eBay Now Makes You Sign In to See Sold Listings: What Changed and How to Get Sold Comps Anyway

If you searched eBay in a private window this year, ticked Sold items, and landed on a login screen, it isn't just you. eBay now hides sold and completed results from anyone who isn't signed in.

For a person, that's a small annoyance: you sign in and carry on. For anything automated, like a price-check extension, a card scanner, a "what's it worth?" box or a script feeding a spreadsheet, it's a hard stop. This post covers what changed, when, and what still works.

#What changed

Any eBay search that uses the Sold or Completed filter (in the URL, LH_Sold=1 or LH_Complete=1) now redirects signed-out visitors to signin.ebay.com. The same search without the sold filter still loads fine. An independent test on October 12, 2026 put it simply: "the same search loaded fine, but its sold version went straight to sign-in."

What didn't change:

• History depth. Signing in still shows roughly the last 90 days of sales.
• Active listings. Browsing what's for sale works without an account.
• Official APIs. There's still no open eBay API for sold data (more below).

eBay hasn't published an announcement or a reason. Everything here comes from user reports and from companies that test eBay every day.

#When it happened

Different sources give different start dates because eBay seems to have rolled it out in phases. The fairest summary is tests from May 2026, broad rollout in late July 2026.

#Do you need a Gmail account to see sold comps?

No. You need an eBay account, any eBay account. eBay's sign-in page offers "Email or username," Continue with Google and Continue with Apple. If you originally signed up through Google, it can feel like eBay wants your Gmail, but an account made with any email works the same.

#Why did eBay do it?

eBay hasn't said. The theories in seller forums are guesses:

• Anti-scraping and bot load. One user tied it to "verifying security" pages appearing "after the recent outage that was supposedly caused by a DDoS attack."
• AI data collection. eBay's User Agreement, effective February 20, 2026, added "LLM-driven bots" to its ban on automated access, and its robots.txt blocks most AI crawlers. Sold prices are exactly the data those bots want.
• Data and ads. "They just want your data." Signed-in searches are easier to personalize.

Whatever the reason, the effect is the same: sold prices are now behind a login.

#If you check prices by hand

You're fine. Sign in on the website, search, then tick Sold items under Filters (the app moves this between versions, and the website is more reliable). Step-by-step: how to see sold listings on eBay.

Two tips while you're there:

1. Use the median, not the average. One bundle sale can drag the average way up. See median vs. average sold price.
2. For long history, use Product Research (Terapeak) in Seller Hub. It's free for sellers and goes back about three years. It just has no API.

#If your app, extension or script broke

This is where it hurts. Here's what developers tried, and how it went:

A Canadian developer summed up the frustration: "I tried to work with them to get actual API access, was even willing to pay for it but they said I wasn't big enough to get it." Another: "Spent a few days building a database and frontend, only to figure out it was all for nought."

If that's you, the background on eBay's official options is in does eBay have an API for sold listings?

#Get sold comps as JSON, no eBay login

This is the problem SaleHistory exists to solve. You never give us an eBay login or cookie; you send one GET request with your SaleHistory key:

curl "https://api.soldcomps.io/v1/sold?q=charizard+4%2F102+psa+9" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SALEHISTORY_KEY"

{
  "query": "charizard 4/102 psa 9",
  "count": 38,
  "stats": { "median": 410.00, "min": 340.00, "max": 520.00, "excluded": 4, "currency": "USD" },
  "items": [
    {
      "title": "1999 Pokemon Base Set Charizard 4/102 Holo PSA 9 MINT",
      "sold_price": { "value": 410.00, "currency": "USD" },
      "sold_at": "2026-10-18",
      "best_offer_accepted": false,
      "flags": []
    }
  ]
}

The median already skips lots, for-parts listings, outliers and Best Offer sales whose real price eBay hid. When eBay changes something, keeping it working is our job, not yours.