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A chargeback is not a complaint, and it is not a refund you decide to give. It is your guest's bank pulling the money back out of your account, without going through you, weeks after the table has already been paid and cleared.
For most venues it's a rarity: one report a month, sometimes one a quarter. That's exactly why nobody is ever ready for it. The rules around how long a guest can dispute a payment, how long you have to respond, and when a card network starts watching your account aren't set in your own contract — they're set by Visa and Mastercard themselves, and they're identical across the whole EU, from your till receipt to your online booking deposit.
That makes it a strange number to be missing. You know your food cost down to the cent and your staff cost down to the hour, but the figure for "money that vanishes after it's already been paid" appears on no dashboard at all. It only shows up when your processor emails you a deadline — and by then that deadline is already running.
This guide walks through the seven numbers one by one: what a chargeback costs beyond the bill itself, how long the window stays open on each side, when a card network starts monitoring your account, and how much you can win back with evidence. At the bottom, you work it out with your own number of card payments, your own number of disputes and your own average bill.
Everything runs in your own browser: nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored. The figures are the card networks' own rules, not your bank's or processor's — they can layer an even stricter deadline on top internally, and that's the first thing worth checking.
Why a chargeback is not the same as a refund
With a refund, you decide. A guest complains, you agree or you don't, and the money goes back through the same channel it came in on — at your pace, with your consent. With a chargeback, your guest's bank decides, based on what the guest tells them, and the money is already gone before you hear a word about it. You get the chance to respond afterwards, not to prevent it.
That difference is exactly why it happens so rarely and lands so hard when it does. An average independent venue sees a handful a year: a credit card disputed by a partner after a romantic dinner neither of them fully agreed on, a group claiming the booking never went ahead, a cancelled table whose deposit was already charged. Each one rare. Each one, by the time the cost, the time and the fixed dispute fee are added up, worth more than the bill itself.
And it hits independent venues harder than chains, not because they get more chargebacks, but because nobody on the team knows a clock is running. A chain has a back office that routes dispute notices to someone who knows exactly what evidence counts. At an independent venue, that email lands in the same inbox as the supplier invoices, and by the time someone opens it, half the response window is already gone.
The ultimate guide Restaurant Finance: The Complete Guide From card fees to cash flow: everything you need to know to keep your numbers under control. Open the guideThe 7 numbers behind a chargeback
They come in the order they hit you: first what it costs, then how long the window stays open on each side, then when a card network starts watching, and then what you can actually do about it.
1. €15 to €50 — what a chargeback costs, on top of the bill itself
Every chargeback that reaches your processor carries a fixed cost — a dispute fee you pay to have the case processed, whether you win it or lose it. Most European acquirers and payment providers charge somewhere between €15 and €50, depending on your contract and on how your processor settles with the card networks.
That's the fee almost nobody keeps in mind when a €71 table gets disputed. The bill itself goes back to the guest — you never truly "earned" that money; it simply sat in your account until it left again. But the dispute fee comes on top of that, whatever the outcome. Lose the case and you're out both the bill and the fee. Win it and you usually keep the bill, but in most contracts the fee stays gone regardless.
Ask your own processor rather than assuming an average: the amount varies sharply between a traditional bank acquirer and a modern payment provider, and it rarely sits on the first page of the contract you signed when you bought your card reader.
2. 120 days — how long a guest can still dispute a card payment
Visa and Mastercard both use a standard window of 120 days from the transaction date within which a cardholder can dispute a payment with their own bank. For a handful of specific reason codes — mostly around services delivered later, such as a voucher or a prepaid event — that window stretches to as much as 540 days from the planned delivery date.
For a restaurant that settles the bill on the night itself, almost every dispute lands within the first few months. But for deposits on group bookings, gift cards or a prepaid event — where the "delivery" only happens on a later date — the clock sometimes only starts on that later date, which makes the window far longer in practice than most owners expect.
The result is that a chargeback rarely arrives while the table is still fresh in anyone's memory. Four months after a busy Saturday night, no server can tell you who was sitting where — and that's exactly the problem, because the evidence you need to respond has to still be findable by then.
3. 7 to 10 days — how long you have to respond
Against the guest's window sits one a fraction as long. Once a dispute is opened, your processor typically gives you 7 to 10 calendar days to submit evidence — often stricter than what the card network technically allows, because your processor has to gather and forward the case before its own deadline runs out.
That's not a typo: the guest gets months, you get days. The asymmetry is built into the system on purpose — the cardholder is assumed to be the weaker party, and the burden of proof to argue otherwise sits with you. Miss the deadline and you lose the case automatically, no matter how strong your evidence actually was.
Below, the two windows sit side by side, drawn to scale. The difference is exactly why a chargeback email must never end up in the same pile as your supplier invoices.
A hundred and twenty days for the guest to dispute. Seven to ten days for you to respond once you're notified. Drawn to true scale, the difference is obvious at a glance.
For certain reason codes — mostly around prepaid services and events — the guest's window stretches to 540 days from the planned delivery date. Your response window stays roughly the same either way: a matter of days, not weeks.
4. 0.65% and 100 — the threshold where Visa starts watching your account
Card networks don't just track individual disputes — they track your ratio. Visa's Dispute Monitoring Program kicks in once, in a single calendar month, you have both more than 0.65% of your card transactions disputed and more than a hundred disputes on record. Both conditions have to be true — not just one.
That second part is why almost no independent venue ever ends up in it: a hundred disputes in one month needs a card volume no average restaurant ever reaches. But the ratio itself is a number you can cross even at a small scale — six disputes on eight hundred and fifty card transactions is already 0.7%, well past the threshold, even though six disputes is nowhere near a hundred.
Sit above the ratio but well below the count, and you're not enrolled in the program — but it's still the signal that something has changed: a new online-deposit provider, a staff member misrecording card details over the phone, or a growing share of orders paid in advance. Find the cause before the count catches up.
5. 1.5% and 100 — Mastercard's own threshold, and why it isn't the same as Visa's
Mastercard runs its own version, the Excessive Chargeback Program, with a higher ratio: 1.5% of your transactions, again tied to a minimum of a hundred disputes in the same month. A venue already being watched by Visa can still sit comfortably under Mastercard's threshold — the two networks measure the same problem, but not against the same bar.
In practice that means keeping two numbers in view if you accept both Visa and Mastercard payments, which almost every venue does. Your blended dispute ratio — all disputes divided by all card transactions — is the one you can track yourself; exactly which network sits at which threshold is your processor's job to know.
Get enrolled in either program and you typically face monthly reporting requirements and, if the numbers stay high, extra per-transaction fees or even a review of your acceptance contract. That's why the ratio is a number worth watching early, not one you only meet when the invoice arrives.
6. 20 to 50% — how much you can win back with evidence (and next to nothing without)
Don't respond to a dispute at all, and you lose it almost every time: no evidence means no defence, and the cardholder's bank awards the money automatically. Respond with the right evidence, and the win rates processors typically report sit between 20% and 50%, heavily dependent on the quality of what you submit and the reason the guest gave.
"Evidence" here means, concretely: a signed or digitally confirmed receipt, a booking confirmation with a name and time, correspondence in which the guest agreed to a cancellation policy, or — for a chip-and-PIN payment at the table — the simple fact that the card was physically present, which already undermines the most common reason given ("I don't recognise this transaction").
The gap between 20% and 50% is rarely in the dispute itself and almost always in how fast and how completely you respond. A case with all three pieces of evidence filed within the first two days wins more often than the same case filed on the last hour of day nine — processors themselves report that early, complete cases score structurally better.
A €71 table, disputed and lost. What you refund is not the only thing you lose.
Bill amount back to the guest: €71.00 · €98.53
A €71 chargeback doesn't cost you €71 in this example, but closer to €99: the bill itself, the fixed fee your processor charges to process the case, and the transaction cost you already paid the moment the card was first accepted and never get back. Multiply that gap by your own number of disputes a year, and you have the figure that appears on no till receipt at all.
7. 2 to 3 times — why an online deposit is disputed more often than a payment at the table
A chip-and-PIN payment at the table is about the strongest evidence a card network can have: the card was physically present, the PIN was entered, the cardholder was standing right there. An online deposit, a card number given over the phone, or a prepaid booking has none of that — it's what card networks call "card-not-present", and that kind of transaction typically sees a dispute rate 2 to 3 times higher than a payment in person.
For a restaurant that settles mostly at the table, that difference is barely noticeable. For a venue that takes deposits on group bookings, sells gift cards online or collects part of an order in advance, that's exactly the slice of revenue where the risk concentrates — and where the odds of hitting the thresholds from the previous two numbers climb fastest too.
That's not a reason to stop asking for deposits — a deposit prevents far more no-shows than it costs in chargebacks. It is a reason to document that particular slice of revenue a little better: a confirmation email with the date, amount and cancellation terms costs one template, and it's exactly the evidence that makes the difference between 20% and 50% win rate above.
Work out your own chargeback risk
Enter how many card payments you process a month on average, how many disputes typically come out of that, what an average bill costs and what dispute fee your processor charges. The fields start filled in with a worked example, so you can see straight away how it reads — overwrite them with your own numbers.
You'll get your own dispute ratio against Visa's and Mastercard's two thresholds, what it costs you a year if you never respond, and what evidence can win back against the win rate you set yourself.
Chargeback risk scan
Your own card volume, your own disputes, and the difference in euros a year.
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Both card-network thresholds also require a minimum of a hundred disputes in the same month — a number most independent venues never reach. The ratio itself you can cross at a small scale, which is exactly why it's shown separately here. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is sent or stored.
Two things worth taking away. The cost if you never respond and what evidence can win back aren't two separate amounts but the same euros seen from two sides: every euro evidence wins back is a euro you would otherwise have lost. Raise the win rate in the field above to see exactly what a better case — faster, fuller, with the right documents — is worth to you.
And remember that in most contracts the dispute fee stays gone even when you win. Getting the full bill back almost never means breaking even at zero; it means the difference between a large loss and a smaller one.
What to do with this this week, this month and this quarter
You can't prevent chargebacks entirely — you make sure you're ready when one arrives, and that starts with three things that cost nothing.
This week — make sure a dispute email never gets lost
- Ask your processor what your own dispute fee is and exactly how many days you get to respond — neither tends to sit on the first page of the contract.
- Agree who on the team opens and handles a chargeback notice: one name, not "someone in admin".
- Put that name and your processor's email address together in one reminder, so a notice never disappears among supplier invoices.
This month — build the evidence before you need it
- Create a confirmation-email template for every online deposit or phone card payment: date, amount, cancellation terms.
- Keep booking confirmations and signed receipts for at least 120 days — and 540 for prepaid events or gift cards.
- Work out your own dispute ratio with the scan above and compare it to last month, not just to the threshold.
This quarter — track the trend, not the incident
- Put your dispute ratio on the same rhythm as your cash flow overview: one number, reviewed again every quarter.
- Check which share of your disputes comes from online deposits and consider tighter confirmation on exactly that channel.
- Revisit your deposit and cancellation policy if deposits make up a growing share of your disputes.
The window isn't split evenly, and that's exactly the point
A chargeback isn't a judgement on your venue. It's a mechanism built to protect the cardholder, with a window of months for the guest and days for you — and that difference is exactly why being prepared pays off far more than reacting afterwards.
The numbers above aren't meant to make you nervous about card payments. They're meant to make one thing clear: a chargeback you answer immediately with the right evidence costs you a fraction of a chargeback that sits in an inbox for three weeks.
Do the same next with the rest of your card costs. The card fees themselves are the other half of the same conversation — together they decide what a card payment really costs you, not just at the moment it comes in.