US banks don't have IBAN

[KishkumenP47]

I created a business account for my freelance art services here in the US.  Although there was no pulldown menu for country, PayPal decided I live in Belgium, but I never found out until it was created.

No problem, I thought.  Until today when I tried to link a debit card.  It wouldn't accept it because the addresses don't match.  They don't match because PayPay dropped the last digit off my ZIP code, so there's only 4 of the 5 digits.  I can't correct because there's only 4 digits allowed.  I have no idea how it allowed my first credit card to be linked in.

No problem, I thought.  I'll just link my bank account.  But the bank account requires an IBAN number, which is not used by American banks.

Okay, I thought.  I'll have to make a new PayPal account and make sure location is set for the United States, then make a transfer between the two.  Except PayPal recognized my e-mail address and won't let me create a second account.

-edit-  I called the customer service line, and the representative says he can't help me.  I have to call international to Belgium's customer service.

What's the best way to fix this?

[kernowlass · Accepted solution]

@KishkumenP47 

Paypal is country specific so you have to open a paypal account in the country you reside in and add an address / phone number / bank accounts / cards from within that country.

As an email address identifies a paypal account then you can't use the same email address on both accounts.

You would need to open your new account in your country with another email address and then see if you can 'send' the funds from your Belgium account to your US account via family / friends to the new accounts email address and then close the other account.

If you manage to close the old account then you can 'add' that email address to your new account and make it primary if you want to.  

[KishkumenP47]

That's what I did, and it worked, thanks!