When you sell an item on CS2Sell, the money first shows up as trade balance and only later becomes store balance. You can spend trade balance on CS2Sell right away, but you cannot withdraw it yet. The reason is a Steam rule: for seven days after a CS2 trade, that trade can still be reversed.
Steam's 7-day trade protection
Since July 16, 2025, every Counter-Strike 2 item received in a Steam trade is trade protected for seven days. Steam Support's FAQ describes how it works:
- The items arrive immediately, and the new owner can equip and play with them.
- For seven days they cannot be traded on, modified, consumed or moved into a Storage Unit.
- During that window, an account can reverse its trades involving trade-protected items from the last seven days, from its Trade History page. Reversal is all or nothing: every such trade from that period is undone, and the items go back to their previous owners.
- The account that triggers the reversal is barred from trading and the Steam Community Market for 30 days. Its trade partners are not penalised.
- Once the seven days pass, protection ends and the trade can no longer be reversed.
Valve built this to help people who lose control of their accounts, and it replaced trade holds for CS2 items: Steam now delivers them instantly and relies on the reversal window instead. For a marketplace, it also means that a sale is not truly settled until the seven days are up, because the seller who sent the item could still pull it back. The trade protection explainer goes into the Steam side in more depth.
Two parts of one balance
CS2Sell handles that open window by splitting your balance in two:
| Store balance | Trade balance | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Your available money | Money from your sales whose Steam trade is still inside the 7-day protection window |
| Spend on CS2Sell | Yes | Yes, straight away |
| Withdraw | Yes | No |
| What happens next | — | Turns into store balance automatically when the protection window closes |
Nothing needs to be claimed or converted by hand. Each trade-balance amount moves across on its own when its window ends.
How a sale becomes trade balance
There are two ways to sell on Sell, and both end in trade balance first.
Instant sale to CS2Sell bots. You sign in with Steam, pick items from your CS2 inventory and accept the bot's Steam trade offer. That trade is protected for seven days like any other, so the proceeds are credited as trade balance until its window closes.
Peer-to-peer listing. You list an item for other users. When it sells, you send it to the buyer in a normal Steam trade offer. CS2Sell's browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge can send, accept and watch those offers inside your own Steam session. You are credited once the buyer's acceptance is verified, as trade balance until the protection window ends.
Spending trade balance
Trade balance is fully usable for buying on CS2Sell, and purchases draw on it before touching your store balance. In practice that keeps your withdrawable money intact for as long as possible.
An example with round numbers: you sell an item and receive 50 in trade balance, then buy something for 30. The purchase takes 30 from your trade balance, leaving 20 in trade balance and your store balance unchanged. When the sale's window closes, the remaining 20 becomes store balance.
Refunds follow the same logic. If a purchase you paid for with trade balance is refunded, the money comes back as trade balance with the same release date it had before. A refund cannot turn unsettled money into withdrawable money early.
When a trade is reversed
If the Steam trade behind one of your sales is reversed, CS2Sell takes that credit back. If you have already spent some of it, the shortfall comes off your store balance.
Continuing the example: say the trade behind that sale of 50 is reversed after you spent 30. The 20 still sitting in trade balance is removed, and the 30 you already spent is deducted from your store balance. Reversing your own sale trade also triggers Steam's 30-day trade and Market restriction on your account, so it is never a free way to take an item back. The article on what happens when a trade is reversed covers reversals from the buyer's and seller's side in general.
Where to see your release dates
The account drawer and your account page list each trade-balance amount separately, with the date it turns into store balance. If you sold items on different days, each amount shows its own date and moves across when that date arrives.
That list is the quickest way to plan a withdrawal. Anything already in store balance can be withdrawn now; anything in trade balance has a date next to it.
Withdrawing store balance
Withdrawals are paid in USDT only, on either TRC-20 (Tron) or ERC-20 (Ethereum), and only store balance can be withdrawn. Before you withdraw, pick the network your receiving wallet supports for USDT and check the address carefully. A blockchain transfer cannot be reversed the way a Steam trade can. The guides to choosing between TRC-20 and ERC-20 and withdrawing crypto safely walk through both steps.