Frozen stores after missed bill payments

This page provides information about what happens if you miss a bill payment, some of the reasons that a bill payment might fail, and how to reactivate a frozen Shopify store.

If you missed paying your Shopify subscription bill, or if a payment fails multiple times, then your store is frozen until you settle your bill with Shopify. Your store doesn't freeze until your bill's due date. If your store is frozen, then you can't access your Shopify admin and customers can't view your store.

A payment might fail for some of the following reasons:

• The credit card that you have on file expired.
• Your account has no payment method on file.
• Your payment method has insufficient funds.
• You aren't using a valid credit card from Mastercard, Visa, or American Express to pay your Shopify bills.
• Your credit card doesn't allow for recurring payments in USD.

For more information, refer to Managing billing.

Note

If your store is already frozen, and you don't want to reactivate it, then no action is required. If your store is active, and you don't want to continue to maintain your store, then make sure that you cancel your subscription to deactivate your store.

If your store is frozen, then you need to reactivate it before you can take actions such as accessing your store information, transferring a domain, or beginning to sell again.

You can access your billing history without having to reactivate your store. When you try to log in to your store as the store owner, or as a staff member with the View billing and receive billing emails permission, you get a message about the status of the store, and you can click View your past bills or View past invoices.

Reactivating your frozen Shopify store

To reactivate or unfreeze your store, you need to pay any outstanding charges. In addition, you need to pay any other outstanding charges that were incurred during the time between when the payment was missed and when your store was frozen. These might include the following charges:

• App charges
• Transaction fees
• Shipping charges

If you reactivate your store more than 30 days after your last bill was issued, then you also need to pick a plan and pay for the upcoming subscription cycle. If you can't log in to reactivate your store, then contact Shopify Support.

Reactivate your frozen Shopify store

1. Log in to your store as the store owner.
2. Successfully pay the outstanding balance on your account. If you have multiple outstanding bills, then you're prompted to pay each invoice completely to reactivate your store. To download your bills, you can export your billing history.
3. If you reactivate your store more than 30 days after your last bill was issued, then do the following:
   1. Pick a new plan.
   2. Pay for the upcoming subscription cycle.