Shopify Store Policies: Shipping, Refund, Privacy, Terms

You are getting a store ready to launch, or you opened Settings > Policies and found a switch called Use automated policy, which Shopify's changelog announced on October 8, 2026. Either way the questions are the same: which policies your store needs, whether to write them or let Shopify generate them, and what the generated text leaves out.

This guide takes them in that order: who requires which policy, what automation writes and replaces, how to add or edit each policy, where customers see them, the extra rules for EU and German sales, and a checklist to run before launch.

Which Store Policies Shopify Gives You and Who Requires Them

The seven policies in Settings > Policies

Here is each policy with what Shopify automates as of October 2026, the direct address the Help Center gives, and where it is linked without any work from you.

If you work with the Admin GraphQL API, its ShopPolicyType enum has eight values. The extra one, TERMS_OF_SALE, is not among the seven policies the Help Center lists for the admin.

Who requires which policy

Shopify's own terms come first, because they bind every store, whatever it sells and wherever it sells. The Terms of Service, last updated August 1, 2026, name four things:

The same terms say that public-facing contact information should include your name, address, telephone number and email address. Whether that address has to be a physical one is answered in does Shopify require a physical business address.

A privacy policy isn't one of the four. The terms add a condition in their section on Enhanced Services: if you receive them, you are required to include a link to Shopify's Consumer Privacy Policy in your privacy policy and to post a link to your privacy policy prominently in your store.

Sales channels, ad platforms and the law add their own requirements on top. Find the rows that match where you sell:

The agentic channels look at your policies in two different places. To sell on ChatGPT, and to sell with direct checkout on Google AI Mode and Gemini, Meta and Microsoft Copilot, the four channel pages say you must have Terms of service, Privacy policy and Return and refund policy completed in Settings > Policies. That is where you check them, and a store missing one doesn't meet the channel's requirements.

The agentic home's Listing insights include Shop policy completeness, a signal in the listing quality score that measures whether your shipping, returns, refund and other store policies are present. Shipping counts there, although none of the four eligibility lists names it. How the four channels differ is mapped in our guide to the AI channels Shopify sells through.

Google has two sides, and they ask different things. The Google & YouTube channel in your Shopify admin requires a Refund Policy and Terms of Service, and says these policies must be available in your footer menu; your contact information has to sit on a page customers can see.

Google's own Merchant Center return policy rules let you choose whether to submit return and refund information with your product data. Your website still needs clear and conspicuous refund and return information, reachable without logging in and consistent with what Merchant Center shows.

So put the policy in both places. Google's help for Shopify merchants says that adding your return policy in both locations helps it represent your policies accurately in search results and Shopping ads.

Google's Misrepresentation policy does not allow concealing refund restrictions or fulfillment timelines before a customer commits to a purchase. Which policy gaps get a Shopify store warned or suspended in Merchant Center is covered in our Merchant Center suspension guide, under the reasons Google's Shopify-specific page names.

Meta sets its own rule for Facebook and Instagram commerce: your refund and return policies must be clearly displayed and easily accessible from your website or on Facebook or Instagram, and failing its requirements may cost you access to commerce features or the account.

On Shopify's side, none of the Help Center pages we read on October 15, 2026 for the Facebook & Instagram channel, the Shop channel and Shopify Payments names a store policy as a requirement.

What Automated Policies Write and What They Replace

On October 8, 2026, Shopify's changelog announced automated policies: policy text that stays up to date as your store settings change. Each policy is automated on its own, and activating one doesn't activate automation for every policy.

So the choice is per policy. Automate where your store settings already say what the policy should; write by hand where they don't. The settings each policy reads show the first, and the cases Shopify flags for extra disclosures show the second.

Which store settings each automated policy reads

The Help Center's table of Liquid variables shows where each automated policy gets its details. Grouped by policy:

So you correct an automated policy by changing the setting behind it, not by editing the text. Where a detail in the policy has an action to edit its source, that action opens the setting; after the change, review the policy again to see what customers will read.

Switching automation on replaces your text

This is the step to take slowly on a store that already has policies. The Help Center puts it plainly:

• Switching on replaces the policy text, and the custom translations in languages that have an automated template. Save a copy of any wording and translations you want to keep, then review the replacement rather than assuming your edits survived.
• Switching off keeps the current content and doesn't delete the policy. The text stays as it is, but it no longer updates when you change your store settings.
• Switching on again means the automated template replaces your custom content, so keep a copy before you switch back.
• Getting an older version back: Shopify saves past policies for 2 years. Export them from Settings > Policies through Get past policies: return and refund, terms of service, shipping, contact information and legal notice, with your privacy policy alongside.

Sidekick follows the same line: if Use automated policy is on for a policy, Sidekick can't change that policy, and it can't turn the setting off for you.

What automation leaves to you

The changelog that announced the feature includes the line that matters most for anyone switching it on:

The Help Center adds that the automated templates are for informational purposes only, aren't legal advice and don't guarantee compliance. It names four cases where you might need to update them or add specific disclosures:

• You offer auto-renewing subscriptions. What subscription law asks of you is covered in our subscriptions guide's compliance section.
• You sell regulated products, such as alcohol.
• You sell products subject to market-specific rules, such as safety, labeling, cosmetics, electronics, children's products or food-contact materials.
• You operate a child-directed site.

Then check each generated policy against how you actually work. If an app manages your returns, make sure the refund policy matches the return rules and instructions you use in it. Don't promise delivery or shipping times you can't provide. If you sell in several languages, review the policy in each one. Shopify tells you to make sure translated policies accurately reflect your business practices and the commitments in your default-language policy.

Contact information needs a second look of its own, because policies are public and often show your address, phone number and email. Shopify suggests appropriate business contact details, especially if you run the business from home, and how to keep a home address off your store covers the PO box route. Some legal disclosures require a physical business address and don't accept PO boxes.

Four automated policies or five?

Shopify's Help Center page Adding store policies, read on October 18, 2026, says you can manage automation separately for four: your return and refund policy, terms of service, shipping policy and contact information. Legal notice appears on that page only in the list of seven and among the policies you can export.

The changelog post of October 8, 2026 lists five: return and refund, contact information, terms of service, shipping and legal notice. A third page adds its own version: Shopify's checkout page for merchants in Germany tells them to add their legal notice to the Contact information box.

When we opened Legal notice in our development store on October 18, 2026, its editor had no Use automated policy switch, while the Shipping policy editor did. That is one store on one day, so check your own admin before you decide.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Policies
3. Legal notice

Zoom

How to Add or Edit a Policy in Settings > Policies

Turn on an automated policy

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Policies.
2. In the Written policies section, click the policy that you want to automate.
3. Turn on Use automated policy.
4. Review the generated policy.
5. Click Save.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Policies
3. Shipping policy

Zoom

Write your own policy or start from a template

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Policies.
2. In the Written policies section, click the policy that you want to add or edit.
3. If Use automated policy is on, turn it off.
4. Enter or edit the policy. Click Insert template to start from a template, where the button is available.
5. Review the policy and make any changes.
6. Click Save to publish it.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Policies

Zoom

The admin labels don't all match the Help Center's list of seven. In our development store on October 18, 2026, the subscription policy appeared as Purchase options cancellation policy, and it and Contact information carried a Required badge.

The rich text editor adds formatting, links and images, and you can use HTML in the content of a policy. The Adding store policies page says Insert template isn't available for policies that support automation.

Sidekick can insert a policy template, fill in its placeholders and reword policy text, and nothing changes until you click Save. It can't change your privacy policy or a policy with Use automated policy turned on.

Refund policy template: which route gives you what

A search for a refund policy template usually ends at one of four routes, one of them Shopify's free policy generator, which works outside your admin. They differ in the thing that matters most: whether the text matches the return rules you set up in Shopify.

Two Help Center pages differ on the second route. The return and cancellation rules page, read on October 18, 2026, tells you to enter your return and refund policy or click Insert template to generate the default template. The Adding store policies page, read the same day, says Insert template isn't available for policies that support automation, and return and refund is one of them.

Your admin settles it. If the button is there once automation is off, use it; if it isn't, Sidekick can insert the return and refund policy template and fill in its placeholders, as long as Use automated policy is off.

Whichever route you take, the window, conditions and fees in the text should be the ones set in your return rules. The automated route reads them directly; with the other three, compare the text with your rules by hand.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Policies
3. Default rules

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What your shipping policy has to say

Customers can reach your shipping policy from your product pages and cart. Four points decide what it says:

• Fulfilment timelines. Shopify's Terms of Service require shipping policies including order fulfilment timelines.
• Where the automated version gets them. It quotes your fulfillment time from Settings > Shipping and delivery > Estimated delivery dates, and only when that is set to Manual or Automated. It lists the countries that are in both your shipping zones and your region markets.
• No promises you can't keep. Shopify's review list for automated policies says it directly: don't promise delivery or shipping times that you can't provide.
• No shipping generator. Shopify's free policy generator page lists three generators, for privacy, refund and terms of service policies, and none for shipping. A manual shipping policy starts from your own text.

How to add a privacy policy

The privacy policy sits in the same list, but Shopify documents its automation separately, under automated privacy settings. When you set up a new store, they're activated by default. On an existing store you can activate automated updates for your privacy policy, cookie banner and data sharing opt-out page, and every update is recorded in your Store activity log.

To set up the privacy policy, go to Settings > Customer privacy and click Privacy policy: Shopify's privacy settings page says you can either draft your privacy policy manually there or click Use automated policy. On a new store, deactivate Use automated policy first if you want to draft it manually. Shopify's Sidekick page names Settings > Policies as a place to edit it yourself. Sidekick won't help here: it doesn't change the privacy policy.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Customer privacy

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Two limits come with privacy automation. The automated privacy policy already includes many required disclosures, but Shopify says some things can't be automated and you need to review and add them; automated privacy settings also aren't a substitute for legal advice.

Before you can use Shopify's cookie consent banner or data sharing opt-out page, you must publish a privacy policy. For a new store with active markets in the UK or EEA, Shopify configures that banner for visitors there automatically. If you'd rather start from a template outside the admin, Shopify's free privacy policy generator emails you a personalized template to adapt to your storefront and business practices.

Where Customers See Your Policies

Shopify places some links for you as soon as a policy is saved:

• Checkout footer: every policy you add.
• Order review page: your return policy.
• Product pages and cart: your shipping policy. On a free Shopify theme downloaded after November 2018, product pages carry the link once you've added the policy.
• Checkout, if a subscription app is installed: the purchase options cancellation policy, linked as Subscription policy. If you set up a subscription and leave the field empty, customers see a generated template.

For a link inside a page, an email or a social profile, add the policy path to your domain: /policies/refund-policy, /policies/privacy-policy, /policies/terms-of-service, /policies/shipping-policy or /policies/subscription-policy. The Help Center's list of direct links has those five and none for legal notice or contact information.

On October 18, 2026, the Settings > Policies page in our development store said: “By default, policies appear in the footer of your online store and checkout.” That is one store on one day, so check your storefront footer yourself; the Google & YouTube channel requires your Refund Policy and Terms of Service in your footer menu either way.

Add policy links to your footer menu

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Content > Menus.
2. Click the name of the menu where you want to add the policy.
3. For each policy: click Add menu item, enter a name for the menu item and search for your policy, then click Add.
4. Click Save menu.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Content
2. Menus
3. Footer menu

Zoom

EU Withdrawal Rules and German Legal Pages

Selling to consumers in the EU

If consumers in the EU buy from you, Shopify's EU right of withdrawal page says EU Directive 2023/2673 applies to your business regardless of where it is located, and that its electronic withdrawal function requirement took effect on June 19, 2026. The directive requires traders to ensure that consumers who conclude a contract through an online interface can also withdraw by using a withdrawal function, so check your own store against it.

For the policy itself, Shopify tells EU sellers to set a return window of at least 14 days, with Starting from set to Delivery of last item in order. If you sell through Managed Markets, compliant cancellation and return policies are applied automatically to your Managed Markets orders. The full setup is in our guide to returns for EU consumers.

Selling in Germany

Shopify's page for German merchants lists the legal information they often display on their online store:

• Terms of Service
• Privacy
• Shipping and payments
• Cancellation right
• Withdrawal form
• Imprint, Impressum or legal notice

Some of it, such as the cancellation right and the withdrawal form, has no matching store policy. Create it as a page in your Shopify admin and link it from your menus. For the legal notice itself, see four automated policies or five above.

Before You Launch: Check Each Policy Against Your Settings

The order matters because automated policies read your settings: set the return rules and shipping details before you switch automation on, then review the text. Saving a copy comes first because switching automation on replaces what is there.

The Bottom Line

Shopify's terms set the minimum, your channels add to it, and automation can now write much of the text from settings you have already made. What it can't do is know how you actually run the store.

Frequently Asked Questions