Why can't I publish my Facebook shop? I believe I comply with the Commerce Eligibility Requirements

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Core Issue:
Multiple users are unable to publish their Facebook/Instagram shops despite believing they meet all Commerce Eligibility Requirements. Facebook repeatedly rejects their commerce accounts and appeals without providing specific reasons for the rejections.

Facebook’s Response Pattern:

  • Generic, circular support messages that don’t identify specific violations
  • Claims rejections are “final and cannot be contested”
  • Directs users to check Account Quality, Monetization Eligibility, and disabled ad accounts
  • Requires 2-week waiting periods between appeal attempts
  • Some responses appear garbled or reversed text (possible encoding issues)

Common User Frustrations:

  • No concrete explanation of what policy was violated
  • Clean account histories with no prior violations, ads, or sales
  • Strong social media presence with thousands of followers and daily engagement
  • Selling legitimate products (home decor, handcrafted items)
  • Automated/AI responses instead of human support
  • Seeing less trustworthy businesses approved while their accounts remain blocked

Resolution:
One user (raincoyote) eventually succeeded after persistent contact with Facebook support over approximately one month, who manually published their shop. However, the process required continuous follow-up with no clear explanation of what changed.

Status: Ongoing issue affecting multiple Shopify merchants with no systematic solution identified.

Summarized with AI on November 10. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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I’ve looked at everything, double-checked that I meet all the requirements, and even contacted their support. They just send me around in circles. Here are the messages I’ve received back from Facebook, in order:

As I read you are unable to publish store and receiving notification about eligibility requirement, I understand how important it is for you therefore you will inform you the best I can.> > After investigating your case I can confirm that your commerce account is rejected and as you submitted an appeal that too is rejected making you unable to onboard. Please take note that this decision is final and cannot be contested. Since we run a dynamic platform, it is possible that this review limitation might be altered and you will be provided another appeal but for now I would recommend you to follow the information given below to make sure that your account is in all good shape so that once you are up for another appeal, that will approve.> > - Check for any red notifications in yourFacebookor Business accounts by accessing Accounts Quality & self-appeal if needed (https://business.facebook.com/accountquality/)> - Check your Monetization Eligibility by accessingFacebookCreator Studio & self-appeal if needed (https://business.facebook.com/creatorstudio/)> - Check if you have any disabled Ad accounts & self-appeal if needed (https://www.facebook.com/business/help/968402779873601)> > Meanwhile, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

So basically, it has been rejected by Facebook and we can’t tell you WHY even though we are literally Facebook.

Ok, cool.

Email #2, in which I went through step by step and tried to comply by their Commerce Eligibility Requirements

Here’s the response:

It is one of our main concernsthat users have the ability to use our platforms smoothly to increase the productivity of their business. Albeit, as important as the ability to use our platforms is to uphold ourCommunity Standards. That is the main purpose of the reviews at each time onboarding is submitted. There are three main checks a user must be aware of to onboardFacebookCommerce Platforms:Commerce Eligibility Requirements,Commerce Policiesand ourCommunity Standards.> > Previously you was advised to Check Account Quality and Creator Studio. On this email I’d like to go a little further into the detail level with the Commerce Eligibility Requirements:> > a. What are the "Commerce Eligibility Requirements" -There are five requirements to be eligible to use our Commerce Platforms:> > 1. Comply with our Policies: Commerce Policies [FacebookCommerce Policies]> > 2. Represent your Business and Domain [Domain Verification] please make sure that your customers can add items to the shop cart and are able to fully checkout on your domain/website.> > i) With regards to the Domain, your Instagram Shopping does not have your domain verified, please use theDebugger Toolto verify the issues and follow the steps onVerifying your domain.> > 3. Be located in a Supported Market [Supported Markets]. This point is not relevant to your case, Dane.> > **4. Demonstrate trustworthiness - Established Presence:**it is the interaction of yourFacebookPage or Instagram Account. Keeping and, maintaining a sufficient followers base, interactions, and a live account is a way to show your online presence.> > i) you can verify and follow your progress on theInsights tool. An established presence is fundamental to get your Instagram Shopping accepted.> > 5. Product information listed onFacebookCommerce surfaces must not contain misleading pricing and availability information. Your refund and return policies must be displayed and easily accessible from your website or onFacebookor Instagram.

Then the third email, when I said that I complied with all these items and they need to tell me specifically what the issue is:

I can see that you have been following our indications and I want to first thank you for that. Regarding your situation I would like to better clarify how it works when you get a Commerce Account rejected so you can understand why you are not being able to appeal or publish your Shop right now.> > The provided steps and suggestions are very important for you to get this situation solved and your Commerce Account approved, however, when a Commerce Account is rejected, is it not possible to alter (move, merge, delete, deactivate, etc.) the connectedFacebookPage, Instagram Account and/or Catalog until the Commerce Account is approved and this is the main reason why you are not being able to complete yourFacebookShop.> > In order for you to complete your shop, you need to focus in correcting your Account issues (just like you have been doing) and wait for2 weeksuntil you get the appeal option available again. Only after you appeal, your Commerce Account will be reviewed and approved for shopping, but until that the account will remain disabled until you receive our email saying that your Commerce Account was approved for shopping.> > If after 2 weeks you are still not able to use the appeal option in yourAccount Quality Pageyou should contact us again so we can report that to our technical team for assistance.> > In addition to this, regarding to the missing properties screenshot you sent, since the image is cropped and I’m not being able to identify where that message is appearing, I’m not sure what is the issue you are facing in there. However, I could verify that in your Business Settings, your Shopify Account is not yet connected to your Shop and you don’t have your Shopify App Id in “Apps” under “Accounts” Tab. Right now, since your Commerce Account is not approved for shopping you will probably not be able to connect them. So, once again I suggest for you to focus in waiting 2 weeks for the appeal option to be available so you can get your Account approved and if you are still not able to complete any step from there you can contact us again for technical assistance.

I’ve now waited two weeks and the button to reapply is still not there. It’s still just telling me that “After reviewing your commerce account, we found that it doesn’t comply with our Commerce Eligibility Requirements, so your shop isn’t visible to potential customers. If you believe your shop should be published, you can see details and request a review in Account Quality.”

Which means absolutely jack squat.

Has ANYONE figured this out? Is it because I’m trying to set up a shop that then checks out on Shopify and Facebook doesn’t get any money from it? Do I just need to unlink Shopify and make a Facebook-only store? Is it that petty?

God, this is so, so, so stupid and frustrating.

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Update: Another email to Facebook and this time they manually published it. Should not have taken a month. I guess the result here is to just keep badgering their support team?

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Glad you got this worked out. I’m in the exact same boat. My FB Shop was initially working for about a week and then was shut down inexplicably. I’ve been going round and round with support getting nowhere. About to lose my mind. Was there anything you said in your last email to them that helped them change their minds?

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Hi - how can you reach the direct Facebook support? If there is a link, could you please share? I just keep getting their automated responses that are - as you indicated, no help!! I am getting the same message that my shop “doesn’t comply with our Commerce Eligibility Requirements” but no idea why! This has happened to me before. Thank you - any help is appreciated.

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We are having this EXACT problem with the exact responses. No one will tell you what the problem is, and when you ask for specifics, they say that you are permanently banned from running ads and selling on FB altogether. We have ZERO issues. We’ve sifted them all with a fine-toothed comb and yet we get these static flow chart responses as well. They can’t give us an actual reason. There isn’t one. We haven’t ran an ad. We haven’t sold at all. We haven’t done anything that could possible lead to restriction. We sell home decor products and it’s ALL CLEAN. We are at this wall ourselves because there isn’t anything we are doing wrong, they just keep telling us to find it.

It’s insane.

I wish Shopify had more pull to be able to make a dent with this issue. SIGH.

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I’m struggling with the exact same problem and have been badgering them and still nothing and I have 000s of followers on both accounts and post daily. Account Quality is great and always has been and I am still not ‘Trustworthy’ Furthermore, all i do is handcraft items and sell them yet im constantly being bombarded by businesses that seem far more untrustworthy than what I do.

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Hey Rain . Im having the exact same issue its extremely frustrating. How were you able to bypass this? I’ve been on this for two weeks straight for some reason they were restricted my account because it doesn’t meet the guidelines however, doing further investigation I do meet the guidelines. support team is trash. All I get is speaking to AI and not with the real person. I tried to appeal, but it continues telling me that my account is restricted because it does not meet the guidelines. how were you able to communicate with someone and what do you recommend on doing??