Hi @valletinformatique44
In WooCommerce, when editing a customer’s billing address in the WordPress admin (backoffice), some fields—like email address—are tightly coupled with the user profile, not just the billing address.
Solution: Clear the billing_email Meta Field Properly
If you want to remove the billing email specifically (not the main account email), you can do so using one of the following methods:
add_action('profile_update', 'remove_billing_email_on_profile_update', 10, 2);
function remove_billing_email_on_profile_update($user_id, $old_user_data) {
if (isset($_POST['billing_email']) && empty($_POST['billing_email'])) {
delete_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_email');
}
}
Programmatically Clear the Billing Email
You can add the following code in a custom plugin or in your theme’s functions.php file to remove the billing email field from the user meta:
More details here: https://developer.ww.wp.xz.cn/reference/hooks/profile_update/
This checks if the billing email field is empty when saving the user profile in the admin and removes the meta field.
⚠️ Important Note
Even if you remove billing_email, the main account email (user_email) will still exist. You cannot remove that without deleting the account or changing the email to something else.
Thanks
Ahir Hemant
Hi @valletinformatique44,
When you delete a customer’s billing email in WooCommerce admin and save the changes, you’ll notice the email often stays or gets filled in again. This happens because the billing email is linked to the customer’s main WordPress account email, which WooCommerce relies on for sending order confirmations, invoices, and other account-related notifications.
Although the billing email field doesn’t appear as a required field in the address form, WooCommerce still uses it for critical functions. That’s why the system keeps the email or restores it to make sure these communications can go through.
If the billing email is removed:
- The customer may stop receiving key emails, like order confirmations, shipping details, or invoices.
- Some payment gateways might fail or show errors, since they need a valid email to process transactions.
- It can create confusion for both the customer and store owner regarding order updates and communication.
You can consider the suggestion shared by @hemant-ahir, but I’d still recommend checking with a developer first or asking for advice on our community channel: https://woocommerce.com/community-slack.
If you like the support you’ve received here, and you’re enjoying using the Woo plugin, can you take a moment to leave a review for it if you haven’t already: https://ww.wp.xz.cn/support/plugin/woocommerce/reviews/#new-post
Thread Starter
TITAN
(@valletinformatique44)
Hello, thanks you for your answers !
The goal to remove the billing adress is to not have the email adress pre filled on the checkout page : https://outillages.pro.valletinformatique.fr/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Capture-decran-2025-06-16-103854.jpg
Maybe there is a better solution to do this ?
Regards
Hi there!
Thank you for clarifying your goal and sharing the screenshot—that really helps to understand what you’re aiming for!
Since your site requires customers to be logged in to place an order, the email address is pulled automatically from their user account profile and pre-filled at checkout. WooCommerce uses the user email as a key identifier for orders and account communications, so it’s tightly integrated and cannot be simply removed from the billing address fields without affecting the customer’s account and order processing.
Even if you remove the email from the billing address in the user’s profile in the back office, it will still appear at checkout because it’s taken from the logged-in user’s account — not just the billing address fields.
If your goal is to completely remove or prevent the email field from being pre-filled or required, it would require custom development. If you need more in-depth support or want to consider professional assistance for customization, I can recommend WooExperts and Codeable.io as options for getting professional help. Alternatively, you can also ask your development questions in the WooCommerce Community Slack as custom code falls outside our usual scope of support.
