How to give store credit on Shopify: issue, refund, POS and fixes

To give store credit on Shopify, open the customer in your admin, click Edit in the Store credit section, choose Credit, enter the amount and an optional expiry date, and confirm. You can also refund an order to store credit from the refund screen. Either way, your store must use customer accounts (not the legacy version), and the customer spends the credit at checkout when signed in or using Shop Pay.

Can you give store credit on Shopify?

Yes. No app needed. Shopify's help centre doesn't tie store credit to a plan, but it sets three conditions:

Legacy customer accounts are already deprecated (you can revert an upgrade within 30 days). Our Shopify deprecations roundup tracks that and other dates.

Store credit can be spent in three places only: your online store, Shopify POS, and the Shop app. Other sales channels don't accept it.

How to give store credit on Shopify manually

Use this for goodwill credit, an apology or a reward. From Shopify's store credit page:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Customers and open the customer.
2. In the Store credit section, click Edit.
3. Under Adjustment, select Credit.
4. If your store sells in more than one currency, choose the currency. Then enter the amount.
5. Set an expiry date, or choose no expiry.
6. Click Review changes, tick Notify customer if you want Shopify to email them, and confirm.

A few rules apply to every credit you issue:

• Expiry is per credit, not per store. There is no store-wide default. Credit expires at the end of the day in your store's timezone, and when a customer has several credits, the one that expires first is spent first.
• There is a cap. You can only issue less than 15,000 USD in store credit on one customer account.
• Currency is fixed when you issue it. A customer with credit in euros and dollars only sees the balance that matches the checkout currency.

Shopify store credit refund: how to refund an order to credit

Refunds are where store credit earns its keep, because the money stays in your store and the customer can reorder straight away. From the refunds guide:

1. Go to Orders and open the order.
2. Click Refund and enter the quantity of each item you are refunding.
3. In Summary, pick the refund method: the original payment method, store credit, or both.
4. If you chose both, edit each amount to split the refund.
5. Optionally set an expiry date for the credit, turn off the customer notification if you don't want it, and click Refund.

You can offer store credit when refunding a whole order, part of an order, returned items, or a cancelled order.

One detail catches people out. After a refund to store credit, the original payment method is locked on the refund screen. If you later decide to send the money to the card instead, you need the permission to over-refund orders previously refunded to store credit, and Shopify warns that this "doesn't reverse the store credit refund that was already issued". Remove the credit by hand (see below) or you will have paid twice.

For what returns cost you, see our Shopify return fees comparison.

Shopify store credit on POS

Store credit works in your physical shop too, but you have to switch it on. From the POS payments guide:

1. In the admin, go to Sales channels > Point of Sale.
2. In Customize the in-store experience, click Edit for POS app, then Checkout.
3. Click the view icon next to Store credit and save.

Each device can override this under Settings > Checkout > Payments in the app. POS credit requires it to be on online too.

Once it is on, customers can pay with their credit at the counter, staff can look up a customer's balance in POS, and you can refund in-person returns to store credit. Staff need the Customers POS role permission to redeem and manage it.

Shopify store credit: how to use it (the customer side)

Customers see their balance in their account details when signed in. At checkout, a Store credit section shows the value with an Apply store credit option.

Two rules surprise customers:

• They can't choose a partial amount. In Shopify's words, "Only the full store credit amount can be applied as a payment method." If the balance is bigger than the order, the rest stays on the account.
• Credit can't pay for subscription renewals. It works on the first purchase of a subscription, not on recurring charges.

Credit can't be applied directly to a draft order or to an edited order. For a draft order, Shopify's workaround is to send the customer an invoice, so they pay it at checkout with their credit; our guide to using store credit at Shopify POS and online walks through it.

How to remove or adjust store credit

To take credit away, for example after a mistaken refund, open the customer, click Edit in Store credit, choose Debit, enter the amount and confirm. The customer page also has the full transaction history and an Expirable amounts view showing what will expire and when.

For accounting, the finance reports include Store credit transactions and Outstanding store credit balance.

Shopify store credit not showing: what to check

When a customer can't see their credit, check in this order:

• Is the customer signed in? Store credit only appears for signed-in customers or Shop Pay users. A guest checkout shows nothing.
• Is your store on customer accounts? Legacy accounts don't support store credit at all.
• Does the currency match? Credit issued in USD won't show at a checkout in CAD.
• Has it expired? Check Expirable amounts on the customer page. Expiry happens at the end of the day in your store's timezone, not the customer's.
• Right account? A customer with two emails may be signed in to the other one.
• Is the order a draft or an edit? Store credit can't be applied to them directly. For a draft order, send an invoice and let the customer pay with their credit.
• Is it a B2B order? Credit on a customer profile only works in your direct-to-consumer store. For B2B, Shopify issues credit to company locations instead.
• Is it POS or another channel? Check store credit is enabled on that POS device. Other channels don't accept it.

Store credit vs gift card

Tax, expiry law and when to use each are in our guide to Shopify gift cards vs store credit.

Bulk issuing store credit: Flow, API and apps

The admin issues credit one customer at a time. For more, there are three routes.

The Admin API. The storeCreditAccountCredit mutation adds credit. It accepts a customer ID directly and creates the account for that currency if it doesn't exist. Its input takes an amount and currency, an optional expiresAt, and a notify flag that defaults to false. storeCreditAccountDebit removes credit and fails if the balance is too low. Both need the write_store_credit_account_transactions scope.

mutation {
  storeCreditAccountCredit(
    id: "gid://shopify/Customer/1234567890"
    creditInput: {
      creditAmount: { amount: "20.00", currencyCode: USD }
      expiresAt: "2027-06-30T23:59:59Z"
      notify: true
    }
  ) {
    storeCreditAccountTransaction { amount { amount currencyCode } }
    userErrors { field message }
  }
}

Shopify Flow. Flow's Send Admin API request action can run most Admin API mutations, so a workflow can issue credit when an order is tagged or a customer joins a segment. Shopify's page doesn't list each mutation it supports, so check that the store credit mutation appears in the action's list in your store before you build around it.

An app. Some loyalty apps issue Shopify store credit as part of their programmes; Joy, for example, adds an "Adjust store credit" action to Flow (Joy docs). That is a good fit if you want points and tiers. If you just want to send credit with a reason and a deadline, that is what we built into Giftmint.

GiftmintGift cards with emails that carry your logo, delivery on the day the buyer picks and a balance check in your store.See how it works

Giftmint sends native Shopify store credit by email, with an expiry date and the reason on record, and on the Business plan you can issue it in bulk from a spreadsheet. It isn't a loyalty or cashback app, so if you need points, look at the apps in our gift card app comparison that offer them.

How to set up store credit on Shopify as a refund policy

Customers need to know when you refund to credit, and the law limits when you can. As a general guide:

• EU. When a consumer cancels an online purchase within the 14-day withdrawal period, the Consumer Rights Directive (Article 13) says the refund must use "the same means of payment as the consumer used for the initial transaction", unless the consumer expressly agrees otherwise and pays no fees for it.
• UK. Regulation 34 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 has the same rule.
• US. There is no single federal right to return goods, so your posted policy and state law decide. California, for example, requires stores with restricted refund policies to display them conspicuously, or a buyer can return goods within 30 days for a refund (Civil Code 1723).

Store credit works for returns you accept voluntarily, such as after the legal window, and as an option the customer chooses. It can't replace a refund the customer is legally owed, and faulty goods have their own rules everywhere.

Here is a starting template you can adapt:

Refunds and store credit

If you return an item within [14] days of delivery, we refund you to your original
payment method. If you prefer, we can refund you in store credit instead, and we
will add [5%] to the amount.

Returns received after [14] days, and within [30] days, are refunded in store credit.

Store credit is added to your account at [store name]. To use it, sign in to your
account or use Shop Pay at checkout. Store credit expires [12 months] after it is
issued [or: does not expire], cannot be exchanged for cash, and can be used online
[and in our shop].

This policy does not affect your legal rights, including your right to a refund for
faulty items.

Keep the windows, bonus and expiry in line with what staff actually choose on the refund screen. Once customer accounts, permissions, POS and the policy are in place, giving store credit on Shopify takes about a minute per customer.

Frequently asked questions