Shipping Policy

We offer 4 shipping options to allow you to decide when you get your stuff. Days listed are from when the order ships. See our same-day shipping section for more detail.

• Next Business Day is FedEx Standard Overnight. Delivery is guaranteed by 3pm the next business day, may be later for rural.
• 2 Business Days is FedEx 2-day. Delivery is guaranteed by the end of the second business day.
• 2-5 Business Days is FedEx Ground. All orders ship from Colorado, so the closer you are to us, the sooner this option will arrive.
• 5+ Business Days is FedEx Smartpost. Please note rural areas may take additional time to deliver. This option is carried by FedEx to a post office near your address, then handed over to the postal service for delivery with your normal US mail. If you are in a rush to get your parts, we recommend using FedEx Ground or FedEx Express. SmartPost is not tracked or insured. Only allowed for less than $400. May take up to 3 business days to leave our facility.
  • If you are shipping to Alaska or Hawaii, please note that it can take up to an extra week for your Smartpost package to reach you.

FedEx does not normally deliver on Saturday, but may for an additional charge. See our Saturday Delivery information for details.

We don’t normally offer USPS or UPS shipping options, but you may see them in the following cases:

• You have a verified UPS account number on file with us.
• You are shipping to a PO box or military address.
• Your shipping address is not returning a valid quote from FedEx.

FedEx and UPS do not deliver to PO Boxes. If your shipping address is a PO Box, please ensure you select a USPS shipping method to avoid any issues with your delivery.

All US orders are shipped “Signature Not Required” by default; however, the shipping company may decide to require a signature depending on the value or destination. If you want your order to require a signature for delivery, please contact Customer Support. If a “Signature Not Required” package is left at the door but isn’t there when you get home, neither SparkFun nor the shipping company can be held responsible.

If your package is en route to an incorrect address, we can attempt to contact FedEx or UPS to update the delivery address (USPS does not offer this service). Please email our Support Team as soon as you are aware the package needs rerouting.

This also applies to packages needing to be stopped and returned to us.

Want to bill shipping charges to your FedEx account? Just provide your valid shipping account number in checkout for your shipping costs to be billed directly to your shipping account. 

There will be a $2 processing and handling fee charged to orders using individual shipping accounts to cover the cost of shipping materials.

We ship to your country! (Unless you live in a country that is embargoed by the US government currently Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Russia and specific regions of Ukraine {Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk}) We still can’t ship to Cuba normally, but that is theoretically changing sooner than later. Everywhere else is groovy.

Most international shipments will incur additional fees in the form of duties and taxes. These fees are your responsibility, and are related to the country with which you are importing. These charges are in addition to the shipping cost, and are not able to be estimated/calculated by SparkFun. See Duties and Taxes below for details.

For all international shipments, we charge a $2 handling fee plus the shipping estimate from the carrier.

For shipping addresses outside the US, you have multiple options for shipping your order:

FedEx

• FedEx International Connect Plus - Estimated delivery in 5-10 business days
• FedEx International Priority - Estimated delivery in 1-3 business days, longer for rural areas
• FedEx International Economy - Estimated delivery in 3-5 business days, longer for rural areas
• FedEx International Priority - 1-3 business days, longer for rural areas

United States Postal Service (USPS)

• USPS Priority Mail International - Estimated delivery in 6-10 business days. Trackable. Only allowed for orders up to $400 in value. Delivery is made by the destination country’s postal service.
• USPS Priority Mail Express International - Estimated delivery in 3-5 business days. Trackable. Only allowed for orders up to $400 in value. Delivery is made by the destination country’s postal service.
• USPS First Class Package International Service - Estimated delivery in 2-4 weeks, but can take 6 weeks or more. This method is NOT trackable. Only allowed for orders up to $400 in value. Delivery is made by the destination country’s postal service.

All duties and taxes for international shipments are the responsibility of the customer. SparkFun is not responsible for any extra charges once the original package has been shipped.

If the customer refuses to pay these extra charges, the return shipping and any additional fees will be taken out of the cost of the order with any remaining funds being refunded to the customer. In the event that the extra charges exceed the value of the order, we may charge those amounts to the credit card originally used for the order.

As mentioned above, we are not able ship anything to any address in the countries of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Russia and specific regions of Ukraine {Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk}. Beyond that, we also sell some items that are known as “dual-use items”. These are products designed for civilian use, but that could be used for devious purposes in the wrong hands. The rules vary by item, but we’ll be in direct contact with you if we need further information.  Please read our Export Compliance page for general information, and contact our Support Team if you have further questions regarding an item and/or its destination.

All US orders are shipped “Signature Not Required” by default; however, the shipping company may decide to require a signature depending on the value or destination. If you want your order to require a signature for delivery, please contact Customer Support. If a “Signature Not Required” package is left at the door but isn’t there when you get home, neither SparkFun nor the shipping company can be held responsible.

Want to bill shipping charges to your FedEx account? Just provide your valid shipping account number in checkout for your shipping costs to be billed directly to your shipping account. 

There will be a $2 processing and handling fee charged to orders using individual shipping accounts to cover the cost of shipping materials.

SparkFun guarantees to ship your order the same day you place it IF and ONLY IF your order meets ALL the following criteria:

• Your order is placed before 2:00PM, Mountain Time.
• You select a shipping method other than the Economy shipping option.
• The day you place your order is a Business Day.
• All items are in-stock.
• Your order is paid in full at the time you place it.
• Your order does not fall into the On Hold status.
• Your order value is less than $1,200 before shipping costs.
• You are not a SparkFun Distributor or Reseller.
• Your order does not require any modification before it is able to ship.
• Your order does not contain any lithium-ion or lithium-metal batteries.

If your order does meet all the listed requirements, we guarantee shipment of your package that day. If it doesn't meet them all, we may still get it out the same day, but no promises.

1. Time - The timestamp on your order must be before 2PM Mountain Time to qualify. An order placed at 1:59:59PM counts, 2:00:00PM does not. Orders placed at 2PM and later will be considered to qualify for the next business day. The time used is the timestamp on your order, which will be displayed once your order is placed.
2. Shipping Method - Most of our available shipping methods qualify. Within the US, all options except Ground Economy Shipping qualify. For international customers, all options except FedEx International Connect Plus or USPS First Class Package Service qualify. Options that do not qualify will be processed within 1-3 business days of placement.
3. Business Days - Business Days are traditionally defined as the weekdays of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Excluded are the weekend days of Saturday and Sunday, as well as any Holidays. You can see a list of the weekdays SparkFun will be closed for Holidays here. Additionally, SparkFun may be unexpectedly closed for inclement weather, off-site company events, zombie apocalypse, etc. In the event of such closure, SparkFun will post notice of closure on the front page of our website as soon as possible. If SparkFun does need to close unexpectedly, that day will not be considered a Business Day, even if the zombies have gotten into our server room and we are unable to update the site to tell you about it.
4. In-Stock - Only in stock items qualify for same day shipping. If we don't have it, we can't ship it to you. There is the potential that your order will contain an Accidentally Backordered Item. In this case, we can only guarantee the ship date on all remaining items in your order, and ship the Accidentally Backordered Item(s) as soon as possible. Please see our Backorder Policy for more details.
5. Paid in full - Only orders paid in full at the time of placement qualify. This limits payment methods to Credit Card and most PayPal transactions. Orders paid entirely with a Gift Certificate do qualify. All other payment methods do not qualify for same-day shipping. At this time, we do not guarantee same-day shipping for Net30 orders.
6. On Hold Order Status - While rare, there is the chance that your order will go to an On Hold status, instead of the normal Processing status. Most orders that do go to the On Hold status, and otherwise qualify, will be cleared quickly and shipped within the same-day time frame. Because some will require additional information from the customer, though, we cannot guarantee it. You can see our Order Status Information section for more details.
7. Order Value - In order to ensure the quality of very large orders, we need to exclude orders valued at $1,200 and up from this guarantee. Your order will be processed within 1-3 business days after any order verification, and/or modification has been completed and payment has been received.
8. Distributors - Distributor orders don't qualify. Sorry folks. Your order will be processed within 1-3 business days after any order verification, and/or modification has been completed and payment has been received.
9. Does not require modification - Your order must be valid to ship as you placed it. If any changes are required to your order before it is able to be shipped, it is disqualified from the same-day shipping guarantee. These changes may be intentional, such as you needing to add an item or correct a shipping address, or unintentional, such as providing an invalid FedEx account number or an address deemed undeliverable by your selected shipper.
10. Batteries - Lithium Ion and Lithium Metal are considered dangerous goods and take additional packing and paperwork in order to ship.

You must have $100 in qualifying products per shipment.

• Important! Although a vast majority of our products are shipped in-house, SparkFun has partnered with several companies to ship a select list of products.
• Each location is a separate shipment and the $100 threshold must be met to qualify for free shipping for each shipment.
• Shipments outside of SparkFun are denoted with this notice on the product page: "Notice: This item ships via 3rd party vendor and is not eligible for free shipping. Shipment dates may be delayed up to two weeks."
• You must be shipping to an address within the U.S.
• You must not have an item in your cart that disqualifies free shipping.

A: The Free Shipping option will use a ground-type shipment method.

A: Products to be excluded include, but are not limited to: heavy items, items with big shipping dimensions, items with special shipping requirements, items that requires special handling in transit. You will see the following alert on the product page for these items.

A: When you are ready to check out and proceed to your Shopping Cart you will see the shipments separated out by fullfillment centers. Fullfillment centers with over $100 in qualifying items will qualify for free shipping. The option for Free Shipping will also be reflected in the shipping options during checkout.

As of August 19, 2024 local pickup is back on! 

Local Pickups will be available throughout the day at our front desk, Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. Your order will be ready for pickup depending on when you place your order. If your order is placed by 10 am, it will be ready by noon. If your order is placed by noon, it will be ready by 2 pm. And, if your order is placed after 2 pm, it will be ready the following business day by 10 am. Once your order hits Ready for Pickup status, you will receive an email and can swing by to pick up your goodies. 

If you have any questions about your order or your order status, give us a call or send us an email and we'll do our best to answer your questions.

Packages can be returned to us for many reasons. Depending on the reason for return, we may have the option to reship your order to the same address, otherwise the order will be restocked and refunded. Please read below for more information.

• Packages can be returned to us for missing or incorrect address information. Please take a moment to check and make sure your address book is up to date. There is also an order review page where you can double check this information. If the carrier you select charges us to return the package, we reserve the right to deduct that amount from any due refund.
• Packages can be returned to us if they are refused at customs for any reason. Sometimes we choose to get these packages back. If there are any customs fees and shipping charges to return your order, this will be deducted from any due refund. Please see our Shipping Policy for additional information regarding international orders.

Please note that if your package is marked to be returned to SparkFun, it could take longer than expected to receive as these packages are not marked as a priority from the shipping company. Sometimes it can take a couple of weeks before we get them back!

We will only hold a returned package for one week before we restock and refund (if applicable). If you are wondering where your order is, please also check your spam filter as we may be trying to get a hold of you!

If you think your package is going to be returned to us, please send us an email to our Support Team so we can note your order and wait for its return.