Before you contact Upwork to request a refund for a charge you don't recognize, follow the steps below.

Keeping a close eye on your money is an important part of doing business, and seeing charges you don’t recognize can be upsetting. In this article, you can find information to help you identify the charges on your account. We recommend that you follow these steps below before contacting Upwork.

Compare your purchase history with the charges on your billing statement:


  • Go to Reports › Transaction History to see all your itemized Upwork charges.
  • We display your Transaction History in U.S. Dollars. Currency conversion rates and fees may cause variation in the amounts.
  • Credit card charges will include a reference number on your billing statement in the format “UPWORK-xxxxxxxxxREF”.
    • The xxxxxxxxx represents the Upwork transaction Ref ID (shown in the far right column in your Transaction History).
    • The letters after the number indicate the transaction type. Billing for freelancer’s work is labeled REF with an ID to match the debit transaction on your account. Other types include Marketplace, Contract Initiation Fee, Membership, MnthFee (Monthly Fee), Connects, and USDVerify (when verifying a credit card via two small charges, the x.xx-x.xxUSD represents the Dollar values to enter).

Remember that line items show on your Transaction History every time we move your funds. For fixed-price contracts, this includes when you pay, when we move your payment into escrow, when we move it back into your account from escrow to pay the freelancer, and when we release the payment to the freelancer. Learn more here.

Check the status of your subscriptions


Learn how to view, change, or cancel your subscriptions

  • Freelancer Memberships Fees - if you also have a freelancer account on your main account
  • Enterprise — Please contact your account team with any questions

Understand your billing methods


We charge your primary billing method on file. If your primary source fails, we may charge your backup payment source. Make sure you have set your preferred billing method as primary in SettingsBilling Methods.

Learn more about how to add, edit, or remove billing methods.

Multiple accounts


If you ever added your credit or debit card to another Upwork account, the unrecognized charges might be coming from that account. Please repeat all of these steps for every Upwork account. Then press the Get Support button on the bottom right-hand screen of the Upwork Help page to talk to us about combining your accounts (you can control multiple companies from within a single Upwork account).

Associates with access to your cards or accounts


If anyone else has access to your card or additional cards associated with your credit or debit account, check with them. Someone else could be billing your card.

Change your password


If you suspect your account may have been compromised, please immediately change your password.

Get more help


If you compared your PayPal, credit card, or bank statement to your Upwork Transaction history and still don't recognize the charge, press the Get Support button at the bottom right on the Upwork Help page.

Please be sure to include the following information:

  • Credit Cards: Date of charge, amount, currency, reference number, card type, and last four digits
  • PayPal: Date of charge, amount, PayPal email, PayPal Reference #
  • Bank Account: Date of charge, amount, bank name, last 4 digits of the account number

Was this article helpful?

18 out of 636 found this helpful
{"global":{"message":"","icon":"info","start":"","end":""},"responsive":[{"message":"","country":"All","usertype":"all","icon":"info","start":"","end":""},{"message":"","country":"All","usertype":"all","icon":"info","start":"","end":""}]}