Connect PayPal to Shopify in Belgium and the Netherlands

Yes, you can connect PayPal to Shopify in Belgium and the Netherlands, but not through Shopify Payments. You activate PayPal Express Checkout with your own PayPal Business account under Settings > Payments. PayPal then charges its own rate of 3.40% + EUR 0.35 per payment. If Shopify Payments is your main provider, you pay Shopify no extra fee on PayPal payments.

This article is part of our guide to Shopify payments. You read how to activate PayPal, what it costs, how refunds and payouts work and when PayPal is worth it. Checked November 2026.

Why PayPal isn't part of Shopify Payments

In the United States and France, PayPal can run as a method inside Shopify Payments. In Belgium and the Netherlands it can't. There PayPal remains a separate payment provider with its own account, rates, balance and customer service. For your customer little changes: they see the PayPal button in checkout and pay in the PayPal window.

Activating PayPal in Shopify

Create a PayPal Business account in your company's name, or convert your personal account.

In Shopify go to Settings > Payments and choose PayPal under additional payment methods.

Log in with your PayPal Business account and give Shopify access.

Place a test order and a refund, and check that both show in Shopify and in PayPal.

If the PayPal button doesn't appear, your PayPal account usually isn't fully verified yet, or PayPal is off for your customer's market or currency.

What does PayPal cost on Shopify?

In Belgium and the Netherlands PayPal charges 3.40% + EUR 0.35 per commercial payment. Nothing is added for customers from the EEA, 1.29% for the UK and 1.99% for other countries (PayPal rates updated 15 July 2026).

Shopify charges no third-party fee on PayPal as long as Shopify Payments is your main provider. If another provider is your main one, you do pay Shopify's surcharge of 2% (Basic) to 0.2% (Plus). The full breakdown is in Shopify Payments fees and rates.

A worked example for an EUR 80 order: through PayPal you pay EUR 3.07. With a European card through Shopify Payments on Grow it's EUR 1.69, with Bancontact EUR 0.39.

Refunds and payouts with PayPal

You refund a PayPal order from Shopify, but the money goes back through PayPal, under your PayPal account's terms. General refund rules are in refunds in Shopify. PayPal money lands on your PayPal balance, not in your Shopify payout. So your bookkeeping gets a second money flow.

Do you need PayPal?

With our clients, cards are used more often than PayPal. Belgians mostly pay with Bancontact, Dutch customers with iDEAL | Wero. PayPal is useful if you sell to Germany or outside the EU, or if your audience is used to PayPal, for example for second-hand or international orders. Which methods you need per country is in payment methods per country for your store.

What we learned in the Shopify Community

Only the Express Checkout button. Problem: a merchant wants customers without a PayPal account to pay by card through PayPal, as in WooCommerce. Solution: in a PayPal Business account, set the PayPal account to optional; the card option then appears in the PayPal window, not in the Shopify checkout. Not confirmed by the merchant. Our take: run card payments through Shopify Payments; they're cheaper and stay in one checkout. Source: Shopify Community thread (August 2025).

How 6th Man helps

We look at which payment methods your customers actually use and only turn on PayPal where it adds something. Calculate what a mix with PayPal costs you per year in our payment simulator. In a new Shopify store we test PayPal too, including refunds.