Accepting USDC with Shopify Payments

Early access

Accepting USDC with Shopify Payments is currently in early access and is not available to all eligible merchants. You're notified in your Shopify admin when accepting USDC with Shopify Payments is available.

With Shopify Payments, your customers can checkout using USDC. USDC is a stablecoin, which is a form of cryptocurrency that's linked to the United States dollar. This means that the value of USDC is more stable than some other forms of cryptocurrency. Offering USDC at checkout gives your customers more payment method options

This article outlines the key benefits, requirements, and activation steps to accept USDC payments at checkout.

Key benefits of accepting USDC as a payment method

Review the following benefits when accepting USDC with Shopify Payments:

• Your customers have more options when paying for their orders when you offer USDC as a payment method at checkout.
• Your customers can pay with any of the 480 crypto wallets that Shopify accepts on the Base network without incurring their own foreign exchange or gas fees. Gas fees are usually paid by customers to have crypto transactions processed, but Shopify doesn't charge these fees.
• You might be eligible for cashback rewards on USDC transactions that you process.

Requirements to accept USDC as a payment method

If you want to offer USDC to your customers at checkout, then you must meet the following requirements:

• You must have Shopify Payments activated on your store.
• Your store must be located in a supported Shopify Payments region in North America, Europe, or Asia-Pacific.

Note

You might need to click to provide more information about your business before you can activate the USDC payment method. While your information is being verified, your account might remain in a Pending onboarding state. Learn more about information requirements for Shopify Payments.

Considerations

Before you activate USDC as a payment method, review the following considerations:

• You can receive your USDC payments in the following ways:
  • In your chosen payout currency as part of your Shopify Payments payout, which is paid out in line with your selected payout schedule
  • In USDC, added to your USDC balance, which you must manually claim.
• Your customers must have USDC available on Base because Shopify's USDC product runs on the Base network. Your customers might need to exchange funds from another network, like ETH, to pay using USDC at checkout. Your customers can contact their crypto wallet provider for support.
• You can't partially capture funds on orders paid for with USDC.
• Your customers can't pay for subscription products with USDC.
• Your customers can't open disputes on orders paid for using USDC.
• You can't offer post-purchase upsells when a customer pays with USDC.

Tip

Base is a type of blockchain network, which is a digital ledger that records transactions in a secured and decentralized manner. Base is built on top of the main Ethereum network, and aims to facilitate faster and cheaper transactions compared to other networks, while maintaining a high level of security and user experience.

Eligible Shopify Payments regions in North America

If you use Shopify Payments in one of the following regions in North America, then you can accept USDC transactions:

This table displays the regions in North America where you can accept USDC transactions with Shopify Payments

Mexico

United States, excluding Arkansas, New York, Pennsylvania, or Texas.

Eligible Shopify Payments regions in Europe

If you use Shopify Payments in one of the following regions in Europe, then you can accept USDC transactions:

This table displays the regions in Europe where you can accept USDC transactions with Shopify Payments

Austria	Belgium	Bulgaria
Croatia	Cyprus	Denmark
Estonia	France	Germany
Gibraltar	Greece	Hungary
Ireland	Italy	Latvia
Liechtenstein	Lithuania	Luxembourg
Malta	Netherlands	Norway
Poland	Portugal	Romania
Slovenia	Spain	Sweden
Switzerland	United Kingdom

Eligible Shopify Payments regions in Asia-Pacific

To accept USDC at checkout in Asia-Pacific, you must use Shopify Payments Hong Kong to accept USDC at checkout.

Activate USDC with Shopify Payments

To accept USDC at checkout, you must activate the payment method in your Shopify Payments settings.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.

2. In the Shopify Payments section, click Manage.

3. Click Manage payment methods.

4. In the Crypto section, activate the USDC option.

Choose how your USDC transactions are paid out

When you accept USDC payments at checkout, you'll receive funds in your chosen payout currency along with card payment transactions in your Shopify Payments payouts or you can choose to manually claim and transfer funds in USDC directly to your crypto wallet.

You can view available USDC funds and authorize a USDC payout in the Finance page and in the Payouts page of your Shopify admin.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.

2. In the Shopify Payments section, click Manage.

3. In the Crypto transactions section, select one of the following options:

• To convert your USDC payouts to chosen payout currency and include them in your Shopify Payments payouts, click Payouts in local currency.
• To transfer your USDC payouts to your crypto wallet, click Payouts in USDC.

If you want to switch from receiving USDC payments in a crypto wallet to receiving them into your Shopify Payments payout, then you should claim any available USDC balance before switching. If you don't claim your USDC balance, and you try to claim these funds to a crypto wallet at a later date, then your settings are automatically changed and you receive future USDC payments into your USDC balance.

Connect a crypto wallet and claim USDC payouts

Note

All payouts in USDC must be manually claimed from the Finance section and the Payouts section of your admin. This lets you control when you get paid for USDC transactions.

To claim USDC funds and transfer them to a crypto wallet, you must connect your crypto wallet and then authorize the transfer of your USDC funds to the connected crypto wallet. You need to connect to your crypto wallet each time you want to claim USDC funds.

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Finance > Payouts.

2. In the Payout balance section, click Claim in the USDC section.

3. In the Move money section, select Connect crypto wallet.

4. In the Connect wallet dialog, select a crypto wallet.

5. Enter your crypto wallet's details and then click Connect.

6. Complete two-factor authentication.

7. Click Next.

8. In the Authorize transfer dialog, click Authorize.

Refunds when accepting USDC payments

If your customer pays with USDC and you refund their order, then how the funds are debited from your account depends on the following factors:

• If you choose to receive your payouts in USDC to your crypto wallet, then the refund is debited from your USDC balance. When refunding USDC orders, a sufficient USDC balance is required to process the refund.
• If you choose to receive your USDC funds in your chosen Shopify Payments currency, then the funds are debited from your Shopify Payments balance and are converted to USDC for the refund. In this case, you aren't required to have a USDC balance to process the refund.

Customer experience when paying with USDC

If your customers want to pay with USDC, then they need to set up an account on an exchange such as Coinbase or Crypto.com to purchase the cryptocurrency. They can purchase USDC with their local (or 'fiat') currency, or exchange another cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum for USDC on Base. They can choose to set up a wallet to hold the USDC with the exchange provider, such as a Coinbase Wallet, or use another wallet provider such as MetaMask or Trust Wallet.

Note

USDC can be held and transacted on many blockchain networks, such as Ethereum or Solana, but Shopify Payments supports payments made only with USDC on the Base network. Your customers must have USDC on Base, or move their USDC onto Base within their crypto wallet to pay for orders using USDC.