# Payments via Polar for Easy Digital Downloads

> An Easy Digital Downloads payment gateway for Polar, the merchant of record that handles sales tax and VAT worldwide. One-time payments.

[Polar](https://polar.sh) is a merchant of record: it's the seller of each payment, so it works out, collects and remits sales tax and VAT for you. This plugin adds Polar as a payment gateway to Easy Digital Downloads (EDD). It takes **one-time payments**; EDD Recurring Payments subscriptions aren't supported yet.

## Requirements

- WordPress 6.5 or later
- Easy Digital Downloads 3.3 or later
- PHP 8.1 or later
- A Polar organization, and a sandbox organization for testing

## What it checks

- **An order completes only when Polar collected exactly its total, in its currency** (before tax, when your prices exclude tax). A payment for any other amount puts the order on hold with a note.
- **The confirmation page asks Polar about the payment** before it shows the receipt, so a shopper who has just paid gets their files even before Polar's webhook arrives. A check 15 minutes after checkout completes anything both missed.
- **Refunds go both ways.** Refund in EDD with "Refund in Polar" ticked and the money goes back through Polar; a refund made in Polar is recorded in EDD.
- **Webhooks are checked against Polar's signature**, and each order stays with the organization it was paid in, live or sandbox.

## What shoppers see

With Polar as your only gateway, EDD's checkout tells shoppers where they'll pay, just above the Purchase button.

![EDD's checkout: 1, the note "You'll pay on Polar's secure page: card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and more."; 2, the Purchase button.](../../../../assets/docs/edd-checkout-note.png)

**1** The note shoppers see. **2** Purchase takes them to Polar's page, or opens Polar's window over yours with [Embedded checkout](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/embedded-checkout/) on.

## Where to go next

- [Set it up](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/setup/)
- [Webhooks](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/webhooks/)
- [Tax and refunds](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/tax-and-refunds/)
- [Embedded checkout](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/embedded-checkout/)
- [Test mode](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/test-mode/)
- [EDD Software Licensing](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/software-licensing/)
- [Troubleshooting](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/troubleshooting/)
- [What it doesn't do, and FAQ](/docs/payments-via-polar-edd/limits-and-faq/)

Checked against Payments via Polar for Easy Digital Downloads 1.0.0 on main, 19 October 2026.