Every listing carries a delivery time: a minute, five minutes, or up to twelve hours. Use the filter on the left — if you need the item now, pick "Instant".
The offer goes out automatically, the seller doesn't have to do anything for it. The trade offer reaches you almost immediately after payment.
The seller is online and confirms the send in the Steam app, usually a couple of minutes. As soon as they do, the offer reaches you.
The seller is offline and may send the trade within 12 hours.
What happens after the purchase
The purchase appears on the Delivery page — both you and the seller have one. It shows the status, the timer, and exactly who you're trading with.
When the trade is ready, "Accept in browser" and "In Steam App" appear. You have to accept the offer yourself — it won't accept on its own.
If the seller hasn't delivered the item within 30 minutes, you can cancel the deal with no penalty. The money comes back in full.
If the time runs out
The trade cancels automatically once the timer expires, and the money comes back to you in full. There's nothing to press.
Why one skin can have different times
The time depends not on the item but on the seller — more precisely, on how fast they can hand the item over right now. The same skin can take a minute from one seller and half a day from another.
Trade-locked items follow their own rules — there's a separate article about them.
For sellers: how to land in a fast window
The window isn't chosen by hand. The marketplace looks at how fast you're able to hand an item over right now.
The app and the extension are offline. This is how listings show by default.
Your app or extension is online right now. You have Prime Time set.
Automated delivery is connected — the offer goes out without you.
The five-minute window doesn't switch on once and for all. Go offline and your listings drop to twelve hours by themselves; come back and they're at five minutes again. Want to sell faster: keep the app running.
Holding a fast window is worth it for a simple reason: buyers filter the catalog by delivery time, and that's the only way your listings get into the fast filters.
If a seller cancels a deal themselves, the buyer gets a full refund, and a seller who keeps failing deliveries loses the ability to trade on the platform. Don't list what you aren't ready to hand over.