![19.3% of Online Orders Are Returned: 2026 [Benchmarks]](/_astro/ecommerce-return-rate-statistics-2026.CZg1x-y__Z2uRlfV.webp)
An estimated 19.3% of online sales were returned in 2025, according to the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns’ joint survey of 2,006 consumers and 358 ecommerce professionals at large US retailers. That is nearly one in five orders coming back, and it sits well above the 15.8% return rate for retail overall. The gap between online and in-store returns is the central fact behind every benchmark in this post.
If you sell online, the return rate is not a support metric you can ignore until it spikes. It sets your reverse logistics cost, shapes whether a first-time buyer completes checkout, and increasingly decides whether that buyer comes back at all.
What percentage of online purchases get returned?
Online return rates have moved in a fairly narrow band for the past four years, but 2025’s 19.3% is the highest reading since 2021. The National Retail Federation and Happy Returns have tracked this figure through an annual survey of consumers who made at least one online return and ecommerce professionals at merchants with over $500 million in revenue.
Figure 1: Online return rate, 2021 to 2025. Source: National Retail Federation / Appriss Retail (2021-2023) and National Retail Federation / Happy Returns (2024-2025) annual returns surveys.
Warning
The NRF changed its research partner and survey methodology between the 2023 report (with Appriss Retail) and the 2024-2025 reports (with Happy Returns), and the organization has flagged that 2023 figures are not directly comparable to the years before or after. Treat this five-year line as directional, not as a single continuously-measured series.
Online orders are returned at roughly double the rate of in-store purchases, which the NRF has attributed consistently to fit uncertainty, bracketing behavior, and free-return policies that lower the cost of over-ordering. That gap alone is why an online-specific return policy carries more weight than a generic storefront disclaimer.
How much do returns cost retailers?
US retailers absorbed an estimated $849.9 billion in returned merchandise in 2025, a slight decline from $890 billion in 2024, according to the NRF and Happy Returns’ report, based on a summer 2025 survey. That total includes both the retail price of goods sent back and the reverse logistics cost of processing them.
The dollar figure has climbed for most of the past six years even where the percentage rate held flat, because total ecommerce sales volume kept growing underneath it.
Figure 2: Total dollar value of US retail returns by year. Source: National Retail Federation annual returns reports, 2022-2025.
A return policy that sets clear expectations up front, restocking terms, condition requirements, and a defined window, is one of the few levers a merchant controls directly against this cost. Our Refund Policy Generator builds one from your actual return window, shipping terms, and product categories in a few minutes.
Do return policies affect whether shoppers buy at all?
Yes. 13% of US online shoppers who abandoned a cart cited an unsatisfactory return policy as a reason, according to Baymard Institute’s aggregate of 50 published cart abandonment studies. That places return policy clarity above credit card decline (10%) and roughly on par with a checkout process shoppers found too complicated (17% for a related factor).
Figure 3: Share of shoppers citing each checkout-abandonment reason (excludes browsing-only abandons). Source: Baymard Institute, aggregate of 50 studies, 2006-2025.
A return policy that is missing, vague, or buried below the fold pushes a measurable share of otherwise-ready buyers to abandon before paying. Publishing the return window and condition requirements near the add-to-cart button, not just in a footer link, is the direct fix this data points to.
How does the return rate vary by product category?
Category matters more than the headline average. Publicly reported ranges put apparel return rates at roughly 20% to 40%, well above the 19.3% online blended average, while electronics and beauty run considerably lower. These category figures come from a mix of retailer disclosures and industry aggregators rather than one single NRF dataset, so treat the ranges as directional benchmarks rather than a precise national count.
| Category | Typical online return rate |
|---|---|
| Apparel and footwear | 20% to 40% |
| All online orders (blended, NRF/Happy Returns 2025) | 19.3% |
| Electronics | 8% to 15% |
| Beauty and skincare | 4% to 12% |
Fit-dependent categories like apparel drive the bulk of the volume problem. Retailers in those categories typically need return policies that address sizing, bracketing, and restocking fees directly rather than a one-size-fits-all clause copied from a general merchandise store.
Figure 4: A typical policy decision path once a return is requested. Source: synthesized from common refund policy terms across the categories above.
What share of returns are fraudulent, and is fraud rising?
9% of all returns were fraudulent in 2025, according to the National Retail Federation’s survey of ecommerce professionals at large merchants. For 2024, Appriss Retail’s separate annual research measured fraudulent returns and claims at 15.14% of returns, totaling an estimated $103 billion. The two figures are not a clean year-over-year comparison: they come from different survey instruments measuring against different total-returns bases, so a shift from 15.14% to 9% is not necessarily a real one-year drop in fraud.
Retailers report the same recurring fraud patterns each year: wardrobing (wearing an item and returning it), receipt fraud, and returning stolen or counterfeit goods for real merchandise. A clear, specific returns policy, one that states condition requirements and reserves the right to deny returns that show signs of use, gives a merchant’s staff a documented basis to refuse a fraudulent claim rather than defaulting to a refund to avoid a dispute.
Figure 5: Return fraud measurement timeline. Sources: Appriss Retail (2024), National Retail Federation / Happy Returns (2025).
What do shoppers expect from a return policy in 2026?
Free returns have become close to a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator. 82% of shoppers say free returns are an important consideration when deciding where to buy, up from 76% the year before, per the NRF and Happy Returns’ 2025 survey. The same report found 76% of shoppers prefer an instant refund or exchange over waiting for a returned item to be received and inspected, and 71% say they are less likely to shop again with a retailer after a poor returns experience, up from 67% in 2024.
Shoppers are also fast to broadcast a bad experience: 80% told the NRF and Happy Returns they share a negative returns experience with others. That combination, rising expectations plus a high willingness to walk away and talk about it, is why a clearly published, plain-language return policy increasingly functions as a retention tool rather than only a legal formality.
The Bottom Line
The number that matters most in 2026 is 19.3%, the share of online orders now coming back, and it is trending up rather than settling into a stable baseline. That single figure sits behind $849.9 billion in returned merchandise, a measurable share of cart abandonment tied directly to unclear return terms, and a rising bar for what shoppers expect a return policy to offer before they will buy at all. A published, plain-language return policy that states the window, condition requirements, and refund method up front addresses the abandonment risk, gives staff a documented basis to push back on fraud, and meets the free-and-fast expectations shoppers named directly in this year’s survey data.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of online orders are returned? 19.3% of online sales were returned in 2025, according to the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns’ joint survey of 2,006 consumers and 358 ecommerce professionals at large US merchants.
How much do returns cost US retailers? Total retail returns reached an estimated $849.9 billion in 2025, per the National Retail Federation, down slightly from $890 billion in 2024.
What percentage of returns are fraudulent? 9% of all returns were fraudulent in 2025, per the National Retail Federation. In 2024, Appriss Retail measured a higher 15.14% fraud share against a smaller total returns base, so the two years are not directly comparable.
Do return policies affect whether shoppers complete a purchase? Yes. 13% of US online shoppers who abandoned a cart cited an unsatisfactory return policy as a reason, according to Baymard Institute’s aggregate of 50 cart abandonment studies.
Sources and References
- National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. (2025). “2025 Retail Returns Landscape.” Survey of 2,006 consumers and 358 ecommerce professionals at US retailers with over $500 million in revenue, conducted summer 2025.
- National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. (2024). “2024 Retail Returns Report.” Survey of 2,007 consumers and 249 ecommerce and finance professionals, conducted fall 2024.
- National Retail Federation and Appriss Retail. (2022). “2022 Retail Returns Report.”
- National Retail Federation and Appriss Retail. (2023). “2023 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry.” Methodology change noted; not directly comparable to prior years.
- Appriss Retail. (2024). “Annual Research: Fraudulent Returns and Claims Cost Retailers $103B in 2024.”
- Baymard Institute. “50 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics.” Aggregate of 50 published studies, data spanning 2006-2025.
Note: All figures verified as of July 2026. Return rates and fraud measurements shift with survey methodology changes and holiday seasonality, so headline figures here are refreshed at least twice a year.
