Shopify reserve not released after you met the requirements

Two different kinds of reserve email

Shopify says some reserve emails list requirements, and that once you meet them the reserve is removed. Others set a reserve with an expiry date and either allow an appeal within a stated timeframe or do not allow one. Before anything else, reread your email and confirm which kind you received, because the next step is different.

If your email listed requirements

• Write down each requirement exactly as worded, and the date you believe you met it.
• Collect evidence for each one from your own admin: for example your dispute or chargeback history for the period, refund records, or fulfillment and delivery records.
• Reply to the reserve email itself with a short, factual summary: each requirement, the date it was met, and where the evidence is. Shopify describes replying to its email as the route for reserve questions.
• Ask Support to confirm whether the requirements have been recorded as met, and whether anything else on the account is holding the reserve in place.

If your email gave an expiry date

Shopify says it reviews a reserve before its expiry date and may lift, keep, reduce or increase it, and that when a reserve ends the funds are added to upcoming payouts, which can take several business days. Shopify does not publish a standard reserve length; the help page uses example figures only. The Shopify Payments terms also say Shopify sets reserve terms at its discretion and may change them.

What does not help

• Assuming a timeline from other merchants' posts. Shopify states your terms only in your own email.
• Paying anyone who claims they can get a reserve released. Nobody outside Shopify and its payment processors can.

Where to see the reserve

Shopify says reserved funds appear under Finance > Payouts > Reserve, which you can export. Keep an export from the day you met the requirements and another from today; the comparison is useful when you write to Support.