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Return policyBest Buy’s return window is shorter than you think.
My Best Buy Plus and Total members get 60 days on the same products. Activatable devices, meaning phones, cellular tablets, hotspots and cellular wearables, stay at 14 days no matter what tier you carry.
- The return norm at most big retailers30 days
- Best Buy, most products, counted from the day it arrives15 days
The fifteen is quoted from Best Buy’s own policy page below. Thirty is the expectation people walk in with.
Windows by category
| Most products, standard | 15 days |
|---|---|
| Most products, Plus/Total members | 60 days |
| Activatable devices, all customers | 14 days |
| Halloween & Christmas decorations | 15 days |
| Litter boxes | 90 days |
| Pet training devices & hearing aids | 60 days |
| Hearing amplifiers | 15 days |
| Microsoft Office | 30 days |
Quoted from Best Buy
“If you want to return or exchange your purchase, please know that the time period begins the day you receive your product and applies to new, clearance, open-box, refurbished and pre-owned products.”
Holiday decorations get shorter, not longer, and a handful of items get an explicit extension:
Quoted from Best Buy
“Products in Halloween Decorations and Christmas Decorations categories can be returned within 15 days for all customers, including My Best Buy™, My Best Buy Plus™ and My Best Buy Total™ (“Membership Program”) members, for a full refund.”
Quoted from Best Buy
“The following items have an extended return period: Litter boxes have a 90-day return policy for all customers, including Membership Program members; pet training devices and hearing aids have a 60-day return policy for all customers, including Membership Program members. Please note that hearing amplifiers follow our standard 15-day return policy.”
Membership does nothing for any of the four rows above; the extension, or the cut, applies to
everyone. Microsoft Office is the other outlier: Microsoft Office can be returned
within 30 days by all customers, including Membership Program members, for a full refund.
Restocking fees, exactly
| Activatable devices, excluding prepaid phones | $45 |
|---|---|
| Drones, cameras, scooters, projectors, saunas & special-order items | 15% |
The second row is a named list: drones, digital cameras, camera lenses, camcorders, golf launch monitors, premium and super and mobility scooters, electric wheelchairs, recovery systems, projectors, projector screens, premium cold tubs, premium saunas and special-order products. A television or a laptop is not on it, so neither fee applies to either.
Quoted from Best Buy
“There is no restocking fee if the product is unopened, or if the purchase occurs in: AL, CO, HI, IA, MS, OH, OK, SC and where prohibited by law. The restocking fee will be taxed in select states.”
What Best Buy will not take back
Best Buy draws the line in two separate lists:
- Non-returnable once purchased: custom or personalized orders, Final Sale items, non-subscription digital content, gift codes and prepaid cards, key fobs, memberships, trading cards, items with 300+ watt-hour batteries, golf carts, utility terrain vehicles, electric bikes, electric mopeds and plumbing items.
- Non-returnable once opened: anything that interacts with bodily fluids, SIM kits, LEGO products, completed services, delivered generators and home-backup systems, Marketplace entertainment media, and consumables like batteries, cleaning agents, fuel, filters and supplements.
Quoted from Best Buy
“Due to U.S. Department of Transportation regulations, products classified as fully regulated hazardous materials - including flammable liquids, flammable gases, and lithium batteries with a capacity of 300 watt-hours or more - cannot be returned through Best Buy channels.”
Receipt, or store credit
Quoted from Best Buy
“For faster return processing, please bring your packing slip (if you received one), or your receipt, and the credit card used to make your purchase.”
Quoted from Best Buy
“Reimbursements on returns lacking proof of purchase may require an email address, will be in the form of store credit, may be denied or limited, and state sales taxes and fees will not be reimbursed.”
No receipt does not mean no refund. It means a worse one: store credit, possibly capped, and the tax you paid is gone for good.
How the money actually comes back
Quoted from Best Buy
“For returns by mail, once your return is received, it will be processed within 7-10 business days. Depending on your bank’s processing time, it may take up to 10 days after processing the return to reflect on your account.”
A mailed return can take three weeks to clear before the money shows up. Large cash or check purchases move differently:
Quoted from Best Buy
“If you paid more than $800 in cash or more than $250 by check or by a debit card without a major credit card logo, we will refund you by check within 10 business days.”
Gifts follow the giver’s wallet, not yours. Returning a gift bought at Best Buy in store
earns you store credit; mailed back, Best Buy credits and emails whoever originally paid. The
policy also covers the whole family of Best Buy storefronts: it
applies to purchases shipped from and sold by Best Buy at Best Buy, Best Buy Outlet, Pacific
Sales, Pacific Sales® Outlet, Magnolia® Design Center, Best Buy Education and Best Buy
Business
, and, unless stated otherwise, Marketplace Products carry the identical windows and
fees.
Before you start a return
- Check what you bought against both fee lists. $45 is only activatable devices. 15% is only the named list. Most electronics owe nothing extra.
- Count from delivery, not purchase. The 15-day and 60-day clocks both start the day the product arrives.
- Keep the box and everything in it. A missing accessory can turn into a nonrefundable deduction rather than a denial.
- Wipe connected devices before returning them. Best Buy asks that data be removed and the device unlinked from any cloud account first.
Questions people actually ask
Is 15 days really the standard, not 30?
Yes, for most products bought from Best Buy directly. Thirty days only applies to Microsoft Office and to Verizon activatable devices specifically.
Does membership help with activatable devices?
No. Phones, cellular tablets, hotspots and wearables stay at 14 days for every customer, membership or not.
What is the restocking fee on a TV or laptop?
None stated. Neither the $45 flat fee nor the 15% fee lists televisions or laptops.
Can I return an opened video game?
Only for an identical exchange if bought from Best Buy directly. From a Marketplace Seller, opened entertainment media is not returnable at all.
What happens without a receipt?
You may still get something back, as store credit, possibly limited, with taxes and fees left unreimbursed.
Other policies we have decoded
Every one of these is read from the company’s own document and dated. See all 59 questions we have answered.