This article explains how refunds work for payments that have already been released to freelancers. Clients can request refunds directly from freelancers or agencies on Upwork for 180 days after payments are released. Requests for older payments, up to 365 days, require contacting support. Refunds must be paid through the Upwork platform, as refunds outside Upwork violate Terms of Service. Refunds are at the freelancer's discretion and must not exceed contract earnings. They can be initiated via contract settings, while escrow refunds, disputes for hourly contracts, and mediation requests for fixed-price contracts follow separate processes. Approved refunds are credited within three to five business days. - AI summary
Note:
This article refers to requesting a refund directly from a freelancer or agency. If you need to request an escrow refund on a fixed-price contract (funds in escrow, but not yet released to the freelancer or agency), or file a dispute on an hourly contract, those are different processes.
You can request a refund from a freelancer or agency for payments released up to 180 days ago. You can reach out to the freelancer directly through the Upwork platform, and payments must be refunded through the Upwork platform. The decision to issue a refund is at the discretion of the freelancer or agency.
For refunds on payments made between 180 and 365 days ago, contact support.
Important:
If you need a refund, your freelancer must provide it through the Upwork platform. Giving refunds outside Upwork is against our Terms of Service.
Before making your request
Check these details before requesting your refund.
- Do you need a refund from the previously funded escrow on a fixed-price contract? This is a different process. Learn how to request an escrow refund.
- If you are dissatisfied with an hourly contract, clients have a five-day review period that starts from Monday at noon UTC after the billing period ends, until Friday 23:59 UTC to file a dispute.
- Please consider resolving any time-logging issues with your freelancer or agency prior to closing a contract. Your freelancer or agency cannot edit their Work Diary once the contract is closed, and logged hours for the current week cannot be refunded until you have been billed.
Request a refund from a freelancer
- Go to Jobs > All Contracts and select the contract
- In the (…) options menu, select Request a refund
- Complete the request form in the modal that appears and select Send Request
Request a refund from an agency
If you have hired an agency and would like a refund, please contact customer support.
Refunds on closed contracts
Based on your request, your freelancer or agency can choose to issue a full refund, a partial refund, or no refund at all. Even without a formal request, they can proactively initiate a refund through Upwork on any contract, active or ended, as long as:
- The refund is within 180 days of the payment
- The refund amount is not more than what they earned on the contract
Note that if you close the contract while waiting for a refund, you'll still only have the usual 14 days to leave feedback on the contract.
Approved refund requests
If the refund is approved by the freelancer or agency, it's automatically credited back to your billing method immediately.
- It may take 3-5 business days for the credit to be available to you.
- You can check any refunds that you have received by going to Reports > Transaction History.
- If a refund reduces the freelancer or agency's earnings to $1 or less on the contract, the contract will no longer show on either of your work histories. Any feedback will be removed from your ratings. It can take up to 12 hours for this information to update.
Note:
If your original payments came from multiple billing methods, we’ll automatically apply a single credit to your Upwork account that can be used to cover future invoices. Alternatively, you can contact our customer support to request that we issue split credits to all the original billing methods that you used rather than to your Upwork account balance. Funds billed to one method cannot be refunded to another.
Refused refund requests
Hourly contracts
You can only dispute the current invoice for hourly contracts, not past invoices.You must file any dispute by Friday after a billing week closes. For example, if you receive the week’s invoice on Monday at noon UTC, you have from then until Friday at midnight UTC to review those hours and file a dispute. Learn more about disputing hours to learn more about filing an hourly dispute.
If you miss this window, you and your freelancer or agency should work together to resolve any issues and possibly discuss your refund request.
Fixed-Price contracts
Fixed-price contracts are paid as work is submitted and approved. If you need to close a job with funds remaining in escrow, you may request an escrow refund.
If you requested a refund from a freelancer for payment that was already approved and released, and the freelancer refused or didn’t respond, you may be able to request mediation assistance.
Mediation assistance is available from Upwork Customer Support for fixed-price contracts if the last payment on a contract was within the previous 30 days, or as long as funds are held in escrow on a fixed-price contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
To request a refund from a freelancer:
- Go to Jobs › All Contracts and select the contract
- In the (…) options menu, select Request a refund
- Complete the request form in the modal that appears and choose Send Request
You can request a refund on the platform within 180 days of the payment to your freelancer. It is up to the freelancer or agency’s discretion to issue a refund. If it’s been more than 180 days but less than one year, contact support for refund assistance.
If the refund is approved by the freelancer or agency, it's automatically credited back to your billing method. It may take 3-5 business days for the credit to be available to you.
If you used multiple billing methods, we’ll automatically apply a single credit to your Upwork account that can be used to cover future invoices. If you’d rather have the refund credited to your multiple billing methods, contact us.
You may seek dispute assistance from Upwork Support if the freelancer declines to issue a refund or fails to respond AND the last payment on the contract was made in the last 30 days.
No, issuing refunds outside of Upwork is against our Terms of Service. We ask that any refunds stay on Upwork because it helps prevent fraud and scams that harm you.
No, the once-per-contract fee will not be refunded after you have made a payment to a freelancer, even if the freelancer issues you a refund.
Refunds are between you and your freelancer, where the freelancer can issue funds back if you come to an agreement. You also have a longer time-period for refunds, with the ability to request a refund up to 365 days from the payment. For the first 180 days, you can request the refund directly from the freelancer; after that you will need to contact Upwork Support to initiate the refund request.
Disputes happen when Upwork’s mediation team gets involved in the process. To be eligible to file an hourly dispute with Upwork, you have a five-day review period that starts from Monday at noon UTC after the billing period ends, until Friday 23:59 UTC. Unless a dispute within this timeline, funds are released as scheduled to the freelancer.
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Refunds are between you and your freelancer and can happen before or after payment is released to the freelancer if you can both come to an agreement.
- If payment has not been released to the freelancer yet, you can request a full or partial refund from escrow, which the freelancer can approve or dispute
- After payment has been released to the freelancer, you can ask the freelancer to send a refund to you through the Upwork platform for up to 180 days.
- Mediation is available for 30 days after payment is released, if you and the freelancer cannot come to an agreement. You may request mediation assistance from Upwork by contacting Upwork Support
