Item Selling

Items can be sold while their carrier is in the range of any shop for 50% of the price they were bought for. They can only be sold by units controlled by the item's owner, unless the item is completely shareable, which makes it sellable by any member of the owner's team, granting them gold instead.

Sellback period

An item can initially be sold at full price for a small period indicated by a timer: it starts as soon as the item is bought, counting from 10 seconds. The timer expires instantly if any of these things happens:

The item's active ability is used (including toggles like Armlet of Mordiggian).
The item's passive ability's cooldown starts.
- For example, Skull Basher cannot be sold at full price as soon as Bash procs, but the same doesn't apply to Daedalus since its passive has no cooldown.
- For example, Blink Dagger cannot be sold at full price as soon as 3 sec cooldown from getting damage triggers. If after taking damage within 3 seconds you get a blink dagger in the active slot, it will immediately go into a 3 second cd.
- Some of the abilities unaffected by cooldown manipulation use a custom cooldown system (for example Bash), which doesn't affect the timer.
The item enters the inventory of a unit not controlled by the owner.
The carrier of the item dies.

When items are combined, the sellback timer of the upgraded item is lowered to the shortest remaining among the components (which may be expired). If an upgraded item is disassembled, all the components will inherit its timer.

Similarly, stacking items also lowers the timer of the stack to the shortest remaining among the individual items. Note that using the active ability of a stack counts towards instantly expiring the timer, despite consuming the individual item.

At the start of the game, the timer counts from 40 seconds instead, decreasing until it reaches the regular 10 seconds. This means that all the items bought during the first 30 seconds of the game will have their timer expire at the same time. Note that time passes during loading screens.

Unsellable Items

All items granted at the beginning of the game ( Town Portal Scroll as well as random hero bonuses) are unsellable. If, at any point, a stack of items contains an unsellable item, that stack becomes permanently unsellable. The following items may not be sold.

Aegis of the Immortal
Aghanim's Blessing - Roshan
Aghanim's Shard - Consumable
Divine Rapier
Enchanted Mango (Trusty Shovel)

Items obtained from Trusty Shovel cannot be sold.
Faerie Fire (Randomed Hero)

Items obtained as a bonus from randomed hero during the pick/ban phase cannot be sold.
Gem of True Sight
Healing Salve (Trusty Shovel)

Items obtained from Trusty Shovel cannot be sold.
Tango (Shared)
Town Portal Scroll

The starting scroll and the ones gained by dying cannot be sold.

Special Selling Rules

Aeon Disk

The cooldown of Combo Breaker is bound to the hero. Rebuying the item does not reset it.
Black King Bar

The duration of Avatar is bound to the hero. Rebuying the item does not reset it.
Cheese

Although it cannot be bought, it can be sold for 500 . However, only the hero picking it up first can sell it.
Helm of the Dominator

Selling the item causes the Dominated unit to die.
Helm of the Overlord

Selling the item causes the Dominated unit to die.
Infused Raindrops

The sell value of the item is based on the number of charges remaining. A single instance has a sell value of 18.75 gold.
Refresher Shard

Although it cannot be bought, it can be sold for 500 . However, only the hero picking it up first can sell it.
Tango

The sell value of the item is based on the number of charges remaining. A single instance has a sell value of 15 .

Notes

Items can be sold anywhere in Turbo Mode.
If a player wants to sell a stack of items, the entire stack must be sold at once, since it cannot be disassembled to its individual items.
Items cannot be sold while dead, unless they were purchased during that death.
Selling items gives unreliable gold, even if they were bought with reliable gold.
Selling an item while that item's ability is active does not cancel the ability (unless it's a toggle or a channel), and rebuying it does not reset ability cooldowns.
Equipping Boots of Travel or Boots of Travel 2 forcefully sells every Town Portal Scroll in your inventory, even if they are unsellable. See their respective page for details.