Do conference participants need their own PayPal account?

We want to offer PayPal as payment option to our conference participants.
Do the participants need their own PayPal account to pay their registration fees online via credit card?

It mainly depends on the country of the participant (client) if a PayPal account is required for PayPal payments. You can find more information below.

In order for participants to be able to pay via PayPal and you as the organizer to receive payments made via PayPal, you will need to have a PayPal Business Account. PayPal provides 3 types of accounts: Personal, Business and Premier. As Personal accounts are only for individuals who want to shop online, please upgrade your account to a Standard Business account. This upgrade is free of charge. (Premier accounts are rather for freelancers, people selling goods online and contract workers.)

Please see the full instructions here:
Configure PayPal for ConfTool Pro

Please also note that we recommend not to apply for PayPal Plus, as the charges of such an account are higher and there is no real benefit for organizers using ConfTool Pro compared to the normal Business account (even if the PayPal sales team seems to tell people other things on the phone). We do not support the new App Interface of PayPal plus as the setup of such an App is very time consuming and complicated for the merchant.

Participants from many countries have the option to either log into his/her PayPal account or to confirm that he/she does not hold a PayPal account (see Image 1). Without a PayPal account, the user has the option to pay directly by credit card (see Image 2). The user status is determined by PayPal based on the previous use of the PayPal account by the user (by way of “Cookies”).
Please see also: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/account-optional

The appearance of the payment page and the available options mainly depend on the country of the participant. The images below (3, 4 & 5) show several examples. Usually the most common payment methods of the country the payer is from are provided.

Please note:

• Since June 2017 participants from EU countries, Switzerland and Norway usually have to create a PayPal account during the payment process. However, this account is free and the process is quick, as most data of the payment form was provided by ConfTool.
• For participants from most other countries (for instance USA, China, India, Canada, or Australia) "guest payments" (without a PayPal account) are still available. However, they are usually limited to 3 payments per credit card and a total amount of €1,500. Each credit card can only be used for one PayPal account.
  Please find more general information on the PayPal website (in German): 
  https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/privacywax-full.
• There may be other countries where the option to make a payment without a PayPal account is not available to the participant, even if the organizer holds a PayPal Business account. However, we do not have further confirmations nor additional in-depth information. For more details, please contact your local PayPal support team.
• There is an international limitation, but we are not sure if it's still active, as the corresponding PayPal pages were deleted. International "Guests payments" have probably a limit of $4,000.
• Participants have to pay via their PayPal account if they already hold a PayPal account and their bank account or credit card is registered with their PayPal account.
• If a credit card has been registered with another PayPal account, the card cannot be used for a PayPal "guest payment" anymore. In this case the corresponding PayPal account must be used to make a payment with that card. The typical message in this case is the rather confusing text: "The card you entered cannot be used for this payment. Please enter a different credit or debit card number."
• If you want to reach the PayPal support, please log in to your PayPal account and use the help menu to find the corresponding forms. If you cannot access your PayPal account, you can use the complaint form at: https://www.paypal.com/de/smarthelp/contact-us?email=privacy
  You can also send an e-mail to the address: ppelce@paypal.com (English) or beschwerde@paypal.de (German).
  

Please also note that PayPal is not offered in all countries as a payment method:
https://www.paypal.com/worldwide/