TikTok Shop charges a category-based referral commission on each qualified US order. As of October 20, 2025, the referral fee ranges from 5% to 6% by category, calculated as: Rate × (Customer payment + Platform discount − Tax). New sellers who make a first sale within 60 days of onboarding get a 3% referral fee for 30 days after that first order, then revert to the category rate.
TikTok Shop fees are still considerably lower compared to Amazon and Etsy. It is currently the most profitable app, earning $10 billion in global consumer spending1, and has 23.7 million shoppers in the US2 alone. TikTok is certainly the place for product discovery and selling. Open a TikTok Business account today.
Read on to learn about all the fees you need to know as a TikTok Shop seller — from transaction fees to sales tax, returns fees, and more.
In the news: TikTok Shop operations remain unchanged in the US
Following TikTok’s US ownership restructure finalized on January 22, 2026, the company says TikTok Shop remains available to US sellers with no changes to setup, listings, payouts, or fulfillment. Retailers and small businesses can continue selling on the platform as usual.
Source: TikTok statement, reported by PBS NewsHour
What sellers should do now: Keep selling normally, review your margins as you scale, and continue building additional sales channels alongside TikTok Shop.
TikTok Shop fees: Referral fee
Selling on TikTok is free, the platform just takes a referral fee for every transaction. A referral fee
is a service fee charged on every successfully paid and delivered order in TikTok Shop.
Current referral fee (US, verified October 20, 2025): 5%-6% by category, with 6% as the standard rate on qualified transactions.
A note on reported 8% referral fees from TikTok: Our last update (June 2024) stated that referral fees would rise to 8% for most items. TikTok’s current US Seller Academy page (last revised May 8, 2025) still documents a 6% standard rate with category-based exceptions instead, so we will go with the reflected rate.
Referral fee promotion for new TikTok sellers (starting April 1, 2025)
New sellers who make their first sale within 60 days of onboarding (GMV > 0) It means your shop has recorded any Gross Merchandise Value greater than zero—practically, at least one sale. In TikTok Shop, GMV is the total value of orders counted in their attribution window; the new-seller promo triggers once you make a first sale and your GMV is > 0 within 60 days of onboarding. receive a discounted 3% referral fee for 30 days after that first order. The discounted rate takes effect within 48 hours of the first order and then reverts to the category rate after 30 days. TikTok may change or end the promotion; check the Academy page for updates.
Let’s say you just opened a TikTok Shop. If your first sale occurs within 60 days of onboarding, your referral fee is 3% for the next 30 days (effective within 48 hours of that first order). After the 30-day window, your referral fee returns to the category rate.
How to calculate a product’s referral fee (+ example)
To calculate your referral fee, you can use this formula:
Referral Fee = Referral Fee Rate % *(Customer Payment + Platform Discount – Tax)
Where:
- Referral fee rate: 6%
- Customer payment: Product price
- Platform discount (if there is any): TikTok-issued discount (TikTok gives this back to the seller)
- Tax: Calculated upon checkout. For sales made in the US, sales taxes are generally imposed and collected from the buyer at the point of sale, irrespective of the seller’s location.
What is a platform discount?
TikTok Shop gives platform discounts to customers in the form of product and shipping discounts. These are on top of and independent of any discounts given by sellers themselves.
Platform discounts are funded by TikTok Shop and are given back to the seller when calculating the referral fee. This is partly why TikTok Shop is such a hit — product pricing can be slashed with huge discounts because of platform discounts.
To calculate the referral fee of new TikTok Shop sellers within the 60-day active status:
Referral Fee = 3% *(Customer Payment + Platform Discount – Tax)
For example, if you sell an item priced at $75. Refer to the table below for a sample computation on referral fees for existing and new TikTok Shop sellers.
Existing TikTok Shop Seller | New TikTok Shop Seller | |
|---|---|---|
Product Price | $75 | $75 |
Sales Tax + Retail Delivery Fee | $2 | $2 |
Customer Payment | $77 | $77 |
Platform Discount | $5 | $5 |
Referral Fee Calculation | 6% * ($77 + $5 - $2) | 3% × ($77 + $5 − $2) |
Referral Fee Cost | $4.80 | $2.40 |
TikTok Shop fees: Returns and refunds
When an order is refunded, TikTok returns the referral fee to the seller but deducts a Refund Administration Fee (RFA) equal to 20% of the original referral fee, capped at $5 per SKU as of May 2025.
Your buyers can request cancellations, returns, or refunds from the Orders tab in the TikTok app within the return window. TikTok Shop’s standard return/refund window is 30 days; under the Buyer Protection Program, a buyer may still be able to raise a case up to 90 days (see Seller Academy for category-specific rules).
Let’s take the $75 product example above.
- Original referral fee at 6% = $4.80
- RFA = 20% × $4.80 = $0.96
- Referral fee returned to you = $4.80 − $0.96 = $3.84
No product price, platform discount, or tax is paid out to the seller on a refund; those amounts are refunded to the buyer.
TikTok Shop will issue you the whole product price, platform discount, and sales tax, less 96 cents.
Is selling on TikTok Shop worth it?
The long and short of it? Yes, absolutely.
If you compare TikTok’s fees with marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy — which, like TikTok Shop, have a huge audience ready to buy — TikTok Shop’s 6% referral fee is still way lower than the two platforms. You can check our articles on Amazon seller fees and Etsy seller fees for a comparison.
Let’s compare and use the example product from previous sections.
Scenario: $75 order, no tax collected, no shipping charged to buyer, and a $5 TikTok platform discount
Platform | Fee basis | Calculation on this order | Total fees | If refunded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
TikTok Shop (US, standard 6%) | Referral fee = rate × (Customer payment + Platform discount − Tax) | 6% × (75 + 5 − 0) | $4.80 | TikTok returns the referral fee minus a Refund Administration Fee = 20% × $4.80 = $0.96; net fee returned to seller $3.84. |
Amazon (assume 15% category) | Category referral fee on total sales price (item + shipping + gift wrap; tax excluded) | 15% × 75 | $11.25 | On refund, Amazon keeps the lesser of $5 or 20% of the referral fee → $2.25 retained. |
Etsy (no Offsite Ads) | Transaction fee + payment processing + listing | 6.5% × 75 = 4.88; processing 3% × 75 + 0.25 = 2.50; listing 0.20 | $7.58 | If the order was attributed to Offsite Ads, add 12%–15% of the order total (cap applies). |
Note: Fees change frequently, especially on Amazon and Etsy by category, plan, and region. Verify updates from TikTok Seller Academy, Amazon Seller Central, and Etsy Help.
Ultimately, though, your TikTok Shop’s success on the app will depend on how well you can capture your audience through your content — and that requires some serious work. I outline some strategies in my TikTok Ecommerce Strategy Guide to help you.
Now that you have learned more about TikTok Shop fees, read our related articles about selling on TikTok:
- What Is TikTok Shop?
- How to Sell on TikTok
- TikTok Shop Statistics
- Selling on TikTok – Seller reviews
- TikTok Dropshipping
- TikTok Live Shopping
- All About the TikTok Ban
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
TikTok Shop charges a referral fee on US orders. The standard rate is 6% per qualified transaction, with category-based exceptions. Fee calculation: rate × (Customer payment + Platform discount − Tax). If an order is refunded, TikTok returns the referral fee but deducts a Refund Administration Fee equal to 20% of that fee, capped at 5 dollars per SKU.
The TikTok seller fee is a service fee charged by the platform on every successfully paid and delivered order on TikTok Shop. It is known as the referral fee.
Most orders are charged a 6% referral fee per qualified transaction; some categories can vary. State your article’s date and link to the live policy. Source: TikTok Shop Seller Academy.
Referral fee = referral fee rate × (Customer payment + Platform discount − Tax).
If a new seller makes a first sale within 60 days of onboarding, TikTok applies a 3% referral fee for 30 days after that first order, then reverts to the category rate.
With Fulfilled by TikTok, sellers pay the FBT fulfillment fee from the official rate card. Buyer shipping charges do not change what the seller owes for fulfillment. Storage and other logistics rules are detailed in the Academy’s FBT pricing guide; link to that live page and state your verification date.
Effective May 15, 2025, when an order is refunded, TikTok refunds the original referral fee minus a Refund Administration Fee equal to 20% of the original referral fee, capped at $5 per SKU. Exceptions include creator “Buy now, refund later” sample orders and qualifying auto-cancellations before shipping.
Bottom line
Learning all about TikTok Shop’s fees is important whether you are an existing seller or thinking of setting up shop on the platform. It helps you price your products better and position yourself competitively without sacrificing too much of your bottom line because of fees.
TikTok is an all-in-one platform to promote, market, and sell your products. Getting started is free — all you need is to open a TikTok business account.
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