Can you give employees their own Shopify Balance card?

Who can you add as a cardholder, and which card do they get?

The primary cardholder adds secondary cardholders from your store's staff accounts and creates each a virtual or physical card — Shopify's staff card guide says you “might be able to” add them.

The card works only after the employee accepts the invitation, finishes setup and turns on two-step authentication. The Balance account itself has its own eligibility rules.

How do you control what a staff card can spend?

The primary cardholder can set spend controls for each card:

• Monthly limit — per card; the employee can't spend more than the account's available balance.
• Auto-lock date — without one, the card stays active until you lock it.
• Manual lock — for a lost card or an employee on leave; Unlock card reverses it.
• When they leave — deactivating their staff account locks their cards; removing it cancels them, so choose between the two.

Fraud alerts go by SMS to the phone number on the staff member's card, and the authorized representative also gets an email. Replying to these alerts, and disputing a charge they missed, are covered in our guide to disputing a Balance card charge.

Can a staff card spend from an additional Balance account?

Shopify gives two answers. Its page on multiple Balance accounts, read on October 17, 2026 and showing no update date, says of additional accounts:

Its card pages, read the same day, say you “might be able to” create virtual cards on additional accounts, with a limit of one virtual card per additional account, and changelog posts of October 31, 2025 and December 19, 2025 announced such cards, staff cards included.

Until the pages agree, plan on a main-account card with a monthly limit — the setup every source supports — and when you create the card, check whether it offers your additional account.