Returns policy by market: what the law says in the US, UK and Australia

Why one returns policy rarely fits three markets

A returns policy does two jobs. It sets what you offer beyond the law (a 30-day window, free return labels, exchanges), and it must not contradict what the law gives the buyer regardless. The first part is yours to design. The second part differs by country, and the failure we see most is a policy written for the US and shown unchanged to UK and Australian buyers, where parts of it are simply wrong.

What follows is a summary of what each regulator publishes, with links so you can read the source. Rules and thresholds change, so re-read them before you edit your policy, and have a lawyer in the market review the final text.

What must a UK returns policy include?

It must reflect the buyer’s right to cancel. GOV.UK’s guidance for online sellers says you must tell the customer they can cancel their order up to 14 days after it is delivered, and that they do not need to give a reason. If you fail to tell them, they can cancel at any time in the next 12 months.

The refund clock is also set out. GOV.UK’s guidance on accepting returns and giving refunds says you must refund the customer within 14 days of receiving the item back, and that you must also refund the cost of standard delivery if the customer paid for it. It also says you must repair or replace an item if a customer returns it within 6 months, and that in some cases you must offer a refund if the customer changes their mind.

The practical consequence is that a UK policy cannot be "exchange or store credit only" for ordinary online orders. It needs a plain statement of the 14-day cancellation right, how to exercise it, who pays for the return (decide this and say so), and when the money comes back. The government page does not say who pays return postage, so confirm that point with a UK adviser before you charge for it.

The GOV.UK page lists categories the rules do not apply to, including gambling, financial services and passenger travel tickets. Most Shopify stores sell none of those, but check the list if you sell anything unusual, such as made-to-order goods.

What must an Australian returns policy include?

It must not take away rights the law already gives. Under the Australian Consumer Law, products must meet consumer guarantees such as acceptable quality and matching their description. Consumer Protection WA states that it is illegal for businesses to try to cancel these rights in store policies or terms and conditions, so a "no refunds" line does not override them.

The same page draws the other boundary: a consumer who simply changed their mind is not entitled to a remedy if the product meets the guarantees. So you are free to offer a change-of-mind return or not. If you do publish a change-of-mind policy, apply it consistently to every buyer.

The remedy depends on the size of the fault. For a major failure the consumer chooses between a refund or a replacement. For a minor one, the business chooses: it must offer a free repair, or it can offer a replacement or a refund instead. A policy that spells this out reads as credible and keeps support agents from improvising.

Write the Australian version in two parts: what you offer for a change of mind (a decision, not a legal duty), and a short statement that your policy does not limit the buyer’s rights under Australian Consumer Law.

What does a US returns policy have to say?

Less than you might expect from the federal side. The FTC’s consumer guidance describes returns as store-set: return and exchange policies vary by store, and many stores will not take returns after a certain time. We did not find FTC guidance requiring a seller to accept change-of-mind returns. State law can add requirements; we have not verified any state’s rules for this post, so check the states you sell into.

The federal rule that does bind online sellers is the FTC’s Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule. It is about shipping, not returns: you need a reasonable basis for any shipping time you state, or for shipping within 30 days if you state none. If you cannot ship on time you must ask the customer to consent to the delay, and the FTC’s guide says that for most payment methods a required refund is due within seven working days after the order is cancelled.

That makes a US policy mostly a commercial document. Say how long buyers have, what condition the item must be in, who pays return shipping, whether you refund to the original payment method or issue store credit, and which items are final sale. Then keep to it, because inconsistency is what generates the chargebacks and complaints.

Can one global policy work?

Only in the narrow case where you write to the strictest market. If you give every buyer a 14-day change-of-mind return with a refund on the original payment method, you have met the UK’s core requirement, and the Australian and US positions are looser than that. The cost is that you also give that return right to buyers who did not have it by law, which is a margin decision worth modeling rather than assuming.

The alternative is one policy per market. That costs more to maintain, but it lets you keep a tighter US window while staying compliant in the UK. Our view: if UK or Australian orders are a small share of volume, the single strict policy is cheaper than the maintenance. If they are a large share, or your products are high-value, per-market policies pay for themselves.

How do you set different return rules per market in Shopify?

Shopify added a native way on October 1, 2026. Per the changelog, return policy profiles are available in the GraphQL Admin API from API version 2026-10. A profile is a set of return rules that you associate with markets, and each store has one unnamed default profile that applies to any market without a named profile.

Some limits from the same changelog are worth knowing before you plan around it. Profiles are read-only in the API, with no mutations, so you manage them in the Shopify admin; apps can read them with the read_legal_policies scope and assign or remove them with write_markets. A null returnRules value means returns are unrestricted, not that data is missing. And on Managed Markets stores the Shopify-provisioned EU profile is locked: an app can read it but cannot assign it to other markets.

The changelog also recommends that apps reading return terms from REFUND_POLICY in Shop.shopPolicies move to the returnPolicyProfiles query, and says profiles are required to express different return rules per market. If you run a returns app or a custom integration, that is the change to schedule.

A profile is a rules container, not legal text. You still need to write the policy page for each market with the statements above, and make sure the rules in the profile match the words on the page.

Where we would not over-engineer it

Do not build a custom returns flow to enforce legal nuance your support team will handle in a sentence. The 14-day UK window and the Australian major and minor distinction are things an agent needs to know, and a macro covers them. Spend engineering time on the parts that are mechanical: the profile per market, the refund timing, and the report that tells you whether each market’s returns cost what you assumed.

If you want a second pair of eyes on how your policy, your Shopify markets setup and your support process line up, that sits inside our Shopify support and store management work. We do not give legal advice, so we will send the final wording to your solicitor or attorney.

Questions this raises

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• Shopify support and store management
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