---
title: Order Migration Overview
description: Comprehensive overview of order migration in BigCommerce, including best practices, billing considerations, privacy compliance, and essential resources to ensure a smooth transition of order data.
keywords: orders, order migration, BigCommerce, billing, GDPR, data migration, order data
---
# Order Migration Overview

This section covers in-depth information on best practices related specifically to migrating orders. It assumes you have already migrated Products and Customers, but not B2B information (if applicable). Some features have been omitted, usually because they are read-only, to limit the scope and complexity of this guide.

If you are migrating B2B information, it is highly recommended that you follow the B2B guide in lieu of this guide. [this line to be added once the B2B guide is finished.]

<Callout type='info'>  
If you have a larger order history or need a specially tailored solution for order data migration, consider reaching out to our Data Migration Services team.  
</Callout>

## Contents of this guide

The following sections provide the relevant information for migrating orders:

* Complexity Considerations - factors to consider in preparing your data and how best to handle the individual aspects of migrating order information  
* Prepare Data - relevant structures and data for how to handle orders during the migration phase  
* Migration Phase - basic structure of migration process including some measure of time complexity and the order-specific steps relevant to the migration process

## Special considerations

Because order data often contains customer information, it is important to handle your data with care. If you or your customers are in a region affected by the [GDPR](https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/General-Data-Protection-Regulation), be sure to take privacy into account when migrating order data. Generally, it is enough to anonymize only that data that has been specifically requested, but you may want or need to do more.

In addition to privacy concerns, BigCommerce billing is based on total orders and trailing order value. In order to prevent billing errors, there is a field in the order creation process that must have the appropriate flag set. Specifically, the field `external_source` should have the value `M-MIG` when creating the order, or it will be included in the billing data, which will cause a potential billing mismatch.

If you have not configured shipping options or payment options, you can add orders without this information, but it may cause some issues with record-keeping if that data is skipped during migration. As such, you should consider configuring both your shipping and payments information ahead of order migration.

Unlike with product migration, only one endpoint should be necessary for initial order migration, although other endpoints may become relevant in delta migration if necessary. Both endpoints are outlined in the [Orders API Reference](/docs/rest-management/orders).

## FAQs
1. **What is the recommended way to avoid billing errors during order migration?**  
   Always set `external_source` to `M-MIG` when creating migrated orders to prevent billing mismatches.
2. **Can I migrate orders without shipping or payment data?**  
   Yes, but it may cause record-keeping issues. For completeness, configure both ahead of migration.
3. **Is there a separate guide for B2B order migration?**  
   Yes, refer to the dedicated B2B migration guide (coming soon).
4. **How do privacy laws (like GDPR) affect order migration?**  
   Anonymize personal data as requested. See [GDPR and BigCommerce](https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/General-Data-Protection-Regulation) for details.
5. **Where can I get help for large or complex order migrations?**  
   Contact BigCommerce [Data Migration Services](https://www.bigcommerce.com/services/launch/#data-migration-services).
   
## Additional resources

- [Orders API Reference](/docs/rest-management/orders)
- [GDPR and BigCommerce](https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/General-Data-Protection-Regulation)
- [Shipping Setup](https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/Shipping-Setup)
- [Available Payment Gateways](https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/Available-Payment-Gateways)
- [API Best Practices](/docs/start/best-practices)
- [Data Migration Services](https://www.bigcommerce.com/services/launch/#data-migration-services)