Shopify holds have a date. Find it.

Account hold or reserve?

• Account hold: payouts stop until you fix what Shopify asked for. Its account holds page¹ lists the usual reasons: missing information, bank details, product eligibility, supportability, sanctions screening, and creditor or legal action. Holds are specific to your account, and Shopify reviews accounts throughout their life.¹
• Reserve: a temporary hold on part of your balance, sometimes all of it, for a set period. Shopify’s reserves page² describes two kinds: a fixed amount, or a percentage of each sale. It names extended billing cycles, chargebacks, refund rates, long delivery times and sudden volume surges as reasons.²

Fixing an account hold

• Only the store owner can resolve the hold. The fastest route Shopify gives is to supply exactly what it asked for and reply directly to its email.¹
• You can keep using the store meanwhile, and customers can usually still check out, but no payouts arrive until the hold is resolved.¹
• A creditor hold is different: the payment processor (Stripe, PayPal or Adyen, depending on your region) has to hold the funds under a legal order, Shopify cannot remove it, and only the processor can, once your creditor sends it a release. Contact the creditor directly.¹
• Before you click a link in a hold email or hand over bank details, check it really came from Shopify: its help centre warns about phishing.¹

Reading a reserve

1. Now

   Find the terms and the expiry date

   The reserve terms arrive by email, and each reserve has an expiry date. In your Shopify admin, go to Finance > Payouts and click Reserve to see the reserve transactions; you can export them to CSV for your evidence pack.²

2. Within the email’s deadline

   Appeal by replying to that email

   To appeal, reply to the email that set out the reserve terms, within the timeframe it gives. Some reserves cannot be appealed: if the email lists requirements instead, meeting them removes the reserve automatically.²

3. Before expiry

   Expect a review

   Before a reserve expires, Shopify reviews the account and decides whether to keep, reduce or raise it, based on risks such as chargebacks or refunds. Keep refunds and disputes low and delivery proof ready.²

4. At expiry

   Watch the next payouts

   If the reserve is not extended, the reserved funds are added to upcoming payouts, which can take several business days.² Put the expiry date into the hold calculator as your release date so you get a calendar reminder.

What the terms let Shopify keep

The Shopify Payments terms³ say Shopify sets the terms of any reserve “in our discretion”, may require “a certain amount (including the full amount)” to be held for a period of time, and may change those terms at any time. You are not entitled to interest on reserved funds. After the account is terminated, a payment processor “may elect to continue to hold any funds deemed necessary” pending chargebacks, disputes, fees, refunds or other investigations.³

If the expiry date passes and money is still held without an explanation, ask in writing for release and an itemised account of anything kept back. The route letters draft that for the UK, Ireland and the US, and the escalation timeline tracks the reply deadlines. In the UK, check which company your agreement names before going to the Financial Ombudsman.