The four chargeback time limits, and which one actually binds you
A cardholder generally gets 120 days to file a chargeback. You generally get 7 to 21 to answer it. Those numbers come out of different rulebooks, and treating one as the other is how a winnable dispute expires unanswered.
There are four clocks running on every chargeback. Only one of them is yours.
What is the chargeback time limit?
The phrase covers four deadlines that merchants collapse into one. They are set by different parties, start on different dates, and fail in different ways.
| Clock | Whose it is | Typical window | Who sets it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Filing the dispute | The cardholder, via their issuer | 120 calendar days from the transaction date, or from expected delivery | The card network |
| Responding with evidence | You | 7 to 21 days on Shopify Payments, 9 to 40 elsewhere | Your processor, inside the network's window |
| The issuer's decision | The cardholder's bank | 45 to 80 days after your response is filed | The card network |
| Pre-arbitration and arbitration | Your acquirer and the issuer | 30 calendar days per stage on Visa, 45 on Mastercard | The card network |
Only the second row is a deadline you can miss. The rest are other people's clocks, useless as a to-do list.
How long does a cardholder have to file a chargeback?
Visa: 120 calendar days from the transaction processing date. That is the limit for conditions 10.1, 10.4 and 13.2 among others (Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026 edition, checked 23 July 2026). Condition 13.1, merchandise or services not received, moves the start date. A dispute may be processed no later than "120 calendar days from the Transaction Processing Date" or "120 calendar days from the last date that the Cardholder expected to receive the merchandise or services," capped by footnote at 540 calendar days. Condition 13.3, not as described or defective, runs from the date the cardholder received the goods.
Mastercard: 120 calendar days, usually from the transaction settlement date. For goods not provided, Mastercard's Chargeback Guide (Merchant Edition, 30 April 2024, checked 23 July 2026) sets the window at "Within 120-calendar days of the latest anticipated delivery or performance date specified by the merchant." Publish no delivery date and the issuer waits 30 calendar days from the transaction, then has until 120 days from settlement. Interrupted services run 120 days from when the cardholder became aware, capped at 540.
American Express: 120 days from the transaction date, with three named exceptions. Its US disputes reference guide says "Card Members have up to 120 days from the transaction date to dispute the charge except for these disputes categories: 1. Goods/services not received. 2. Goods/services returned/canceled. 3. Redisputes," where "the time frame can extend accordingly" (checked 23 July 2026). Amex does not publish the extended figure, one of several ways Amex disputes behave differently.
Discover: 120 days, documented by processors rather than a public rulebook. Adyen's dispute timeframes table gives Discover and Diners the same "maximum of 120 calendar days from the transaction date" as Visa and Mastercard (checked 23 July 2026). No public Discover rulebook exists to check it against.
Across all four, 120 days is the headline and the start date is the variable. A pre-order shipping in twelve weeks stays disputable seven months after the customer paid.
How long do you have to respond to a chargeback?
This is the clock that costs merchants money, and the network does not set it.
| Who sets it | Response window | Source, checked 23 July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Visa, network rule | 30 calendar days from the dispute processing date, for a dispute response | Visa Core Rules |
| Mastercard, network rule | 45 calendar days from the chargeback settlement date, for a second presentment | Mastercard Chargeback Guide |
| American Express, network rule | 20 days from the inquiry or the chargeback | Amex US disputes guide |
| Shopify Payments | 7 to 21 days after the dispute is filed | Shopify Help Center |
| Stripe | "usually 7-21 days, depending on the card network" | Stripe dispute docs |
| Adyen | 9 days on US and Canada Visa disputes, 18 elsewhere, 40 on Mastercard, 14 on Amex, 25 on Discover | Adyen dispute timeframes |
Read the Visa rows against each other. The network gives your acquirer 30 calendar days. Adyen documents 9 for a Visa dispute processed locally in the US or Canada, a window it says took effect on 21 July 2025. Shopify shows 7 to 21, "in your store's timezone," and warns that if no time is displayed, "the deadline is 11:59 PM on the date that displays."
The gap is deliberate. Your processor has to receive the evidence, package it, and land it in the network's system before the network's clock stops, so it keeps margin for itself. No figure Visa or Mastercard publishes is your deadline.
The date on your own dispute record is the only one that governs, and the Shopify chargeback representment process, step by step shows where it appears. What free chargeback representment changes is who watches it: Reclaim reads the due date when the dispute lands and files ahead of it, instead of leaving the countdown to whoever notices the banner.
What is the 120 day chargeback rule?
Shorthand for the filing window, right often enough to be dangerous. Three things it gets wrong.
It is not always 120 days from the transaction. On undelivered goods it runs from the expected delivery date, pushing the edge to 540 days on Visa and Mastercard.
It is not your deadline. It belongs to the cardholder's bank, and none of it is time you have to act.
It is not a promise that older orders are safe. Both caps, and Amex's unquantified extensions, reach past a year.
How long does a chargeback take from start to finish?
Weeks to months, almost none of it yours to control.
Stripe's documentation is the clearest published account. After you submit, "the issuer has a limited time to evaluate it and decide the outcome: usually 60-75 days, depending on the card network," and "the full dispute lifecycle, from initiation to the final decision, can take 2-3 months to complete" (checked 23 July 2026). Adyen publishes per-scheme figures from your defense date: 45 days on Visa allocation cases, 70 on Mastercard, 80 on Discover.
Escalation adds more. Visa's rules give a pre-arbitration attempt 30 calendar days, the response another 30, and arbitration 10 days after that. A Mastercard arbitration case "must be filed within 45-calendar days of the second presentment." A dispute that goes the distance is a two-quarter event.
What happens when a deadline lapses
You forfeit, quietly, with no appeal.
Shopify states it without qualification: "After the submission deadline has passed, you can't submit any further evidence. There are no exceptions to this." Visa says it from the network side: a member that does not respond in time has the dispute cycle "considered closed" and owes "last amount received by the opposing Member."
A queue that never lets one expire takes three habits, not software.
Log the due date, not the window. When a dispute appears, the date from the record goes on a calendar with an owner's name against it. Ranges quoted in articles, this one included, are context.
Set an internal cutoff two or three days early. Carriers take a day to return proof of delivery, and a cutoff equal to the real deadline holds no slack.
Decide early which cases you will not fight. A queue that treats every dispute as urgent behaves like no queue. Sorting by recoverable amount and evidence quality on day one keeps the winnable ones from aging out, which is what chargeback automation for Shopify is good at.
The honest part
Every figure above carries a date because every figure moves. Visa's rules are the April 2026 edition. Mastercard's merchant edition is dated April 2024, with the full guide behind Mastercard Connect. Discover publishes nothing. Treat this as a map of where the clocks are, and your dispute record as the clock.
The processors disagree, and not by rounding. Nine days at Adyen and 21 at Shopify are both accurate statements about a Visa dispute, because they describe different acquirers rather than Visa. Memorizing one number guarantees you are wrong somewhere.
And meeting every deadline does not protect your standing. A dispute enters your acquirer's ratio when it is filed, not when it is decided, so a perfect response record and a monitoring warning can arrive in the same month. Deadlines protect revenue, not the count.
Frequently asked questions
What is the chargeback time limit for a customer?
Roughly 120 calendar days on all four major networks. Visa's rules set 120 calendar days from the transaction processing date for most dispute conditions, and Mastercard, American Express and Discover use 120 days from the transaction or settlement date as their standard. Undelivered goods are the main exception: on Visa and Mastercard the window runs 120 days from the expected or latest anticipated delivery date instead, capped at 540 calendar days from the transaction.
How long does a merchant have to respond to a chargeback?
It depends on your processor, not the card network. Shopify Payments shows a due date 7 to 21 days after the dispute is filed. Stripe documents the same 7 to 21 day range. Adyen documents 9 days for Visa disputes processed locally in the US and Canada, 18 elsewhere, 40 on Mastercard, 14 on American Express and 25 on Discover. Visa's own rules allow your acquirer 30 calendar days and Mastercard allows 45, so your processor's deadline is always the tighter one.
What is the 120 day chargeback rule?
It is shorthand for the window a cardholder has to file a dispute, which is 120 calendar days on Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover for most reason codes. It is not a merchant deadline, and it does not always start on the transaction date. For merchandise or services not received, the 120 days runs from the date the cardholder expected delivery, which can push the real outside limit to 540 calendar days after the purchase.
What happens if I miss the chargeback response deadline?
You lose the disputed amount and the chargeback fee, with no route back. Shopify states that after the submission deadline passes you cannot submit any further evidence and there are no exceptions. Visa's rules say that a member who does not respond within the specified timeframe has the dispute cycle closed against it. A missed deadline is not a weak case, it is no case.
The check to run this week
Pull your last twenty disputes and subtract the filing date from the due date on each. That spread is your real response window, and it is probably tighter than the number you quote internally. Then count how many went out in the final 24 hours. That figure predicts your next avoidable loss.