Chargeback in Belgium: how to dispute a card payment

A chargeback is not a right: it is a service the network does you

No Belgian law obliges Visa, Mastercard or American Express to refund a disputed purchase. Chargeback is a contractual procedure, organised by each payment network, that your issuer activates for you on request.

This is the point that most of the pages I checked on this topic blur into something else: the legal right to a refund for an unauthorised transaction does exist in the law, with a precise deadline. The two mechanisms do not look alike, do not run on the same calendar, and do not answer the same problem.

In the files I used to handle, this mix-up cost cardholders weeks: they had filled in the wrong form, for the wrong reason, waiting for an answer that was never going to arrive through that route.

Which grounds actually qualify for a chargeback?

Five grounds cover nearly every case Belgian issuers deal with: goods not delivered, a service not rendered, an item received damaged or not as described, a duplicate charge, and a subscription billed after cancellation.

That last ground is the one I saw come up wrongly the most often. A chargeback settles a dispute over whether the contract was performed, not a change of heart.

How much time do you have to dispute a payment?

At Belgian issuers, the dispute form is generally due within three months of the transaction. Past that in-house deadline, the request is not automatically rejected, but it loses its guarantee of success.

That deadline has nothing legal about it: every card contract can set its own, and nothing stops an issuer from giving a premium range a longer one. It is a service deadline, not a statute of limitations. A cardholder who waits five months to report an order that was never delivered loses no right in court, but loses the fastest route to getting the money back.

On a hacked card, the calendar changes completely: see further down.

Who do you contact first: the merchant, the issuer, or the network?

The merchant first, then your issuer. The network itself (Visa, Mastercard, American Express) never takes a direct request from a cardholder: it only arbitrates between the customer's bank and the merchant's bank once the issuer has opened the file.

Three steps, in this order. One: try an amicable fix with the seller, in writing, keeping a record. Two: if the seller does not answer or refuses, fill in your issuer's dispute form, available on their website or app. Three: if the issuer refuses in turn, a written complaint to its customer service, before any external recourse.

The issuer looks first at the date of your first attempt to contact the seller, not just the date of purchase. A file that skips the amicable step is handled more slowly, and sometimes refused for that reason alone.

What evidence should you gather before filing a dispute?

A chargeback file is judged on documents, never on the story. Before contacting anyone, gather:

• the order confirmation or service contract, with its date;
• every piece of correspondence with the seller, including follow-ups left unanswered;
• proof of cancellation, if the dispute concerns a subscription, with the date it was sent;
• a screenshot of the statement showing the disputed line, amount and date included;
• the tracking number, or the absence of one, for a delivery never received;
• any proof that the merchant has ceased trading, if that is the ground invoked.

A file sent without dates or written proof almost always comes back with a request for more, which eats into a good part of the three-month window mentioned above.

A hacked card: why is that a legal refund right, not a chargeback?

Because a debit you never authorised is not a commercial dispute with a seller: it is an unauthorised payment transaction under Article VII.41 of the Code of Economic Law, and the law gives you thirteen months from the debit date to notify it.

The text imposes a double reflex: report the transaction without delay as soon as you discover it, and in any case before the thirteen-month deadline runs out. Article VII.38 adds a separate obligation, to report the loss or unauthorised use of the payment instrument itself as soon as you notice it.

What crossed my desk most often were cardholders convinced that a few days' delay in reporting a stolen card had already closed the door on a refund. That was not true before 2025, and it is not true after. The maximum excess imposed for genuinely gross negligence stays capped at EUR 50, not the full amount of the fraudulent debit.

What if the issuer refuses to refund you?

Write a formal complaint to the issuer's customer service, citing the date of your first report and the documents already sent. This is a mandatory step before any external recourse, and many cardholders skip it and go straight to a complaint elsewhere.

If the answer stays unsatisfactory, or never comes, the free recourse is Ombudsfin, Belgium's financial sector mediator, seized after that written complaint has gone without a satisfactory answer. It handles a refused chargeback just as well as a contested legal refund, and it costs the cardholder nothing.

On a hacked card, always keep a copy of your initial notification: it is what proves you met the Article VII.41 deadline, and it is often the one document missing from the file once the dispute reaches the mediator.

The ranking of Belgian credit cards and the comparison tool stay built on what each card actually costs, not on its dispute terms: for the procedure after a loss or a theft, lost or stolen card picks up where this one leaves off.

Sources, accessed on 27 September 2026: chargeback grounds and mechanics, Visa Belgium; the contractual, non-legal nature of chargeback, DGCCRF; the practical dispute deadline at Belgian issuers, European Consumer Centre Belgium; Articles VII.38 and VII.41 of the Code of Economic Law and the 2025 interpretation of gross negligence, analysis dated 13 November 2025; the EUR 50 excess on gross negligence, Test-Achats. Free recourse for an unresolved dispute: Ombudsfin. No link in this article is paid for.