Buy Ethereum with PayPal: Costs and the 72-Hour Lock

Anyone searching for “buy Ethereum with PayPal” usually expects a button in the PayPal app. In Germany there is none. PayPal does not trade crypto-assets here, and nothing about that changed at the start of October 2026 either. What does work is a detour: you top up a crypto exchange with euros from your PayPal account and buy Ethereum there. That detour costs you two things an ordinary bank transfer does not: a fee you do not know before you click, and three days during which your ETH may not leave the exchange.

This article works through both. It shows what actually arrives in ether out of 100 euros along the three routes SEPA, debit card and PayPal, why the lock-up period weighs more heavily for Ethereum than the difference in fees, and what can go wrong when you move the coins on to a wallet of your own. We have already answered the same question for Bitcoin: buying Bitcoin with PayPal. With Ethereum two points come on top that do not arise in that form with Bitcoin, namely the choice of network and the question of what staking does to the holding period.

PayPal does not sell crypto-assets in Germany

The distinction matters, because many guides blur it: PayPal as a dealer in crypto-assets and PayPal as a payment route are two different things. The first exists in the United States, the second in Germany.