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Risk & Rules

Chargeback time limits: how long a customer has

A chargeback time limit is the window in which a cardholder can ask their bank to reverse a card payment. It is set by the card schemes rather than by law, and it is typically 120 days. The date it counts from is not always the purchase date: for goods or services delivered later, the clock generally starts when delivery was due, subject to an overall cap measured from the transaction.

By the VIP360 editorial team: a team including former FCA, MAS and MGA regulators · Reviewed for accuracy by VIP360 compliance · Updated 6 August 2026

Most merchants know a chargeback has a deadline and assume it is measured from the day of the sale. It usually is not, and the difference is the reason disputes arrive on transactions people had stopped thinking about.

The headline number, and what it counts from

The common figure is 120 days. It is a card scheme rule rather than a legal one, and the exact window varies by scheme and by the reason code the dispute is raised under.

What matters more is the start date. Depending on the circumstances, the clock generally runs from:

  • The transaction date, where the customer received what they bought at the time. In-store purchases and digital goods delivered immediately.
  • The expected delivery date, for physical goods ordered online. A sofa ordered in January for March delivery starts its window in March.
  • The date the service was due to be provided, for anything prepaid. An event ticket, a holiday, a course or a subscription period. The window opens on the date of the event or departure, not the date of payment.
  • The date the problem became apparent, where goods were defective or not as described and the fault was not immediately obvious.

This is why deposit-taking businesses carry dispute exposure far longer than their sales ledger suggests. A travel company taking a booking eleven months ahead has not finished with that transaction when the money clears. It has barely started.

The outer cap

Because several of those start dates are deferred, the schemes apply an overall ceiling measured from the original transaction, typically 540 days.

That number, not 120, is what record retention should be built around. Roughly eighteen months from the transaction, a dispute can still land, and the evidence that wins it has to still exist.

How long you get to answer

Merchant response windows are shorter than the cardholder's complaint window, and they are strict:

  • Visa: broadly 20 days per stage.
  • Mastercard: broadly 45 days per stage.
  • Deadlines run from when the dispute is presented to your acquirer, not from when you happened to read the email.

Missing the window loses the dispute automatically, whatever evidence you were holding. It is the most avoidable way to lose money to a chargeback, and it is common, because notifications arrive in whichever inbox the account was opened with and nobody has owned that inbox for a year.

Two practical consequences. Someone should be named as responsible for dispute notifications, and the evidence for a defensible dispute should be assemblable in days rather than weeks. If retrieving proof of delivery from an archive takes a fortnight, the deadline is doing the deciding.

Chargeback and Section 75 are different things

Customers frequently use the words interchangeably. They are separate routes with separate rules, and a customer can use both.

Chargeback

  • A card scheme process. Not written in legislation.
  • Available on debit and credit cards.
  • Typically 120 days, with the deferred start dates above.
  • No minimum or maximum transaction value.
  • Resolved between the issuer and the acquirer under scheme rules.

Section 75, Consumer Credit Act 1974

  • Statutory. A legal right rather than a scheme process.
  • Credit cards only. Not debit, and generally not prepaid.
  • Applies where the cash price is over £100 and no more than £30,000.
  • Makes the card provider jointly and severally liable with the retailer for breach of contract or misrepresentation, so the customer can pursue the card provider directly.
  • Runs for six years from the breach in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. A shorter period applies in Scotland.
  • Refusals can be escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The practical difference for a merchant is duration. A chargeback risk is measured in months. A Section 75 claim on a qualifying credit card purchase can surface years later, and the customer does not have to have exhausted the chargeback route first.

What this changes about how you operate

  • Retain evidence for at least 18 months, not four. Delivery confirmation, authentication data, the order record, the terms accepted at checkout and the communication trail.
  • Match retention to your delivery window. A business that takes payment a year before delivery should be thinking in years, not months.
  • Name an owner for dispute notifications, and check that the address on the merchant account is one somebody reads.
  • Diarise the response deadline the day a dispute arrives rather than the day someone gets to it.
  • Answer the reason code that was raised, with the evidence that code accepts. A thorough response built on the wrong evidence loses on time as cleanly as no response at all.
  • Expect the money to leave first. Funds are usually debited when the dispute is raised, not when it is decided, so a run of disputes is a cash flow event before it is an outcome.

The strategic point sits underneath all of it. Time limits reward businesses whose records are organised and punish those whose records are merely complete. The evidence usually exists. What decides disputes is whether it can be produced inside a window somebody else is counting.

More on reducing the volume in the first place, and on defending the ones worth defending, is on chargeback management.

Sources

Scheme windows are set in the Visa and Mastercard rulebooks and vary by reason code, so the figures here are the common cases rather than a complete schedule. Confirm the limits that apply to a specific dispute with your acquirer. Checked 6 August 2026.

Put it to work

Frequently asked questions

Typically 120 days, though the precise window depends on the card scheme and the reason code. The important detail is what the 120 days runs from. For a purchase received at the time, it is the transaction date. For something delivered later, it generally runs from when delivery or the service was due, which is why a deposit taken months in advance stays disputable long after the money arrived.

Yes. Where the start date is deferred because delivery was in the future or a fault emerged later, the dispute still has to fall inside the scheme's overall cap, which is typically 540 days from the original transaction. That is the number to plan record retention around rather than the 120.

Less time than the customer had to complain, and it varies by scheme. Broadly, around 20 days per stage for Visa and around 45 for Mastercard. Miss it and the dispute is lost by default regardless of the evidence you held, which is the most avoidable way to lose a chargeback.

No. Chargeback is a card scheme process with no basis in legislation, available on debit and credit cards, with a window of roughly 120 days. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is statutory, applies only to credit cards on purchases over £100 and up to £30,000, makes the card provider jointly liable with the retailer, and runs for six years. A customer can pursue both routes.

From the merchant's side, a straightforward case is usually weeks rather than days: the issuer raises it, you are notified and given your response window, and a decision follows. Cases that escalate through further stages can run for months. The funds are usually debited from you at the start rather than at the end, so the cash leaves before the outcome is known.

Long enough to cover the outer window, which means retaining delivery confirmation, authentication data, order history and communications for at least 18 months rather than the four months the headline 120-day figure suggests. Businesses selling anything with a long delivery window should treat that as a minimum.

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