How to Migrate Orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2: Complete Guide with Improved Import & Export

When you migrate orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2, you’re not just moving numbers from one table to another — you’re preserving the heart of your business. Order history is more than a list of past transactions. It’s your tax record, your proof of purchase for customers, your secret weapon in support tickets and refunds, and the foundation of your analytics.

Losing this data during a Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration isn’t just inconvenient — it can cause real damage. Think customer trust issues, broken loyalty programs, and messy tax audits. Your support team might be left guessing, your accountant scrambling, and your CRM looking more like a blank slate than a reliable resource.

That’s why order migration matters. It keeps your business running smoothly behind the scenes and ensures customers feel like nothing’s changed — except for a faster, better Magento 2 experience. In this guide, we’ll break down how to move your order data from Magento 1 to Magento 2: safely, cleanly, and without headaches. Make sure your migration doesn’t leave your order history behind. Your business depends on it.

Magento 1 to Magento 2 Migration: Where Orders Fit In

Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration is a big move, and it’s more than just copying over some files. You’re dealing with a complex puzzle: product catalogs, customer records, CMS pages, extensions, and of course, orders. Each piece connects to the others, and skipping one can throw your whole store out of balance.

So why zoom in on Magento order export and migration? Because orders are relational. Every single one is tied to a customer, a product, a payment method, shipping details, and even promotional rules. They sit at the intersection of your business’s most critical data.

Without properly migrated orders, you can’t offer full support, track lifetime value, or generate meaningful sales reports. It’s not just about keeping your books straight — it’s about giving your customers continuity and trust when you switch platforms.

Think of orders as the thread that ties everything together. Ignore them during your Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration, and the whole fabric starts to unravel. However, the migration itself is a challenging thing.

Challenges of Order Migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2

Trying to migrate orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2? Brace yourself — it’s not as simple as hitting “export.” Order data migration comes with its fair share of headaches, and skipping corners can lead to some seriously messy problems down the road.

For starters, the database structures in Magento 1 and Magento 2 are different, especially when it comes to orders. In Magento, one order isn’t just one row in a table. It’s a spiderweb of connected data: customer info, product details, invoices, shipments, payments, and more. All of this is split across multiple tables that need to stay perfectly in sync.

Get it wrong, and you could end up with incomplete orders, status mismatches, or missing payment data. That’s not just bad for your analytics — it’s a nightmare for customer service and tax reporting.

To make things trickier, Magento’s native import/export tools don’t even support order migration out of the box. So, whether you’re doing it manually or using a third-party solution, you’ll need a reliable method to pull everything over cleanly, without losing your business-critical data.

Bottom line? Order migration is not the place to wing it. It’s one of the most fragile parts of your Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration — and one of the most important to get right. Luckily, we know how to help! The following section explains how to migrate orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2 with the help of the Improved Import & Export extension.

How to Migrate Orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2: A Stress-Free Way to Complete Your Migration

Once you’ve migrated your products, customers, and CMS content, there’s one last critical piece: you need to migrate orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2. But here’s the problem: Magento doesn’t support order data migration by default. You’ll need to rely on a tool that can handle this properly, and that’s where the Improved Import & Export extension comes in. It offers:

• A free version for Magento 1 to export orders.
• A full-featured Magento 2 version to import those orders cleanly.

Step 1: Export Orders from Magento 1

Magento 1 doesn’t offer native order export, but once you install Firebear’s extension, you can:

1. Go to System > Import/Export > Export in your Magento 1 Admin Panel.
   
2. In the Entity Type dropdown, select Orders (this option appears only with the extension).
   
3. Choose CSV as the file format.
4. Click Continue to generate the export file.

Once downloaded, you’ll have a complete CSV of your orders. You can:

• Open it in Google Sheets.
• Remove test orders or filter by order status/date.
• Use the shareable Google Sheets link for easy import into Magento 2.

Step 2: Import Orders to Magento 2

After your order data is cleaned and ready:

1. Go to System > Improved Import/Export > Import Jobs in Magento 2.
2. Click Add New Job and name it (e.g., Magento 1 order migration).
   
3. In Import Settings, select Entity Type — Orders.
   
4. Import Behavior: Add/Update.
   
5. Under Import Source, choose CSV and upload the file or paste your Google Sheets link.
   
6. Click Validate File to check formatting.
7. Click Save & Run, then confirm to begin the import.

No manual mapping needed — the format exported from Magento 1 is already compatible with Magento 2.

Post-Migration Checklist: Validate Order Data in Magento 2

Congrats — you’ve managed to migrate orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2! But before you pop the champagne, it’s time to double-check that everything made the jump correctly. Use this quick post-migration checklist to make sure your order data is clean, complete, and working as expected in Magento 2:

✅ Check Orders in the Backend Grid. Head to Sales > Orders in your Magento 2 admin panel. Do the orders show up? Are the totals correct? Scan for any obvious gaps or broken entries.

✅ Test Order Filtering and Search. Try filtering by date, status, or customer, and search by order number or email. If your filters work, your data is properly indexed.

✅ Open Order Details. Click into a few random orders. Make sure each one:

• Shows the correct customer
• Lists the right products
• Links properly to shipping and payment methods

✅ Review Invoices and Shipment Records. Switch to the Invoices and Shipments sections. Do they match the original Magento 1 data? Are documents complete and downloadable?

✅ Check Reports and Sales Tax Exports. Go to Reports > Sales and run a few summary reports. Make sure the numbers line up. Export your tax data to confirm the formats and totals are accurate.

If everything looks good, congrats again! Your Magento 2 order import was a success. And if something’s off? Revisit the import log from Firebear’s Improved Import & Export tool for quick troubleshooting. Better safe than sorry when it comes to order history.

Final Words: Order Migration Shouldn’t Be a Gamble

When you’re running an eCommerce store, your order data isn’t just numbers — it’s your proof of sales, customer trust, and financial records. So when it’s time to migrate orders from Magento 1 to Magento 2, you can’t afford to roll the dice. One bad import, and you’re dealing with broken records, missing tax data, and frustrated customers.

But here’s the good news: you don’t have to go it alone.

With Firebear’s Improved Import & Export extension, you get a purpose-built tool that takes the pain out of Magento 2 order import. From field mapping and validation to custom import behaviors and error logs — it’s designed to keep your data safe, accurate, and 100% in sync.

Don’t want to handle it yourself? No problem. Firebear also offers a full Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration service — so you can focus on running your business while the experts handle every detail, from products and customers to orders, CMS, and extensions.

✔️ Ensure business continuity
✔️ Avoid costly mistakes
✔️ Get a store that’s ready for growth

Make your move to Magento 2 the right way. Try Firebear’s Improved Import & Export extension — or let the Firebear team handle the migration for you. Either way, your orders — and your business — are in safe hands.

FAQ: Order Migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2