You can buy and refund Steam games as often as you want in principle , but each refund still has to meet Steam’s policy, and repeated refunding can be treated as abuse. Steam’s standard rule is that the game must be refunded within 14 days of purchase and have less than 2 hours of playtime, though Valve can review edge cases manually.

How it works

  • You can request a refund multiple times over time.
  • There is no publicly stated hard limit like “3 refunds per year.”
  • Steam may deny or review requests if your pattern looks abusive.

The usual refund rule

  • Purchase within 14 days.
  • Less than 2 hours of playtime.
  • Some items have different rules, like certain DLC, preorders, or in-game purchases.

Practical takeaway

If you buy a game, test it, refund it, and later buy another game, that is normal. What Steam cares about is whether each request fits the policy and whether your overall behavior suggests you are using refunds to effectively “rent” games.

Example

If you buy one game, play 90 minutes, refund it, and then do the same with a different game next month, that is usually fine. If you do that constantly in a short period, Steam may flag the account for review.

TL;DR: Steam does not publish a simple cap on how many times you can buy and refund games, but repeated refunds can still be rejected if they look abusive.