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The Epic Games Store is a great place to buy games, with regular sales and free games making for enticing purchases and downloads.

If you've just bought a PC game via the Epic Games Store and have some regret then all hope may not be lost as you might be able to request a refund. We're here to tell you how.

Refundable Epic Games

The Epic Games Store Refund Policy

Much like requesting a refund on Steam, when you're trying to get your money back via Epic Games you first have to meet the requirements of the refund policy. This policy includes several caveats that you need to adhere to for your request to be valid:

  • Refundable item - If you want a refund you first have to be sure that what you've bought is a refundable item. When you visit the Epic Games Store and view things you'll see a label of either "refundable", "non-refundable" or "self-refundable". If the item is non-refundable then it's a no-go.
  • Time - The next caveat is time. In order to be successful in your refund request you need to make it within 14 days of your purchase. You also need to have played it for less than two hours.
  • Purchased on the store - You can only request a refund for Epic Games Purchases if you've bought the game on the platform. If you purchased a key elsewhere and redeemed it on Epic then you cannot ask for a refund.

What does non-refundable mean?

When you're looking at games or other items on the Epic Games store you might see a label marked "non-refundable". This usually applies to things like virtual currency or other consumables including in-app purchases.

What does "self-refundable" and "refundable" mean?

If you see a "self-refundable" label on the Epic Games store then you should be able to fairly easily go through the self-service refund process to get your money back. Assuming, of course, that you meet the refund criteria.

Meanwhile "refundable" means you can get a refund, but the process requires a bit more effort as you need to get in touch with Epic Games to sort out your refund.

What if you've been banned?

If you've been banned from a game that you bought on Epic Games store you will not be able to get a refund for that game.

It's also possible to be banned from requesting refunds as well. If you abuse the system and keep requesting refunds then Epic may take the stance that you're abusing the refund policy and refuse future requests. So don't try to speed run games just so you can refund them constantly. It's not like Epic doesn't give away enough free games anyway.

What about games bought during a sale?

As with all good digital games platforms Epic regularly runs sales on its store. If you've purchased a game during the sale but it's broken, buggy or blatantly not what you thought it would be then don't worry as you might still be able to request a refund.

You can also request a refund if you've bought a game and then a sale starts and suddenly it's a lot cheaper. Epic says that as long as you meet the refund policy requirements you can request a refund and then re-buy the game at the lower price and this won't be seen as an abuse.

What about pre-orders?

If you've pre-ordered a game on the Epic Games store but have then changed your mind you can still request a refund. You can cancel the pre-order at any point before release and get refunded, but if you miss that time period you can still get a refund in the normal way too. Assuming you don't play for more than two hours and request the refund before the 14 day period is up.

Epic games refunds

How to request a game refund on Epic Games

If you've understood everything so far then you'll want to know the next steps to requesting a refund via the Epic Games store. The first thing to note is you can't refund a game through the launcher. You have to open the website to do it.

  1. Head over to Epic Games, login and open up the transactions section of the site (see the menu on the left if this link doesn't work)
  2. Look for the game or item you purchased and click the drop down arrow to see the options
  3. If you see it click the request a refund button
  4. Choose the reason for your refund request
  5. Click confirm

If you don't see the option to request a refund then the chances are you have either played for too long or were not quick enough requesting the refund and you've passed the 14 day grace period. If you think that you do meet the criteria but you don't see the option to request a refund, then you can try contacting Epic Games directly and asking for support.

If the game you're trying to get a refund on is marked "refundable" rather than "self-refundable" then you might need to go through the contact option anyway.