How to accept USDC on Shopify: fees, settlement and taxes

If you want to accept USDC on Shopify, the main route today is the USDC payment method built into Shopify Payments, which you switch on in your admin without installing an app or writing code. Shopify lists USDC rates at the same level as its online standard card rates, and by default the money arrives in your normal payout currency, with an option in some regions to claim it as USDC to your own crypto wallet.

This guide is for a small merchant who runs a Shopify store without a developer and wants to give customers one more way to pay. It covers who is eligible, what the customer sees, what it costs, how you get paid, how refunds work, and the tax and bookkeeping questions to take to an accountant. At the end there is a short comparison with Stripe’s stablecoin option for anyone whose store is not on Shopify.

USDC itself is a dollar stablecoin issued by Circle. Circle describes it as a regulated digital currency you can redeem 1:1 for US dollars, though it also notes that its direct redemption service, Circle Mint, is not available to individuals or small businesses. For a Shopify merchant that detail matters less than it sounds, because by default Shopify does the conversion for you.

The ways to accept USDC on Shopify today

Shopify’s help center describes two kinds of route.

The first is Shopify Payments. Shopify’s USDC help page says that with Shopify Payments “you can offer USDC as a payment method at checkout.” It sits in a Crypto section of your payment method settings, next to cards and wallets, and it runs through your existing order and payout flow.

The second is a third-party crypto gateway added as an “additional payment method.” Shopify’s cryptocurrency help page lists several providers. Of those, the page names USDC for Solana Pay and for Lunu, a provider it describes as located in Europe. Others on the list focus on Bitcoin or a mix of coins.

For most small stores already on Shopify Payments, the built-in option is the simpler one to try first, because it does not add a second company to your setup. A gateway can make sense if your store is in a country where the built-in option is not offered and the provider serves you.

Who can accept USDC on Shopify: eligibility and countries

Shopify’s requirements for USDC come down to three conditions:

• Shopify Payments must be active on your store.
• Your store must be in a supported Shopify Payments region in North America, Europe or Asia-Pacific.
• The account representative on your Shopify Payments account must have a residential address in a USDC-eligible region. Shopify says this rule exists “due to regulatory and compliance standards that govern cryptocurrency payment processing.”

The eligible regions Shopify lists are:

• North America: Mexico, and the United States excluding Alaska, New York and Texas.
• Europe: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
• Asia-Pacific: only stores using Shopify Payments Hong Kong.

Canada and Australia do not appear on the list. If your state or country is missing, the option will not show up in your admin, and a third-party gateway is the only Shopify-listed path.

Shopify also warns that you might need to verify your identity before USDC can be switched on, and that your account can stay in an onboarding state while that check runs. The Crypto section shows a Verify identity button when this applies.

How to switch on USDC in Shopify Payments

The steps on Shopify’s USDC help page are short:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.
2. In the Shopify Payments section, click Manage.
3. Click More actions, then Manage payment methods.
4. In the Crypto section, turn on the USDC option.

Then pick how you want to be paid, covered below. No theme edits or apps are involved. If you are also preparing your store for AI shopping assistants, our guide to Shopify agentic storefronts covers the separate settings for that.

What the customer sees at checkout

At checkout, USDC appears as a payment option alongside the others you offer. Shopify’s June 2025 announcement said customers can pay on guest checkout and on Shop Pay from supported crypto wallets.

According to Shopify’s help page:

• Customers can pay “using any of the 480 crypto wallets that Shopify accepts.”
• Customers do not pay their own foreign exchange or gas fees. Shopify defines gas fees as the transaction fees blockchain networks charge, and says “your customers aren’t charged these fees.”
• The customer needs USDC on a supported network. Shopify lists Base, Ethereum L1, Optimism, Polygon and Arbitrum. USDC held on another network will not work.
• A customer without USDC would first need an account on an exchange such as Coinbase or Crypto.com, and a wallet from the exchange or from a provider such as MetaMask or Trust Wallet.

There is also a cashback incentive. When customers pay with USDC on Base, they might automatically receive USDC cashback, shown by a gift icon next to the USDC option. Shopify pays it to the customer’s wallet on Base 30 days after the purchase, capped at 100 USDC per transaction. The merchant does nothing to run it, but it affects refunds, as explained below.

One honest point for your planning: a customer who already holds USDC in a wallet may find this quick, while a customer who has never bought crypto faces several steps before they can use it. Expect it to serve a small group of buyers rather than replace cards.

Fees to accept USDC on Shopify

Shopify’s US pricing page lists a “USDC rates” line under Shopify Payments for each plan:

Rates from Shopify’s pricing page, shown in USD. Stores in other countries see local pricing.

So on the listed US rates, a USDC payment costs the same headline percentage as a standard online card payment on the same plan. Shopify’s announcement put it this way: USDC acceptance “is included at the standard domestic Shopify Payments rate” (Shopify). The pricing page lists a separate “+ 1%” for online international rates on cards; it does not show such a line for USDC.

Credits. Shopify says that when a customer pays with USDC, you receive a credit for the transaction. If you are paid in fiat, the credit is applied to your next payout; if you keep USDC, it goes to your USDC balance. A refund does not take the credit back. The help page does not state a credit percentage. The June 2025 announcement described a planned rebate of up to 0.50% on USDC orders for shops in the US and other select countries, with terms and eligibility rules applying. Check the order timeline, where Shopify says the accrued credit for each transaction is shown, to see what you actually get.

Conversion. According to Shopify’s changelog, merchants receive local-currency payouts by default “with no foreign exchange or multi-currency fees.”

Third-party gateways. If you use a crypto app instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify’s cryptocurrency page says you might still be charged third-party transaction fees. The pricing page lists those at 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on top of whatever the gateway charges.

How settlement works: local currency or USDC

Shopify gives you two payout choices, depending on your region:

• Payouts in local currency. USDC payments are converted and included in your regular Shopify Payments payout, on your normal payout schedule. Your bank sees an ordinary payout. This is the default.
• Payouts in USDC. In some regions, funds go to a USDC balance that you claim by hand on the Finance or Payouts page. Shopify says this option only appears “If USDC payouts are available for your store.”

To claim USDC, you go to Finance > Payouts, click Claim in the USDC section, connect a crypto wallet, complete two-factor authentication and authorize the transfer. Shopify notes that “You must reconnect your crypto wallet each time you claim USDC funds” (Shopify).

If you switch from USDC payouts back to local currency, claim any USDC balance first. Shopify says that if you leave a balance and later claim it to a wallet, your settings change back automatically and future USDC payments land in your USDC balance again.

For a small merchant whose costs are in local currency, the default keeps things simple: no wallet to secure and no crypto on the books between sales. Holding USDC adds a wallet to manage and extra record-keeping, which is a good reason to talk to your accountant before choosing it.

Refunds, disputes and chargebacks on USDC orders

Refunds. You refund a USDC order from the Shopify admin. How the money leaves your account depends on your payout choice:

• If you take USDC payouts, the refund comes out of your USDC balance, and you need enough USDC there to cover it.
• If you take local-currency payouts, the refund is taken from your Shopify Payments balance and converted to USDC for the customer. No USDC balance is needed.

Refunds and cashback. If the customer got USDC cashback, you can’t refund more than the order amount minus the cashback, and the order page shows a warning. Because cashback is paid 30 days after purchase, a refund requested before then means the cashback is not paid. If your return window is longer than 30 days, the refund cap protects you from paying out more than the order total.

Disputes and chargebacks. Shopify states that “Your customers can’t open disputes on orders paid for using USDC” (Shopify). For card payments, a chargeback can pull money back weeks later; that mechanism does not apply here. The flip side is that customer complaints land with you. A clear refund policy and quick replies matter more, because the customer has no card issuer to turn to.

For third-party gateways, Shopify notes there are no automatic refunds for cryptocurrency payments through Shopify, so you refund manually in the gateway.

Limits to know before you switch it on

Shopify’s considerations list includes several restrictions that affect common store setups:

• You can’t partially capture funds on USDC orders. If you ship split orders and capture per shipment, plan around that.
• Customers can’t pay for subscription products with USDC.
• You can’t offer post-purchase upsells on USDC orders.
• Only the five listed networks are accepted.

For gateways, Shopify warns that longer settlement times can cause overselling in flash sales and suggests a direct method such as Shopify Payments for those events.

Third-party crypto apps Shopify lists

If the built-in option is not available to you, Shopify’s cryptocurrency page names these providers among others. Here is what it says about the ones it ties to USDC or to tokens on networks that carry USDC:

• Solana Pay: “supports transactions in United States Dollar Coin (USDC) among other currencies,” with loyalty features such as token gating and discounts.
• Lunu: accepts USDC and other coins, settled in USD, EUR, GBP or other fiat currencies; Shopify says Lunu is located in Europe.
• DePay: a peer-to-peer gateway that accepts tokens with exchange liquidity on chains including Solana, Ethereum, Polygon and Base.

Shopify adds that you should check that cryptocurrencies are acceptable as payment in your region before accepting them, and that for problems you contact the gateway’s own support. To see which providers support a given coin in your country, use the search in Settings > Payments > Add payment methods.

How Stripe’s stablecoin option compares for a non-Shopify store

If your store runs elsewhere, Stripe has a stablecoin payment method you can add from its Dashboard. Stripe’s setup guide says it works with Payment Links, Checkout, Elements or the API, and that Payment Links and Invoicing can add it from the Dashboard (Stripe). You request the “Stablecoins and Crypto” payment method and Stripe reviews the request before it goes live.

Stripe’s pricing page says the 1.5% includes conversion to fiat, wallet and AML screening, fraud prevention and gas sponsorship. At checkout, Stripe redirects the customer to crypto.stripe.com to connect a wallet and pick a network. Stripe also notes that you cannot use manual capture with this method. WooCommerce sellers can read our WooCommerce agentic checkout guide for how that platform is approaching new payment flows.

Tax and accounting questions to ask your accountant

Shopify’s own guidance is to consult with your accountant about how to handle cryptocurrency payments. We can’t give tax advice, and the answers depend on your country and business structure. These are the questions worth bringing to that meeting:

1. If I take payouts in local currency, is a USDC sale recorded any differently from a card sale? Your bank sees a normal Shopify payout, but ask whether the payment method needs to be tracked separately.
2. If I hold USDC in a wallet, what happens when I later convert or spend it? Ask whether converting USDC to dollars or another currency, or paying a supplier in USDC, creates a reportable event where you are.
3. How should I record sales tax or VAT on a USDC order? Ask whether the tax base is the order price in your store currency and what records you need to keep.
4. How do I book the USDC credit Shopify applies? Ask whether it is a fee reduction or other income.
5. How should refunds and cashback-capped refunds appear in my books? A refund converted back into USDC may come out at a slightly different local amount.
6. What records should I keep for a USDC wallet? Think wallet addresses, claim dates, amounts and the exchange rate you used.
7. Are there reporting rules for digital assets that apply to my business? These differ by country and can change.

Bring a few sample orders and your Shopify payout reports so the accountant can see how the money actually moves.

Where AI agents fit

USDC also comes up in talk about AI agents that shop or pay for services. That is a related but separate topic: the Shopify checkout option described here is for human customers paying from a crypto wallet. If you are curious about the agent side, see how agentic payments work and who is behind them, x402 in plain language, and our guide to accepting payments from AI agents without code.

How we checked this

We read Shopify’s help center pages on USDC and cryptocurrency, Shopify’s pricing page, changelog and June 2025 announcement, Stripe’s stablecoin documentation and pricing page, and Circle’s USDC page. Fees shown are the US rates published by Shopify and Stripe; they can differ by country and change over time, so confirm them in your own admin or dashboard. Facts checked on October 22, 2026.