100 million end-user accounts.

PayPal Today

Today’s PayPal users have grown even more substantial, thanks in part to the 56% of all American retailers offering this as a payment method to their customers. In fact, notable retailers like Home Depot, Best Buy, and more now offer it regularly as an online payment option alternative to keep customers from having to enter their credit or debit card accounts at the time of purchase.