WooCommerce 9.6: Fresh new tools and modernizing classics Release Posts

WooCommerce 9.6 has been released on January 20th, 2025. This post highlights what’s new in this version of WooCommerce. View the full changelog.

Other important information:

📀 This release does not include a database update.

This release contains important bug fixes and actionable changes. See our fixes and dev advisories for this version.

Latest Release:

👉 WooCommerce 9.6

See our update guide. Download directly from WordPress.org.

About:

✅ Backwards compatible
Commits: 435
Contributors: 88

Brands has landed

It’s finally here, the freshly merged Brands plugin will now be automatically enabled for all users. We first introduced the feature to you in October, and have recently published an updated blog post that confirms the feature’s integration into core.

Starting today, Brands will move out of beta and be automatically enabled for everyone.

This update simplifies your experience and ensures that brand management becomes a seamless part of WooCommerce stores. Learn more here.

Smarter defaults for measuring unit

Set default weight and dimension units based on country #53652

We now match measuring units to store location during onboarding, with U.S. stores defaulting to imperial units (lbs and inches). Units now automatically update when changing store location, while preserving existing settings during updates.

For developers, The ./i18n/locale-info.php file has been updated to include corrected weight and dimension units for specific countries:

United States and its territories (GU, AS, VI) now correctly use pounds (lbs) for weight and inches (in) for dimensions
United Kingdom entries now reflect official metric standards.

Store managers can customize units under WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Measurements.

Product Summary block, enhanced

Product Summary: making product element a main and powerful summary block #48984

Our newest version of this block now supports:

Text styling from Product Editor (including new line!)
Truncation control: Ability to turn on/off truncation
Ability to disable fallback to full product description

It’s compatible across various contexts, including All Products and Single Product templates, and supports languages with different word definitions, along with many more improvements.

How to use the new block:

The Product Summary block will be available in the inserter under “Product Summary” name (the same as before).

If you’re adding new blocks, the new Product Summary will be already be a part of the markup for:

Single Product block
transforming Classic Single Product Template into blockified version

We don’t automatically upgrade the previous block (Post Excerpt’s variation). If you are currently using the previous version of the Product Summary block (Post Excerpt’s variation), it will work as-is, however we’re providing an upgrade path from the previous variation to the new Product Summary block through Inspector Controls. Just click “Upgrade now” and you’ll be upgraded to the new block:

More new features and updates

WC Blocks Image Filter

Enable cart item images filtering #52310

A new filter, woocommerce_store_api_cart_item_images, allows modifying cart item images in the Cart and Checkout blocks.

Checkout the code snippet

REST API product enhancements

We’ve enhanced the WooCommerce REST API /products endpoint with new filtering parameters for more precise product queries that provide developers with greater control over product data retrieval.

See new filtering parameters

The /products endpoint now supports several new parameters that enable more granular product filtering:

Product Type Filtering

include_types: Specify which product types to include in the results.
exclude_types: Filter out specific product types from the results.

Product Status Management

include_status: Include products with specific status values.
exclude_status: Exclude products with certain status values.

Product Features

downloadable: Filter products based on whether they are downloadable.
virtual: Filter products based on whether they are virtual.

Remote Logging UI

Enable remote logging UI and mark feature as stable in FeaturesController #53649

We’re making it easier for users to manager their privacy by adding a UI control to manage the Remote Logging feature independently of usage tracking settings. This can be configured under WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features.

Store API upgrades

Opt-in Checkout endpoint to rate limits. #53711

We’ve added a configurable rate-limiting system for the Store API and Checkout block to protect against card testing and denial-of-service attacks.

Start using this feature 👇

Rate limiting can be enabled from WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features.

You can expand those settings further or enable it for all Store API endpoints via following this technical guide.

Do note that if you’re running your website behind a proxy or a firewall, you will need to enable the proxy mode, which will request the IP from the proxy.

First looks

Modernized Payments Settings Interface (Beta)

WooCommerce 9.6 introduces the first phase of our recently announced payments modernization initiative. You can preview the new React-based payments settings interface by enabling the reactify-classic-payments-settings feature flag in the WooCommerce Beta Tester plugin. While no immediate action is required from payment gateway developers, we encourage you to test and share your feedback on GitHub.

Email Improvements (Beta)

We are introducing two improvements to core WooCommerce emails under the Email Improvements experimental feature (WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features). Emails can now inherit theme.json styles and display the logo in settings instead of the URL. Enabling this experimental feature will also allow users to view email style changes in real-time before saving settings. We expect to roll out more broadly to users in early 2025.

API Updates

Add: Adds an endpoint to the API Rest that allows duplicating a product and saving it as a draft. It’s also possible to update the product when extra parameters are sent. #46141
Fix: Updates the REST API v3 reports/orders/totals endpoint to be compatible with HPOS #46715
Fix: Fixes an error related to the duplicate product REST API endpoint #46551
Fix: Ensure that required missing fields will get validated in Store API #45840

Other important information

🛠️ Fix Variable Products going Out of Stock

This version fixes an issue where variable products incorrectly displayed as out of stock despite having inventory, caused by corrupted product transients (wc_var_prices_ and wc_product_children_). The fix adds validation checks for these transients to ensure data integrity and prevent the issue from recurring. Special thanks to ricardoaraujo330, jdinbound, tobijafischer, youlikeitcp, vmavrikios for contributing to solve this.

Developer advisories

We have a number of developer advisories coming up as we prepare to release pre-release versions. We’ll share more detailed information in upcoming posts.

Developer advisory: Product review form template version update

The single-product-reviews.php template now includes an autocomplete attribute, enhancing accessibility by allowing browsers to autofill personal information (e.g., name, email, address). Read more.

Related PR: #51970

Block Checkout Field Entities

Field visibility settings (e.g., phone, address) in Block Checkout are now globally saved as entities for consistency across all checkout methods.

Related PR: #52784

Developer advisory: Coming Soon Mode by default

We’re changing the default behavior for fresh installations to ensure new stores start in “Coming Soon” mode. This change aligns with user expectations and prevents unexpected store exposure while it’s still being set up.

Related PR: #53685