PayPal fees on a freelance invoice

The invoice is a client number. Take-home is yours.

Set the amount you actually need using the hourly calculator or the profitable-rate tool. That floor already includes a tax buffer you choose — this page does not clone state or country tax tables. PayPal then takes a commercial or invoicing fee off the amount the client sends. Two formulas, nothing fancier:

Take-home = invoice × (1 − percent) − fixed fee. Reverse it when you are writing the invoice: list price = (floor + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − percent). If the preview in PayPal shows a different percent or fixed amount, paste those into the card. Do not copy a blog’s blended “about 3%.”

Defaults above are US planning figures from PayPal’s merchant fee page (last updated 15 July 2026, fetched 27 August 2026): 3.49% + $0.49 for a domestic invoice paid with PayPal Checkout, Pay with Venmo, or PayPal Guest Checkout. They are labeled planning defaults because the client can pay the same invoice another way.

Worked example: keep $50/hr and a $2,000 project

Using the Checkout / Venmo / Guest invoicing default (3.49% + $0.49 USD):

• Keep $50 an hour: list = (50 + 0.49) ÷ 0.9651 = $52.32 on the invoice. Fee on that list is about $2.32.
• Keep a $2,000 project: list = (2000 + 0.49) ÷ 0.9651 = $2,072.83. If you invoice $2,000 instead, take-home is $2,000 × 0.9651 − $0.49 = $1,929.71 — $70.29 short of the floor.

Same $2,000 invoice, other official US domestic rows (fixed fee $0.49 where PayPal lists “+ fixed fee”; $0 where it does not):

• Invoice paid by standard card / Apple Pay / other third-party wallet (2.99% + $0.49): take-home $1,939.71. To keep $2,000, list $2,062.15.
• Send/Receive Money for Goods and Services (2.99%, no fixed fee on that merchant line): take-home $1,940.20. To keep $2,000, list $2,061.64. To keep $50/hr, list $51.54.
• Invoice Pay Later (4.99% + $0.49): take-home $1,899.71. To keep $2,000, list $2,105.56.
• Invoice Pay by Bank / ACH (1%, capped at $10.00): on $2,000 the 1% would be $20, so the cap binds — fee $10.00, take-home $1,990.00. To keep $2,000, list $2,010.00 (not a simple percent gross-up). The card above does not apply the cap; type the fee you see on the preview for ACH jobs over $1,000.

Tax set-aside stays on the hub slider. Do not stack a guessed self-employment percent on top of this division.

Official US invoicing rates (domestic)

Fetched 2026-08-27 from PayPal Merchant Fees, last updated 15 July 2026. PayPal’s definition: you send an invoice as a payment request for goods and services, and the customer pays via that invoice — that is an “invoicing transaction.” Source: PayPal Merchant Fees (US).

• PayPal Checkout, Pay with Venmo, or PayPal Guest Checkout: 3.49% + fixed fee.
• Standard credit and debit card payments, Apple Pay, or other third-party wallets: 2.99% + fixed fee.
• PayPal Pay Later options: 4.99% + fixed fee.
• Pay by Bank (ACH): 1% (capped at $10.00 per transaction).
• USD fixed fee for invoicing transactions: 0.49 USD (other currencies have their own row on the same page; do not reuse $0.49 off USD).
• Optional Invoice Subscription Service: 14.99 USD per month — a subscription, not the per-invoice processing fee.

If you refund an invoicing payment, PayPal states there is no extra fee to make the refund, but the fees you originally paid to receive the money are not returned. Price as if the first successful charge is the one that sticks.

Goods and Services vs Friends and Family

PayPal still publishes that split. It is not the same product as an invoice, and it is not a freelancer discount.

On the merchant page, Send/Receive Money for Goods and Services is 2.99% for domestic commercial receiving — the table does not add “+ fixed fee” on that line. That is the request-money / G&S rail, not the invoicing table. If a client pays a G&S request instead of an invoice, use 2.99% and $0 in the card unless your own preview shows otherwise.

Friends and Family is a personal transaction: PayPal’s consumer page defines it as money sent from the Friends and Family tab with no underlying purchase of goods or services. Fetched 2026-08-27 (page last updated 19 May 2026). Source: PayPal Consumer Fees (US).

• Receiving a personal transaction: no fee when no currency conversion is involved.
• Sending domestic personal transactions from PayPal balance (including the PayPal Debit Card) or a bank account: no fee.
• Sending domestic personal transactions from a card: 2.90% + fixed fee. USD personal-transaction fixed fee: 0.30 USD.
• Sending international personal transactions adds 5.00% (minimum 0.99 USD, maximum 4.99 USD) on top of the domestic sending fee.

A freelance invoice is a commercial payment. Asking a client to send Friends and Family so you “keep 100%” is outside what PayPal calls a personal transaction, and it is not how this page prices work. Use G&S or an invoice; paste the commercial rate you are actually charged.

International invoices and currency conversion

For a US account, an invoicing payment is international when sender and receiver are in different PayPal markets. Domestic invoicing rates still apply, plus an extra 1.50% on all payment types through invoicing transactions (same 1.50% add-on on other commercial receiving). Planning example: Checkout invoice 3.49% + 1.50% + $0.49 → enter 4.99 and 0.49 in the card. That 1.50% is not a currency conversion.

When PayPal itself converts currency, the merchant and consumer pages both publish a conversion spread of 4.00% for paying for goods or services in a currency other than the listing currency (and for some send-money / Payouts conversions), or 3.00% for all other conversions — “or such other amount as may be disclosed to you during the transaction.” Because the live spread can differ, this card does not add FX. Read the amount and rate on the payout or conversion screen and treat that as the number that matters.

Standard withdrawal from a US business account to an eligible linked bank is listed as no fee when no conversion is involved. Instant withdrawal is a separate 1.50% of the amount transferred (USD minimum 0.50). Do not fold instant-transfer cost into the invoice percent unless you actually use it; add it as an expense on the profitable-rate tool if it is material.

What this page is not

• Not a US/UK tax engine. Tax, VAT, and self-employment live in the buffer you set on the hub.
• Not PayPal’s fee preview. Micropayments, QR, charity, Advanced/Pro card processing, and market-specific pages outside the US are different tables — if your dashboard is not the US merchant page, use that dashboard.
• Not affiliated with PayPal. No referral codes, no invented percents. Figures change — last checked 2026-08-27.

Set the hourly floor How to set your rate Quote a project Stripe vs Wise

Card vs bank payout is a different rail — see Stripe vs Wise. Marketplace take-home (Upwork, Fiverr) is a different cut — see Upwork and Fiverr take-home. Product-marketplace seller fees (Etsy and similar) sit on the seller-fee calculator.

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