- Short answer
- No ban button in current customer accounts: Shopify Payments stores can block an email, address or IP at checkout via Fraud Control rules.
- Address format validation
- Checks shipping addresses only, not billing; Shopify states its plan access two ways
- Shopify Flow
- Cancels an order that already exists; a free app on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans
- Where Fraud Control blocks show up
- Blocked checkouts appear in the abandoned checkouts section of your store
- Getting around sign-in
- In current customer accounts, signing in with an unknown email creates a new customer profile automatically
- Guarantee
- None: Fraud Control can't guarantee you'll never receive a fraudulent order
Is there a block button for a Shopify customer?
With current customer accounts, Shopify says you can't deactivate an individual account, and none of the Help Center pages we read in October 2026 describes another block or ban action on a customer profile; the one exception, deprecated legacy customer accounts, is covered below. Outside that, what Shopify can stop is a checkout, not a person.
Deleting the profile doesn't help: a customer profile can't be deleted while it's associated with one or more orders.
- Fraud Control rule on emails, address attributes or IP addresses
- Stops the checkout before an order exists
- Fraud Control app: all store plans, in locations where Shopify Payments is available
- Address format validation: plan access stated two ways — check your admin
- Flow (Basic plan and up) cancels the order after it's placed
Block checkouts with Fraud Control rules on Shopify Payments
Fraud Control checkout rules live in Shopify's free Fraud Control app, which is available to all store plans in locations where Shopify Payments is available, and the rules are only available for merchants using Shopify Payments. Each rule combines one or more conditions on:
- emails
- address attributes
- IP addresses
The blocked buyer sees an error that the checkout could not be completed and to reach out to the store owner; Fraud Control doesn't notify customers that their order appears to be fraudulent. The attempt shows in your abandoned checkouts.
How these rules sit next to Shopify's built-in screening is covered in the checkout rules section of our fraud analysis guide.
On any payment provider: address rules and Flow cancellations
Address format validation in Checkout Blocks validates shipping addresses and blocks checkout for orders whose address doesn't match your required format; billing addresses aren't validated. The older Address Blocker is deprecated. Shopify's changelog puts the new rule here:
- Settings
- Checkout
- Checkout rules
- Address format validation
Shopify's help page gives setup steps from Apps > Checkout Blocks > Functions > Create function > Address format validation, so check both paths.
Two rule types fit one problem buyer: blocking specific ZIP/postal codes, and blocking checkout when address fields match a regular expression (regex) pattern. The buyer sees an inline error and can't complete checkout until the address is corrected. Shopify's help page says a new rule is saved as Inactive until you select Active and save. To refuse a whole address type, such as PO boxes, see blocking PO boxes at checkout.
As of October 24, 2026, Shopify states the plan two ways: its changelog says address format validation is “now available to all merchants”, while the Checkout Blocks overview says “All other features of Checkout Blocks are available only to Shopify Plus.” Whether either path above lets you create the rule is what applies to your store.
Shopify Flow, a free app on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans, starts its Order created trigger when a customer places an order, so Flow cancels, it doesn't block. A template cancels orders matching a list of known bad emails and domains that you supply, which Shopify notes can be easy for fraudulent customers to work around. You can also tag that buyer's profile and build a condition on order.customer.tags to cancel their orders.
The Cancel order action cancels the order and voids the authorization, and it refunds the amount paid only when its Refund option is checked. If your store captures payments automatically and fulfills orders manually, Shopify says you can't prevent the payment from being captured. Templates for other patterns are in our Shopify Flow workflows guide.
What a block can't stop
Every tool above keys on an email, an address, an IP or a customer profile. On Shopify Payments, a retry with different payment or billing details might not be blocked by built-in screening.
Requiring sign-in before checkout means customers can only use an email address to check out, and it hides accelerated options such as Apple Pay from the online store cart. It doesn't fence out a person either: in current customer accounts, signing in with an email that isn't on an existing profile creates a new customer profile automatically. Guest checkout stays while the requirement is off, as our guest checkout answer explains.
- Settings
- Checkout
Legacy customer accounts, which Shopify has deprecated, have a Disable account action: if you require sign-in before checkout and deactivate a customer's account, they can't place an order in your store.
None of the tools on this page is insurance. Fraud Control can't guarantee that you'll never receive a fraudulent order, and Shopify is just as direct about disputes:
These rules don’t guarantee that chargebacks won’t happen or guarantee against chargebacks on the store.
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