Can You Edit a Yelp Review After Posting It?

Yes, if you wrote it. Yelp reviewers can edit or remove their own reviews at any time: log in, open your profile's reviews, choose the review, and use the edit or remove option. The updated version replaces the old one publicly, with an "updated" marker on reviews that changed after an owner interaction. Businesses, by contrast, cannot edit or delete customer reviews at all, only respond publicly or report rule violations, and every service promising otherwise is selling something that does not exist. Here is how each side of that works.

For reviewers: editing, removing, and what happens next

On the website, the edit control sits under your review in your profile; in the app, under your contributions. Edits are worth making when your experience changed, the business made it right, the problem got worse, or your original included things Yelp's filter dislikes, links, rants about other businesses, secondhand stories. Two mechanics worth knowing: an edited review gets re-evaluated by the recommendation software, so a cleaner rewrite from an active account sometimes surfaces where the original sat filtered, and removing a review deletes it permanently, with no restore. If your review vanished without you touching it, that is the filter, not the business; businesses cannot remove what you wrote.

For businesses: the paths that exist

You have exactly three: respond publicly, message the reviewer privately through the platform, or report a review that genuinely violates content guidelines (conflicts of interest, harassment, off-topic content, reviews from non-customers). What converts a negative into an update in practice is service recovery: fix the actual problem, respond publicly with grace, and many customers update on their own, which is why the "updated review" is largely earned rather than requested. Asking a satisfied-again customer to consider updating is acceptable; pressuring, rewarding, or scripting them crosses into the manipulation Yelp and the FTC both police, the same lines drawn in the asking rules.

The filter complicates both sides

Yelp's recommendation software re-scores reviews continuously, which produces most of the platform's mysteries: an edited review that disappears (the edit triggered re-evaluation and the account looked thin), an old review surfacing years later (the account matured), a business watching an updated five-star sink into "not recommended" while the original one-star stood. Neither party controls this. Reviewers maximize their odds by reviewing from established, active accounts; businesses maximize theirs by building the kind of complete, responsive profile the filter's inputs favor, the passive-growth work described in how to get more Yelp reviews and run at full depth by our Yelp management service.

Common questions

Does editing a review reset its date?

The review shows as updated and Yelp surfaces the new version; sort order and the "updated" flag reflect the change. Your original rating stops counting and the new one takes over.

Can I edit just my star rating without changing the text?

Yes, the edit flow lets you change rating, text, and photos independently. A rating change with unchanged text still goes through re-evaluation.

The business says they'll refund me if I remove my review. Should I?

That offer violates Yelp's rules and the FTC's, and you are under no obligation. Take the refund question and the review question separately; edit or remove only if your honest assessment changed.

As a business, can I get a review removed by reporting it repeatedly?

No. Repeat reports of a compliant review do nothing, and the energy belongs in the public response, which future customers actually read. The removal criteria that do work are covered in our review removal guide, and they are narrower on Yelp than anywhere.