How to Change a Shipping Service After the Label Is Printed

You cannot. ShipStation is explicit that once you create a label you cannot edit it — changing the address, service, weight or any other shipping option means voiding the existing label and creating a new one.

That is a two-minute job and it is worth knowing the order to do it in, because doing it backwards leaves the order in the wrong state, and because the refund is not guaranteed.

Void first, then create

This is the one sequencing rule and it is easy to get wrong under pressure, because the instinct is to print the label you need and tidy up afterwards.

ShipStation’s own note on what happens if you reverse it:

If you create a new label before voiding the original, ShipStation will create a shipment without the associated item(s). When you then void the original label, it will cause ShipStation to think the item has not been shipped yet (because it is not associated with a shipment), and the order will remain in the Awaiting Shipment status.

— ShipStation, Void Labels

The recovery is Mark as Shipped, which works but leaves you reconciling a shipment record that does not carry its items. Voiding first avoids the whole thing.

Where to void from

Four places, all documented, and they do the same thing:

• Print Preview — the Void Labels button in the corner of the pop-up, if you have caught it immediately
• Order Details — the action menu on the shipment card
• The Shipments grid — select the shipment, Void Label
• Shipment Details — Other Actions → Void Label

ShipStation sends the refund request to the carrier and reports success or failure. If the order was in Shipped status it returns to Awaiting Shipment, and you can then create the new label, mark it shipped, or cancel it.

Voided labels are not deleted. They stay under Shipments → Voided, with the order number and the old tracking number struck through. Worth knowing that ShipStation is direct about what that status does not mean: the Voided status confirms the label cannot be used, and says nothing about whether a refund arrived. Those are two different things and only one of them is visible in ShipStation.

Whether you get the money back

This is the part that varies, and the variation is by postage provider rather than by anything ShipStation controls. Refunds are issued by whoever sold you the label.

As of August 2026, the windows ShipStation documents:

Provider	Window and behaviour
UPS from ShipStation	Most funds credited same day, but up to 21 business days to reach your ShipStation Balance. A label unused for 30 days cannot be voided or refunded at all.
USPS via Stamps.com	Refund request within 28 days of label purchase
USPS via Endicia	Refund request within 30 days of label purchase
DHL Express from ShipStation	Must be voided within 30 days for a credit

The USPS condition is the sharp one, and it is about scanning rather than time:

To qualify for electronic reimbursement, the shipment cannot have been scanned by USPS… If you use ShipStation to void a USPS label that has already been scanned, your request will be ignored by USPS, and you will NOT receive a refund.

— ShipStation, Void Labels

So the practical rule on USPS is that the label is refundable until the moment it enters the mailstream, and then it is not. If a label has been sitting in a tray and a driver picked it up with the rest of the batch, that money is gone whether or not the parcel was ever going to travel.

Post-billed accounts behave differently. ShipStation notes that accounts like UPS and FedEx do not charge for labels you do not use — but recommends voiding anyway, so the shipment record carries the correct items and your reporting stays accurate.

Unused USPS labels you have already lost track of

Separate from voiding, and worth enabling if you print more labels than you ship: Refund Assist authorises ShipStation to find eligible unused USPS labels and submit the refund requests for you.

ShipStation’s documentation sets out the mechanics precisely, and the last line is the one to read twice:

• A label qualifies if it was printed but not received or scanned by USPS within 21 days of the print date
• Once labels are scheduled, you have five days to exclude any you do not want refunded
• USPS takes one to four weeks to process
• You receive 70% of the USPS-approved refund amount as a credit to your ShipStation balance

Seventy per cent is the price of not having to chase them. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on how many unused labels you generate, which is a number you can get from the Voided and unused label counts before you decide.

It is enabled under Account Settings → Shipping → Refund Assist.

The part that catches people

Voiding is clean inside ShipStation. It is not clean outside it, and this is where the support tickets come from.

ShipStation does not update the marketplace when you void. Its own wording: ShipStation does not update the marketplace status when you void shipments, and once you void, the order will not receive marketplace updates. If you subsequently cancel the order on the marketplace, you have to cancel it in ShipStation too — the sync is broken in both directions from that point.

The new label’s tracking number may never reach the customer. ShipStation states that if you create a new label after voiding and reship, the store the order came from will not be notified of the new shipment and tracking information. Separately, some selling channels will not accept a second tracking number from ShipStation at all, in which case you update it on the channel by hand.

Put those together and the failure mode is specific: you fix the label, the parcel goes out correctly, and the customer is tracking a number that was voided days ago. Nothing in ShipStation flags it. The check is to look at the order on the channel after a void-and-reship, not at the order in ShipStation.

A voided label cannot be unvoided. ShipStation answers this one in a single word — no. If you void by mistake, you create a new label, and you are back in the tracking-number problem above.

Two smaller constraints

Multi-package shipments void as a unit. You void the master tracking number, which cancels every child label, and you cannot void one box out of a set. Rebuilding means creating a new multi-package shipment and getting new tracking numbers for all of them, which is one more argument for getting the package set right before printing.

Voided labels still count against your plan. ShipStation counts labels, fulfillments, returns and voided labels toward the account shipment limit. A busy day of corrections consumes allowance even though nothing shipped.

What to do about it

The honest answer is that most void-and-reprint volume is avoidable upstream, and the two causes are worth separating.

If you are voiding because the address was wrong, that is an address validation problem, and the Address Verified criterion can tag doubtful addresses before a batch runs rather than after a label is bought.

If you are voiding because the service was wrong, that is a rate or rules problem, and the answer is upstream of the label — either the automation rule that picked the service, or letting a live comparison pick it per order.

Where a void is genuinely unavoidable — a customer changes their mind, a picker finds damage — the sequence is: void, create, then check the channel shows the new tracking number. That third step is the one nobody does, and it is the one the customer sees.