European alternatives to PayPal
The original online-payments giant, still the default 'pay with' button for much of the web. A publicly-traded US company with a long record of abrupt account freezes and reserves, governed by US law.
Company information about PayPal
- Company
- PayPal Holdings Inc.
- Headquarters
- San Jose, United States
- Founded
- 1998
- Data jurisdiction
- United States
- Ownership
- Publicly traded
- GDPR
- No
- Open source
- No
- Infrastructure
- Own infrastructure
Why people switch away from PayPal
European alternatives to PayPal
Amsterdam-based, publicly-listed (Euronext Amsterdam) payments company built full-stack: Adyen owns and operates its entire payment infrastructure on its own data centres, and European card data is kept in Europe. A single platform for online, in-app and in-person payments used by large enterprises. PCI DSS Level 1 certified and independently audited as a licensed European bank.
Dutch mobile bank focused on sustainability. Plant trees with every payment. Full EU banking licence, no hidden fees.
Dutch payment processor trusted by 250,000+ European businesses. Founded in 2004 by Adriaan Mol who remains CEO and majority shareholder. Supports iDEAL, Bancontact, SEPA and all major European payment methods.
London-founded neobank for spending, transfers and FX. Its EU business runs through Revolut Bank UAB, licensed in Lithuania and supervised by the ECB, so EU customers bank under EU law – but the group is headquartered in the UK (outside the EU) and runs on AWS rather than its own infrastructure.
UK-founded money transfer service with transparent fees and real exchange rates. EU-licensed through Wise Europe SA.
UK digital bank, cloud-native on AWS since day one and regulated by the FCA/PRA. Caveat: it is UK-only, with no EU entity or EU banking licence, and post-Brexit both the bank and its AWS hosting sit under UK jurisdiction rather than the EU.
Want more options? Browse all European Payments & banking alternatives →
Stripe 
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Mastercard Start somewhere.
Switching everything overnight is not realistic. Start where it matters most: your email, your cloud storage, your business tools. Replace one thing at a time.
The European Alternative already exists.
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Why avoid United States-owned services?
CLOUD Act
Forces US companies to hand over data stored anywhere in the world upon government request, including data on European servers.
FISA Section 702
Authorises mass surveillance of non-US persons using data held by US tech platforms, without a warrant or notification.
GDPR vs US law conflict
EU courts have repeatedly found that US surveillance law conflicts with European fundamental rights. Schrems I and II both invalidated EU-US data transfer agreements.