I’ve been using PayPal for years, mainly because it’s convenient and has proved to be secure (also, when goods don’t arrive or are damaged PayPal resolves issues almost immediately). Last year I had to move my UK account to a French one (even though I’d been using my UK one since living in France). Last week my debit card expired and I’ve been trying to update it ever since. The PayPal Community advised that you cannot use a UK bank account with a French PayPal account, i.e. that addresses must match (they do - my UK account is registered in France; my phone number is French, etc. ). Apart from large purchases in France, e.g. Leroy Merlin, I also use it to send gifts from within the UK so it works with both currencies. In fact, I’ve sent five presents within the past eight weeks so what has changed? I can’t get a response from Customer Services at PayPal (my bank advises that there shouldn’t be a problem). TIA.
I had exactly this problem last year and wish I’d kept my UK account.
I got round it initially for one of my debit cards, as this was registered to an (ex-neighbour’s) UK address but certainly found that it was impossible to put any other UK debit cards on, so I have now given up.
I know that is not encouraging and if you do find a way past it, I’m sure quite a few of us would love to know! (There were, of course, no problems until a certain stageof Brexit implementation was reached…)
I just looked at my Paypal account. I have two addresses on the account, my primary one in France and a secondary one in Ireland. For various reasons I have four cards on the account, all of which have the billing address in France. Two are with Irish banks, one is a (Transfer)Wise account and one is a UK card. It doesn’t seem to matter which of my two addresses on Paypal I associate with each card and the address on Paypal doesn’t seem to have to be the same as the billing address on the account. I have no UK address to go with the UK card.
I finally had a response and yes, it’s to do with licensing and PayPal being country specific - although given that I’ve been using it regularly here in France for over three years I’m somewhat baffled. I hadn’t wanted to link my French account as it’s obviously easier to use a UK account when buying presents, etc. for family living in the UK. I have no address in the UK and wonder if my UK bank will allow me to use my son’s address for PayPal purchases or will that throw a whole other spanner in the works?
This is really odd…
Is this a new ruling… ??? we’ve only one PayPal and when paying for something, it asks us which card we want to use (UK or FR)
We’ve not had a UK address for more than 20 years and PayPal hasn’t worried… 
this all sounds most odd…
The OH has a paypal account that was setup with her UK debit card when we were in the UK. When we moved to France, we changed the address/mobile number etc to out French equivalents (in 2018) and added her French card. We can use the UK or French card depending on what we want and it isn’t a problem. Maybe something has changed recently, and they now won’t do this.
I think it must be as all was well until my card expired. When I first tried to update it, it wouldn’t accept my postcode (which is 53000) and then it stated that my address didn’t match my card’s address (which it did although I noticed, somewhat belatedly, that the bank had written ‘bes’ instead of 'des’and so thought that this was the problem). Correcting it made no difference and it wasn’t until this morning when CS confirmed that I needed to use a French a/c.
My French card is about to expire so when the new one arrives I’ll register it and then see if I can register a secondary card, i.e. the UK one. Although I buy (bought!) gifts for my family from within the UK, for obvious reasons, I mostly used it for items ordered from Bricos and pepinieres.
I think this is key. I don’t think Paypal checks the address associated with the card (I’ve noticed that with other sites too). Try putting in any UK address.
But if you try to put a payment through, doesn’t the issuer of the debit card check, even if it’s via Paypal?
I don’t think anyone checks the card billing address really. I’ve thought that for years but never investigated it. I first thought when I accidentally put in a wrong address and the transaction still went through. Obviously Paypal hasn’t checked my cards against my billing address because one of them )I can’t remember which one) uses my Dublin address, which is my secondary address in Paypal but a billing address for any of the cards. I suspect the billing address is just where they used to send statements.
Using debit cards directly they certainly do verify the address - or at least my bank does! Paypal may be conpletely different of course…
Are you sure? Next time you buy something put in a wrong address and see if the transaction goes through. The point is I’ve added a card to Paypal using an address other than the billing address. Which would indicate to me that the address is irrelevant.
I’ve bought several things online with my UK debit card, from different vendors, for delivery to other UK addresses and It’s never failed to work.
Nice present for a random person 
unless you are saying you have to put the address in somewhere else ? I’ve never had to do that, just delivery address.
The card billing address and the delivery address don’t have to be the same 
I don’t think 
the card billing address is checked as part of the card verification. As I say, I’ve a card registered with Paypal and the address I’ve used for it, for no particular reason, is not its billing address. I put in the card details and approved it being added to the account via the mobile app. The address is neither here nor there, so to speak 