Recent Changes in Using PayPal to Send Money to Mexico from the United States.

Although we live in Mexico, our bank account is in the United States (U.S.).  Keeping our accounts in the U.S. has been, and continues to be, an easy, effective, and safe way to manage our finances abroad.  


Sending money to Mexico has been easy since there is a demand for such services by the large immigrant community in the U.S. that sends money back to family, and a large expat community in Mexico that sends money from their U.S. banks to Mexico to pay bills.  For example, paying HOA fees, salary of grounds and maintenance personnel, and property management, etc. 

The payment service that we chose was PayPal.  All you need to open an account is an email address and a bank account to link with your PayPal account.  If your recipient has a PayPal account, all you need is their email address.  When you send money to a recipient that does not have a PayPal account, they will receive an email indicating they have money waiting, along with an invitation to open an account.  Just remember, when you send money to Mexico, change the currency from U.S dollars to Mexican pesos (unless the recipient has asked for a different currency).  PayPal does charge a small service fee when sending money between countries.  

We have appreciated using PayPal, however, recent changes in their

policy have caused a major problem.  Due to President Trump’s
re-negotiation of NAFTA, PayPal has ceased to permit the transfer of money from the U.S. to Mexico.  With this new change, they are now referring their customers to use their sister company called XOOM.  

XOOM provides wire transfer services where money can be sent all over the world.  However, you need the bank information of your recipient which includes:  full name, home address, phone number, email address, bank name, and 16-digit CLABE for their bank.  In addition, there is also a higher service fee for these types of transfers compared to PayPal.  PayPal's service fee (in our experience was less than 1%) compared to XOOM which charges a flat service fee of $4.99 USD per transfer when paid with a bank account (if paid with a debit card or credit card, the fee is much higher).   Although this fee is much lower than a traditional wire transfer at your local bank (our bank charges $40 USD per international transfer), it is still considerably higher than what PayPal had been charging.

In speaking with PayPal's customer service representative, they indicated that this new policy change may not be permanent.

There are other online companies that provide similar services to XOOM.  However, you need similar recipient information for those services and they charge similar (or higher) service fees.  Other companies include: Western Union, MoneyGram, XE, and Remitly. 

You can search the Internet for other companies that provide similar services.