If you’re ending a fixed-price contract with remaining funds, you can request a refund from the freelancer and choose to either pay nothing or to release a partial payment. The freelancer has seven days to approve or dispute your request. If approved or the freelancer doesn’t respond, the refund is processed within five business days. If disputed, both parties must provide details, and Upwork will offer a non-binding resolution. Further disagreements can proceed to arbitration. Refunds are returned to the original payment source. On active contracts, partial payments can be released while using leftover funds for future milestones. - AI helped create this summary
Projects don’t always go exactly as planned and budgeted. If you end a fixed-price contract with remaining funds being held, you can request a refund from your freelancer.
Good to know: If you’re paying a milestone on an active contract and don’t want to release the full amount, you can release a partial milestone payment. You can then use the leftover funds for the next milestone (if applicable), or you can end the contract and request a refund.
How to request a refund of your deposit
Note:
This process applies only to fixed-price contracts (including Project Catalog and consultation projects) with funds still held. For refunds on fixed-price contracts where the funds have been released, go here. For refunds on hourly contracts, go here.
To request a refund, you must end the contract and choose whether to release some funds to the freelancer or pay nothing. If your final payment is less than your balance, a refund request will be sent to your freelancer or agency, who will then have seven days to respond and either approve or dispute your request.
Follow the steps below to end the contract and request a refund:
- Go to All contracts to locate the contract
- Open the (...) options menu and select End contract
- Choose Pay nothing and request a refund or Pay another amount and enter the amount you want to release
After you submit a refund request
The freelancer or agency has seven days to respond. They can either approve the refund or submit a dispute if they disagree with the amount paid. Select a dropdown below to learn more.
If your freelancer approves the refund or does not respond within seven days, we will refund the money. Refund credits can take up to 5 business days to appear.
You can see your refunds in your transaction history for the contract.
Your freelancer or agency can submit a dispute if they believe they are owed additional funds for the work. They will specify the amount they are requesting and provide reasons for the dispute. If this happens, we will send you a notification and an email and you will have five days to respond.
- If you approve the response or don’t respond within five days, we will release the funds requested to the freelancer or agency
- If you decline the response, you will need to describe how the freelancer didn’t meet requirements and attach any supporting evidence. IMPORTANT: this is your opportunity to provide all the necessary information and documents to support your dispute claim. You won’t be able to edit details after submission.
Once you reject the response, we will review the dispute details provided by both parties and provide a non-binding resolution (typically within 2 business days).
Freelancers and clients are usually able to reach an agreement. When you and the freelancer receive the non-binding resolution, you each have two calendar days to accept or reject it
- If you both accept, we will move funds accordingly
- If you or the freelancer doesn’t respond within 2 days or one party rejects the non-binding resolution, you will receive a Notice of Non-Resolution. The final option (should you choose to pursue it) is to proceed to binding arbitration (meaning the decision of the arbitrator will be final) by our neutral third-party arbitration provider. Learn more about arbitration here.