How long do I have to respond to a chargeback?

On Stripe and Shopify you usually have 7 to 21 days to respond to a chargeback, and Square allows 7, far less than the 30 days Visa gives your acquirer. Stripe takes the amount and a $15 fee when the dispute opens; Shopify charges $15 and PayPal $20.

Why is my deadline shorter than the card network's?

The network sets the outer limit, and your processor sets the working one. The Visa Core Rules give an acquirer, the bank that holds your merchant account, 30 calendar days from the dispute processing date to get a response processed.

Your processor needs part of that time for itself. Adyen gives merchants 9 days to answer a Visa chargeback on US and Canadian local payments for disputes opened from 21 July 2025, and 18 days otherwise. A merchant who plans around the 30 days in the rulebook will miss the date that counts.

Find the deadline on your own dispute notice and treat that as the only date that matters.

How long does each processor give you?

Published windows vary widely:

• Stripe: usually 7 to 21 days.
• Shopify: usually 7 to 21 days.
• Square: 7 days after the dispute email.
• Adyen: 9 or 18 days for Visa, 40 days for Mastercard and 14 days for Amex.

Mastercard's own merchant guidance puts the network deadline at typically 20 to 45 days after notification. That is more room than Stripe, Shopify or Square publish.

Write the deadline into the calendar the day the notice arrives. Gather the order, the delivery proof and the customer's messages before that date, because a 7-day window leaves little time to hunt through several systems.

What does a chargeback cost?

A chargeback costs the disputed amount plus a fee of $15 to $20 at Stripe, Shopify and PayPal, and the money leaves your account the day it opens. Stripe debits the disputed amount and the fee from your balance when the dispute opens, and Shopify deducts the amount from your next payout.

The fees differ by processor. Stripe charges a US dispute received fee of $15 that it does not return, even on a win, and since 17 June 2025 a further $15 countered fee on each dispute you answer, returned only if you win. Shopify Payments charges $15 in the US and returns it on a win, PayPal's merchant fee page, last updated 1 October 2026, lists a $20.00 chargeback fee, and Square says it charges no fee for dispute management.

These are published US list prices, and processor contracts vary, so check your own contract for the fees you pay.

The wait is long as well: Stripe puts the issuer's decision at 60 to 75 days and the whole cycle at 2 to 3 months, and Shopify says the issuer review can run up to 75 days.

When is it cheaper to refund or accept?

Do the sum for each path before you decide. On a $25 order through Stripe, not answering costs $25 plus the $15 received fee, or $40. Answering and losing costs $25 plus $15 plus $15, or $55, while winning still costs the $15 received fee and the time spent.

A lost dispute usually costs the product and shipping too. Someone also has to find the records inside a window that can be as short as 7 days, and small teams pay for that in time meant for other work.

Stripe says you cannot refund outside the dispute process while a dispute is open, so a refund has to come before the dispute, ideally when an early warning arrives. The published fees for each processor are compared in dispute fees by processor. Where the order is small and the records are thin, accepting the loss and spending the saved hours on the next dispute is a reasonable call.

Takeaway: what to do this week

1. Calendar every deadline the day the notice arrives. Use the date on the processor's notice, not the network's 30 days.
2. Work out the cost of each path. Compare not answering, answering and losing, and winning, using your processor's fees.
3. Respond with a day to spare. Where the records exist and the order is large enough, file the response early.
4. Refund before a dispute opens. Once it is open, Stripe will not let you refund outside the dispute process.

Sources: Visa Core Rules (18 April 2026), section 11.3 dispute cycle; Adyen Docs, "Dispute timeframes" (undated); Stripe Docs, "How disputes work" (undated); Shopify Help Center, "Chargeback process" (undated); Square Support, "Manage payment disputes" (undated); Stripe Support, "June 2025 pricing updates for disputes" (undated); PayPal, US Merchant Fees (last updated 1 October 2026); Shopify Help Center, "Chargebacks and inquiries" (undated); Mastercard, "Disputing Chargebacks: Practical Guidance for Merchants" (24 January 2024). All checked 24 October 2026.