HeldFundsThe Shopify Payments file
When Shopify Payments is disabled on a store, the balance is held. The period merchants are quoted is 120 days — it is the figure in 13 of the 42 accounts below. That figure is not in your contract. It appears nowhere in the Shopify Payments Terms of Service, which set no maximum length for a hold at all. 7
Every entry is something the person it happened to published themselves, under their own posting name, on Shopify's own community forum — a page you can open. They are their reports, not our findings.
1. The record
| File | Amount stated | Held since | Hold period quoted | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HF-2026-0011 Custom jewellery brand | over £900 | June 2026; he says the account had been processing through Shopify Payments since April 2026 and that the post, dated 5 June 2026, describes the current state | Funds held until October 2026, which he counts as four months away | HELD |
| HF-2026-0012 Online retail store; product type not stated | Not stated | January 2026; the post is dated 12 January 2026 | 120 days | HELD |
| HF-2026-0013 Online retail store; product type not stated | Not stated | October 2025; he gives 19 September 2025 as the date of the warning email and 1 October 2025 as the date Shopify Payments was disabled | 120 days | HELD |
| HF-2026-0014 Online yoga classes | $17,000 | July 2024; he says the account had been pending verification since 23 July | No period given; he says he was told he was no longer authorised to use the platform and was not told where the balance was | HELD |
| HF-2026-0015 Online retail store; product type not stated | $4,800 | June and July 2024; he gives 1 June 2024 as his first sale, 10 June 2024 as the day the payout was moved back out of the payout tab, and says by 4 July 2024 the account had been banned with a 120-day hold | 120 days | HELD |
| HF-2026-0016 Not stated | Not stated | Not dated directly; he says on 7 April 2024 that the funds had been held for 120 days, which places the start around December 2023 | 120 days, with 4 April 2024 given as the deposit date | HELD |
| HF-2026-0017 Three online stores; product type not stated | Not stated | Not dated directly; he says the 120-day hold had already run and that the reserve completion date he was given was 3 September 2024 | 120 days, followed by a reserve with a completion date of 3 September 2024 | HELD |
| HF-2026-0018 Online retail store; product type not stated | over 100k | Not dated directly; he says on 13 March 2024 that the 120 days had passed that day, which places the start around November 2023 | 120 days | HELD |
| HF-2026-0019 Not stated | Not stated | November 2023; he says his account was closed down that month | 120 days, which he says expired on 29 March 2024 | HELD |
| HF-2026-0020 Not stated | Not stated | Not dated directly; he says on 26 April 2024 that it had been a little over 125 days, which places the start around late December 2023 | 120 days, with 17 April 2024 given as the date he would be paid | HELD |
| HF-2026-0021 Online retail store; product type not stated | Not stated | Not dated directly; he says on 26 April 2025 that the payout had been on hold for over 220 days, which places the start around September 2024 | No period given; the hold had run over 220 days by the time he posted | RELEASED |
| HF-2026-0062 Own-brand consumer product manufactured to the merchant’s own formula | $55,000 | May 2026; the post is dated 15 May 2026 | Frozen until September 2026, which they describe as a 120 day freeze | HELD |
| HF-2026-0063 Online clothing store | $13,000 | A 20% hold was placed in the summer of 2025; the reserve balance at issue accrued between October and November 2025. The post is dated 4 December 2025 | A 20% hold with a stated release date of 25 November 2025 | HELD |
| HF-2026-0064 Online clothing store, unbranded, opened December 2025 | Not stated | March 2026; the post is dated 31 March 2026 and describes a hold applied that morning | Payouts held until 31 July 2026 if the appeal is unsuccessful | HELD |
| HF-2026-0065 Online store; product type not stated | Not stated | April 2026, when they say the Shopify Payments account was placed on hold | Told by email that payouts would be deposited on 29 August 2026, which they count as 120 days; the date shown to them later changed to 2027 | HELD |
| HF-2026-0066 Online store; product type not stated | Not stated | The account was terminated on 8 July 2025 | 120 days at termination; after the 120 days elapsed they say they were told the payout would be held for a further 365 days, which they count as 485 days in total | HELD |
| HF-2026-0067 Online store; product type not stated | $10,000 | A 20% reserve was applied on 31 December 2024 and was escalated to a full hold before their post of 14 January 2025 | No end date given; they say they were told the matter sat with the legal team | HELD |
| HF-2026-0068 Online store with employees on payroll | $70,000 | They say the affected transactions have been pending since around October 2024; they discovered the balance on 28 February 2025 | No hold period given to them; they say the payouts simply never arrived | HELD |
| HF-2026-0069 Online store; product type not stated | approx AUD$30,000 | They say the shortfall accrued across 2024 payouts and that they identified it in March 2025 | Not a hold with a stated end date. They say the amounts were never paid out at all, and that Shopify disputes that they are owed | HELD |
| HF-2026-0070 New perfume business | $40 | They say the payouts had been on hold for over a month when they posted on 7 February 2025, placing the start in January 2025 | No hold period given to them | HELD |
| HF-2026-0071 New store; service not stated | nearly £2000 | They say the store was opened just over two weeks before their post of 20 October 2025 and was closed within 24 hours of opening, placing the closure in early October 2025 | No hold period given to them; they say support would give no timescale at all | HELD |
| HF-2026-0072 Online store selling gift cards among other products | $1,500 | They say the account was terminated on 7 March 2025 | No hold period given to them; they say no reason for the termination was given either | HELD |
| HF-2026-0073 Online store; product type not stated | Over €5,000 | They say payouts were frozen on 3 January 2026 | No hold period given to them; they quote a support agent as saying "We currently do not have any maximum wait time" | HELD |
| HF-2026-0074 Online store operated through an LLC | $1,178 | They say payouts were paused on 24 February 2026, the day they opened the store, and were still locked when they posted on 31 May 2026 | No hold period given to them; they say they were told in March 2026 there was no timeframe because of a "unique review process" | HELD |
| HF-2026-0075 Online store; product type not stated | $499 | They say the store was deactivated more than 120 days before their post of 6 July 2025, placing the deactivation no later than March 2025 | The 120 days they were told to wait had already elapsed; no new date was given to them | HELD |
| HF-2026-0076 Shopify Plus merchant; product type not stated | $200,000 | They say payouts had been paused for 12 days when they posted on 29 July 2026, placing the start around 17 July 2026 | No hold period given to them; documents were requested on 18 July 2026 with a deadline, which they say they met | RELEASED |
| HF-2026-0077 Online store run through an ERP system | $361 | They say the account was restricted in June 2026 | No hold period given to them | HELD |
| HF-2026-0078 Online store | Over £10k+ | No start date given; posted 1 May 2026 | No timeframe given; they say frontline support could not give one | HELD |
| HF-2026-0079 Online store | $17,000 | They say the payout hold was placed in March 2026 | They say the verification page said they would get a reply within a week | HELD |
| HF-2026-0080 Bricks-and-mortar boutique selling through Shopify | $70,000 | They say the account went under review on 17 April 2024 | No hold period given to them | HELD |
| HF-2026-0081 New online shop selling a single t-shirt product | $26,000 | They say the payout account was put on hold on 26 June 2024 | They say support called it a standard review and promised an email that never came | HELD |
| HF-2026-0082 Online store | $4,350 | They say the store was frozen over an unpaid subscription invoice; posted 11 September 2026 | No hold period given to them | HELD |
| HF-2026-0083 Online store, still open and shipping | 4700 EUR | They say payouts have been stuck since a failed payout on 16 January 2025 | No hold period given to them | HELD |
| HF-2026-0084 New candle business | $2,000 | They say payouts were paused after they entered a wrong bank account number; posted 26 September 2025 | No timeframe given; they describe it as an indefinite wait | HELD |
| HF-2026-0085 Second business website added to a ten-year-old Shopify account | $1600 | They say payments were held from about 23 September 2025; posted 30 September 2025 | No hold period given to them | HELD |
| HF-2026-0086 Store selling second-hand designer clothing and shoes | Not stated | They say the account was deactivated on 25 August 2023 | A moderator account answering for Shopify told them in the thread that payouts may be held up to 120 days and are then deposited to the bank account on file | HELD |
| HF-2026-0087 Clothing label designing and assembling its own garments, three years on the platform | $13,000 | They say all payouts were put on hold on 1 December 2023 | No period was given to them. An account answering for Shopify in the thread (it belongs to the forum’s Shopify-staff group and today carries the title "Retired") said reviews generally take between one and three business days | HELD |
| HF-2026-0088 Online store | $10,941.33 | They say the payout has not been released since 24 April 2025 | No period was given to them; they cite two open support tickets, #57121008 and #57425991 | HELD |
| HF-2026-0089 Small business trading for almost five years on the platform | $3,000 | They say the payout account had been on hold for three weeks when they posted on 8 December 2022 | An email they quote, signed by a Shopify risk analyst, says the hold was requested to be removed and that the payouts screen "should refresh in the next 2-5 business days"; a later email from the same person says the release had been asked of the banking partners "on Friday" | HELD |
| HF-2026-0090 New store, first orders | $1,330.02 | They say a temporary new-account payout hold was placed on their first orders, which were paid on 3 and 4 July 2026 | They were given 6 July 2026 as the expected lift date, and support quoted them estimated payouts "around July 10, 2026" and "around July 11, 2026" | HELD |
| HF-2026-0091 Store buying from a supplier | Not stated | They say the payouts were put on hold without warning; by 4 January 2024 they date the hold at more than two weeks, which places its start in the second half of December 2023 | A support agent told them they would receive an email from the payments team in three business days | RELEASED |
| HF-2026-0092 Store not described | Not stated | They say their payouts were deactivated in the system and that the fault was escalated in January 2026 | No period was given to them; they say four or five support advisors promised a follow-up that never came, across six tickets, the most recent numbered 65574666 | RELEASED |
Only 21 of the 42 entries put a dollar figure on the balance, and those 21 add up to $520,999.35. Two more state a figure in another currency, and the rest never say how much was held at all — which is itself worth noticing, because a merchant writing in the middle of this tends to lead with the delay, not the amount. Read each entry in full, with its source and archived copy →
2. What the reports have in common
13 of the 42 entries were quoted the same period: 120 days. In six of them the merchant says a specific date came and went — the day the 120 days expired, or a release date Shopify put in writing — and the money did not arrive. In two others the date itself was replaced by a later one. 12
One merchant says he was told the funds would be deposited on 4 April 2024, and that three days later the only answer to his email was "we have escalated this for funds to be released".2 Another says his account was closed in November 2023, that the 120 days expired on Friday 29 March 2024, and that a week later he had spoken to "like a hundred different agents" without being paid.1 A third says he was sent a written reserve completion date of 3 September 2024 and that the date passed with nothing deposited.2 What merchants say follows a date like that — including two who say the 120 days were replaced by a further 365 — is set out in when the 120 days are up. Four of the merchants in this file were held behind a verification step they were unable to complete at all — a blank page, a dead button, an email that never arrived — which is set out in when the only way out of the hold is broken. For another group the hold begins at the payout bank account itself, and Shopify’s own stated figure for that is four days: see when changing your bank account stops your payouts. Four days is one of at least seven lengths the company has stated in public, including a 21-day hold on new stores that a member of its staff has called an experiment; they are collected with their sources in how long a Shopify payouts hold is meant to be.
The stated reason is nearly always disputes, and the merchants nearly always dispute the arithmetic. One puts his store at more than 2,500 orders with 10 chargebacks — about 0.4% — and was told the account carried an "elevated risk of customer disputes".3 One says a single chargeback of £74.49 was ruled in his favour by the customer's own bank within days, and that over £900 is being held until October 2026 anyway.4 One says he had no chargebacks, no returns and no complaints when $4,800 went on a 120-day hold.2
38 of the 42 entries are recorded here as still held and 4 as released. That is not a finding about how these end. It is a finding about what people post: a merchant writes the day the money does not arrive, and then, paid or not, stops writing. Where the last thing a person said was that the balance was unpaid, this record says held, as of that date, and does not guess at what happened next.
A merchant posting as AtteS wrote in April 2025 that his payout had been held for over 220 days and that he had contacted support 30 to 40 times. Six months later he replied to someone else on his own thread: "Yes I got my money couple months ago. One day I just got an email from Shopify that said that my money is being released and I will receive my payout on the following days." No reason was given for the release, and by his own account the total was somewhere near a year.5
3. What the contract says
The accounts above are one person's word each. The contract is not. The Shopify Payments Terms of Service are published by Shopify, and the clause that governs a payout hold is called Reserves.7
"We, in our discretion, will set the terms of any Reserve Account and notify you of such terms, which may require that a certain amount (including the full amount) of the funds received for a Transaction are held for a period of time … We, in our discretion, may elect to change the terms of a Reserve Account at any time, for any reason, based on your payment processing history or as requested by the Payment Processors."
"You agree that: (i) you are not entitled to any interest or other compensation associated with the funds held in the Reserve Account; (ii) you have no right to direct that account; (iii) you have no legal interest in those funds or that account; and, (iv) you may not assign any interest in those funds or that account."
Read those two together and the 120 days is missing from both. "A period of time" is the whole of the limit the agreement places on the length of a hold, and the next sentence reserves the right to change the terms at any time, for any reason. We searched the full text of the agreement on 11 September 2026: the numbers 120 and 180 do not appear in it anywhere, and neither does any other count of days applied to a reserve.7
This is where Shopify Payments differs from the other files on this site. PayPal's user agreement does state a number — a 180-day ceiling on risk-related holds, with holds arising from legal process carved out of it.8 Stripe's general terms, like Shopify's, define a reserve and cap nothing.9 Shopify's clause goes one step further than either: it has you agree you hold no legal interest in the money while it sits there.
So where does 120 days come from? On the same forum threads, Shopify staff have explained the practice in public. One staff reply says the hold is imposed by the banking partners behind Shopify Payments, that the decision "cannot be overturned by our support", and that at the end of the period the reserve is deposited to the merchant's account.6 Another, answering a merchant who was past day 120 and unpaid, draws a distinction worth writing down before you count on a date: "while the payment is released after 120 days, that is not the deposit date."1
4. If your Shopify Payments account has just been disabled
This site is a record, not a law firm, and nobody can promise you a way to make a hold end early. Three things are worth doing on the day it happens, because each gets harder later.
- Export everything while the admin still opens. Payouts, balance history, the disputes list with reason codes, order and tracking records, and the risk team's emails. Whatever route you take later runs on documents you may not be able to download once the account is restricted.
- Get the release date in writing, and keep the message. Ask, in a written channel, the exact date the hold ends, whether a reserve continues after it, and what would extend either. Five entries above turn on the gap between a date Shopify gave in writing and what then happened — and that gap is only provable if you kept the original.
- Connect a second gateway before you need it. Shopify Payments being disabled does not close your store, but it does stop your checkout. Every merchant above was dealing with the hold and a dead checkout at the same time.
Then file the case here. A held balance that only exists in your inbox is invisible; the same balance in a record with a date, a figure and a source is countable.
5. If you are choosing a provider
This file makes no recommendation and nobody has paid for a mention on it. Compare it with the Stripe file, the PayPal file and the Paddle file — different companies, different models, and one question that is worth asking all of them in writing before you integrate: if you disable my account, how long is the balance held, what extends that period, and what is the written process for getting the money at the end of it? Shopify Payments is Shopify's own gateway and the answer for it is set by the Reserves clause above, not by the 120 days you will be quoted later.
Sources
- AndreEcom, "Shopify Payments don't relase funds after 120 days", Shopify Community, 13 March 2024, and the replies on the same thread from Kyyun (3 and 6 April 2024), RetroTrapHouse (26 April 2024) and two Shopify staff members. community.shopify.com · archived copy. All 18 posts read in full and verified 11 September 2026. Filed here as HF-2026-0018, HF-2026-0019 and HF-2026-0020.
- lifeboosstsss, "Shopify Holding ALL Funds over 120 Days due to "Risk of Chargeback"", Shopify Community, 5 March 2024, and the replies on the same thread from Risktakerzz21 (7 April 2024), Lucas7 (30 August 2024), KrayzieBone420 (29 August to 2 September 2024) and farihin (6 September 2024). community.shopify.com · archived copy. All 15 posts read in full and verified 11 September 2026. Filed here as HF-2026-0014, HF-2026-0015, HF-2026-0016 and HF-2026-0017. KrayzieBone420's dates come from his own earlier thread, "Payout Nightmare", 19 June to 4 July 2024.
- InfiniteLuxur, "Shopify Payments disabled + 120-day payout hold, only 10 chargebacks on 2,500+ orders (0.4%)", Shopify Community, 12 January 2026. community.shopify.com · archived copy. Read in full and verified 11 September 2026, including the two requests for an update that went unanswered. Filed here as HF-2026-0012.
- HugoWilma, "Shopify Payments disabled after 1 fraudulent chargeback — bank ruled in our favour, funds held until October", Shopify Community, 5 June 2026. community.shopify.com · archived copy. Read in full and verified 11 September 2026. Filed here as HF-2026-0011. The stated release month, October 2026, is still ahead; this entry is due for recheck then.
- AtteS, "Payout has been on hold for over 220 days!", Shopify Community, 26 April 2025, and his own reply of 9 October 2025 confirming he was paid. community.shopify.com · the reply · archived copy. Read in full and verified 11 September 2026. Filed here as HF-2026-0021.
- Rudiments00, "Shopify Payments disabled", Shopify Community, 3 October 2025. community.shopify.com · archived copy. Read in full and verified 11 September 2026. Filed here as HF-2026-0013. The staff explanation of who imposes the hold is quoted from the reply of 8 March 2024 on the thread at source 2.
- Shopify Payments Terms of Service, published by Shopify, at shopify.com/legal/terms-shopify-payments · archived copy. Quotations from the Reserves clause. Retrieved and searched in full on 11 September 2026: the strings "120" and "180" return no match anywhere in the agreement, and no count of days is applied to a reserve. That search is scoped to this document as published on that date; the terms you agreed to when you signed up may be a different version, and the Payment Processor Terms for your country are separate documents.
- PayPal User Agreement, holds and limitations. Summarised on the PayPal file, where it is quoted and cited in full.
- Stripe Services Agreement — General Terms, definition of "Reserve". Summarised on the Stripe file, where it is quoted and cited in full.
Every factual claim on this page is sourced below. Last verified against primary sources on 16 September 2026.