It can now take up to four days to get a refund on the Google Play Store

Google Play Store
Google Play Store (Image credit: Joe Maring / Android Central)

What you need to know

  • Getting a refund on the Play Store can now take up to four business days.
  • It could take longer if you make a request on the weekend or during a holiday.
  • Previously, refunds were issued within as little as 15 minutes.

The Google Play Store is home to a wealth of digital content, including some truly excellent paid apps and games. However, it's also filled with titles that aren't all that they're cracked up to be. In those cases when you pay for an app/game that isn't what you were expecting, you have the option to return it and get a refund.

This is one of the Play Store's best policies, and previously, getting your money back took as little as 15 minutes. Unfortunately, thanks to a policy change, you'll now have to wait up to four days.

On the official support page for Google Play refunds, it now states:

It can take up to four business days to get a decision.

While you won't necessarily have to wait four days in every instance, Google now has that much longer of a window to make a decision. Furthermore, since we're talking specifically about business days, you could end up waiting even longer if you request a refund over the weekend or during a holiday.

I've personally never had an issue getting my money back when requesting a refund through Google Play, but there are apparently a lot of stories out there where people made a request and were automatically denied for no apparent reason.

With this time extension, that'll hopefully allow for Google to look at every request that comes in and make sure everyone gets their money back when they should.

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Joe Maring

Joe Maring was a Senior Editor for Android Central between 2017 and 2021. You can reach him on Twitter at @JoeMaring1.