⁦PayPal vs Stripe for Non-Resident LLCs⁩: ⁦Fees Compared⁩

⁦Before the fees even matter⁩: ⁦one of these two treats a non-resident-owned LLC as a normal case, and one makes it an uphill fight. Here's the full comparison, sourced from both companies' own pricing pages⁩.

Every generic "PayPal vs Stripe" comparison online skips the one variable that matters most for a non-resident LLC owner specifically. Here's the comparison with that variable put back in, plus the actual fee numbers from both companies' own pricing pages.

The difference that matters before fees even come up

Stripe explicitly supports a foreign-owned US LLC without a US SSN or ITIN: the LLC's EIN plus the owner's home-country tax ID and passport is what its own documentation asks for. PayPal's own policy technically allows a passport number for a foreign beneficial owner too — but in practice, accounts opened that way are disproportionately the ones that get approved and then quickly restricted once PayPal's deeper verification looks for a US tax ID it can't find. If you've read our separate deep-dives on PayPal and Stripe, this is the short version: Stripe treats your situation as normal. PayPal treats it as an exception.

Fees, side by side

Stripe:

2.9% + 30¢ per successful US card payment
+1.5% for international cards
+1% if currency conversion is required
+0.5% for manually entered card numbers
Standard payouts: free. Instant payouts: 1.5% (50¢ minimum)
Disputes: $15 to receive one, another $15 if you contest it (refunded if you win)
No monthly or setup fee on standard pricing

PayPal:

2.99%–3.49% + 49¢ per domestic transaction, depending on checkout method (PayPal-branded checkout sits at the higher end)
+1.5% for international commercial transactions, stacked on top of the domestic rate
3%–4% currency conversion spread when PayPal converts the currency
Business account and invoicing: free

On a single domestic-currency US sale, the two are close, with Stripe's baseline slightly cheaper. The gap widens fast once currency conversion is involved: Stripe's flat 1% versus PayPal's 3–4% spread compounds on every converted transaction, which matters if your customers, or your own payout bank account, aren't in USD.

Where PayPal actually wins: buyer trust and reach

PayPal has decades of brand recognition and an enormous base of people with an existing PayPal balance. For some buyers, especially in certain regions or on certain marketplaces, seeing the PayPal button specifically increases their willingness to pay — that's a real conversion effect Stripe's card-only checkout doesn't replicate on its own.

Where Stripe actually wins: everything built around it

Stripe's advantage shows up as your business grows past one-off payments: a full API for custom checkout flows, no-code Payment Links if you don't need that, built-in subscription billing, and an ecosystem (marketplace payouts, tax calculation, fraud detection) that scales with you instead of needing to be replaced later.

You don't have to choose only one

Plenty of businesses offer both at checkout and let the buyer pick — the cost is maintaining two integrations and two account relationships, not an either-or decision forced on you.

What we tell clients honestly