How to cancel an order

Occasionally you need to cancel an order, because stock ran out, the customer changed their mind, or something went wrong. This guide shows you how to cancel an order correctly and what to watch out for.

Before you cancel

Ask yourself two questions before cancelling:

Has the customer already paid? If yes, cancelling alone won't return their money. You'll need to issue a refund after cancelling. See the guide on refunding an order.
Has the order already shipped? If the goods are on their way, cancellation doesn't stop delivery. Contact the carrier and arrange a return.

Cancelling stops an order; it never issues a refund on its own. If the customer had already paid, you process the refund separately, and that is what records the order as Refunded.

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An order starts as Pending payment: created, but payment not received yet. If the payment is confirmed it becomes Processing. If it is declined the order becomes Failed, and the customer typically needs to try again with a different card or payment method.

On hold sits alongside those as the other unpaid status: payment has been submitted but not confirmed, most often a direct bank transfer or a check that has not cleared. Once you confirm the money arrived, you change it to Processing yourself.

Processing is where your work happens: payment is confirmed and the order is waiting for you to fulfill it. Once you have, it becomes Completed.

Two statuses sit off that line, and they are the ones people mix up. Cancelled is reached from an order that was cancelled before payment, or from Processing when the order is stopped before fulfillment. Refunded is what WooCommerce records once you process a full refund, from Processing, from Completed, and from Cancelled too, because cancelling does not issue a refund on its own. If the customer had already paid, that refund is still yours to process separately.

Two things are not drawn here. Draft is the temporary record the block checkout creates before an order is submitted, and WooCommerce deletes the inactive ones daily. Trash is where a deleted order goes, not a step in the life of an order. WooCommerce will also let you set any status by hand from the order page. These are the routes orders normally travel, not a list of the only changes the software allows.

Open the order. Go to WooCommerce → Orders and click the order number.

Change the status dropdown from the current status (e.g., "Processing") to Cancelled.

Click Update in the Order actions panel on the right. WooCommerce saves the change.

Check the stock. If stock management is turned on, WooCommerce returns the cancelled items to your inventory automatically. There is no separate restock prompt.

Refund separately if the customer paid

Changing the status to Cancelled does not send money back to the customer. If they paid, go back into the order and use the Refund button to return their payment. See How to refund an order.

Notifying the customer

WooCommerce does not email the customer about a cancellation unless that email is switched on (see below). If you want to notify them, you have two options:

Add a customer note. On the order page, go to the Order notes panel, write a message, choose Public note to customer, and click Send note to customer. WooCommerce emails your note straight away.
Email them directly. Use the customer's email address shown on the order to send a personal message.

Enable a cancellation email

WooCommerce includes a customer Cancelled order email under WooCommerce → Settings → Emails. It is usually switched off, and it only goes out when a Processing or On hold order is cancelled. (The list also has a Cancelled order email for your store's own inbox. That one goes to you, not the customer.) If you cancel orders regularly, ask us and we'll set up the customer email.

Can customers cancel their own orders?

Only while the order is unpaid. In My account → Orders, orders with a "Pending payment" or "Failed" status can show a Cancel action. The cancellation happens straight away, and the customer can't undo it from their account. Customers cannot cancel paid orders, such as "Processing" orders, themselves. Only you can do that.

Bulk cancelling orders

To cancel several orders at once:

Go to WooCommerce → Orders.

Tick the checkboxes next to the orders you want to cancel.

Select "Change status to Cancelled" from the Bulk actions dropdown at the top of the list.

Click Apply. All selected orders are set to Cancelled. Remember to process any refunds manually for paid orders.

Common questions

What's the difference between cancelling and deleting an order?

Cancelling changes the status, and the order stays in your records. (WooCommerce Analytics leaves cancelled orders out of its figures by default.) Deleting (moving to trash) removes it from your main orders list. We recommend cancelling, not deleting, so you keep a full audit trail.

Will the customer be notified automatically?

Not unless the customer Cancelled order email is switched on, or you add a customer note yourself. Always let the customer know through one of the methods above.

I cancelled an order but the stock didn't go back up. Why?

WooCommerce only restocks when stock management is turned on both store-wide (WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Inventory) and on the product itself. If the product doesn't track inventory, there's nothing to restock. Open the product and check the Inventory tab in the Product data panel.

Can I un-cancel an order?

Yes. Open the cancelled order, change the status back to the one that fits (for example "Processing"), and click Update. Afterwards, check your stock levels and the order notes to make sure everything looks right.

Learn more

WooCommerce Managing Orderswoocommerce.com

How to cancel an order

Before you cancel