Handling Refunds for In-App Purchases (Billing Services)

Learn how refunds are handled across Google Play and iOS for in-app purchases.

Overview

Different app stores handle refunds and entitlement revocation in different ways. Here’s a clear breakdown for both Google Play and Apple App Store platforms.

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Refund Support Matrix

Product Type	Google Play: Refundable & Revocable	Apple App Store: Refundable & Revocable
Consumables	✅ Refund via play store, ❌ No control on blocking the content after restore without a backend server	✅ Refund via App Store Support, ❌ No control on blocking the content after restore without a backend server
Non-Consumables	✅ Refund with Revoke Entitlement (in play console at the time of refunding from orders page)	✅ Refund auto-removes from RestorePurchases
Subscriptions	✅ Refund with Revoke Entitlement	✅ Refund auto-removes from RestorePurchases

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📌 Important: Platform Refund & Entitlement Behavior

Google Play

• When issuing a refund via the Google Play Console for non-consumables or subscriptions:

  • You must enable "Revoke entitlement" for the app to detect the refund.

  • If enabled:

    • IsProductPurchased(productId) → false

    • User’s entitlement will be removed.

Apple App Store

• On iOS, when a refund is processed by Apple (usually via App Store Support or user refund requests):

  • Automatically revoked — no manual revoke option needed.

  • The product will not appear in subsequent RestorePurchases calls.

  • IsProductPurchased(productId) will also return false.

  • Works seamlessly for non-consumables and subscriptions.

⚠️ Consumables on both platforms: Refunds can be processed, but once consumed, they’re not restorable and entitlement status cannot be tracked post-consumption. If you really want to track these purchases, for every entitlement you provide to the user of a purchase, log the transaction id and check from your backend if the purchase is revoked or still valid. Based on that you can control refunds for consumable purchases.