How to complete checkout via admin api

Retired Boards Appdev Graphql Basics And Troubleshooting

Topic summary

Attempt to complete a checkout via Shopify Admin REST API without payment results in a 422 error.

  • Goal: Create an unpaid order by completing a checkout without processing payment.
  • Context: A valid checkout was created using the Checkout API (Admin REST 2022-10).
  • Action: POST to /admin/api/2022-10/checkouts//complete.json with empty JSON body and access token (code snippet provided; central to the issue).
  • Outcome: 422 Unprocessable Entity with error: {“code”:“missing_transactions”,“message”:“Cannot complete the checkout without any transactions.”}.

The user expected Shopify to allow completion that creates an unpaid order, but the API requires transactions to complete. They referenced a related community post that didn’t resolve the issue and are seeking guidance.

Status: Unresolved; no confirmed workaround or steps provided in the thread. Key question remains whether completing a checkout without transactions is supported and, if so, how to structure the request (or what alternative flow to use).

Summarized with AI on February 4. AI used: gpt-5.
1

I am trying to complete a checkout without requiring payment. It is document in the Checkout API here: https ://shopify.dev/api/admin-rest/2022-10/resources/checkout#post-checkouts-token-complete

I have successfully created a valid checkout using the checkout API. I then send the following request to complete the checkout:

url -d '{}' \ 
-X POST "https://cemarose-test.myshopify.com/admin/api/2022-10/checkouts/<checkout-token>/complete.json" \ 
-H "X- Shopify-Access-Token: <access-token>" \ 
-H "Content-Type: application/json"

At this point I am expecting an unpaid order to be created. However we get the following 422 response:

{"errors":{"base":[{"code":"missing_transactions","message":"Cannot complete the checkout without any transactions.","options":{}}]}}

I looked at another post but it didn’t seem to work, I’m getting this error as well.

https://community.shopify.com/topic/748507

who can help me,

thanks.