How to Get a Refund on an Online Purchase in France

Getting your money back on something you bought online in France depends entirely on why you want the refund. French law treats "I changed my mind" and "it arrived broken" as two completely different situations, each with its own rules, its own time limit, and its own legal basis. Confusing the two is the most common reason a refund request goes nowhere.

This page separates those situations so you can see which one applies. It covers the 14-day right of withdrawal for distance sales, the two-year legal guarantee of conformity for faulty goods, what happens when an order never arrives, and why a bank chargeback is a payment-scheme service rather than a legal right. It is general legal information, not advice about any particular transaction.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

Two different rights for two different situations

Before asking for a refund, it helps to name the situation. There are two main legal grounds, and they do not overlap.

The first is the right of withdrawal, or droit de retractation. This is the "I changed my mind" right. It exists because you bought at a distance, without seeing the item in person, and it lets you send the goods back within a short window for a full refund even if nothing is wrong with them.

The second is the legal guarantee of conformity, or garantie legale de conformite. This is the "it does not work" or "it is not what was described" right. It has nothing to do with changing your mind and runs for two years. A single order can, in theory, be covered by both at different moments, but the right you rely on decides the deadline and what you must show.

Changed your mind: the 14-day right of withdrawal

For contracts concluded at a distance, which includes online, phone, and mail-order sales, Article L221-18 of the Code de la consommation gives the consumer 14 days to withdraw without giving any reason and without penalty. For goods, the 14 days generally run from the day you, or someone you name, physically receive the item. For services, the period runs from the day the contract is concluded.

You exercise the right by clearly informing the trader of your decision within that window, for example using the standard withdrawal form or any unambiguous statement. You then return the goods, usually within 14 days of telling the trader, and the direct cost of returning them can fall on you unless the trader agreed to cover it or failed to tell you the cost.

Once you have informed the trader, Article L221-24 requires them to refund all the sums you paid, including the standard delivery charge, without undue delay and at the latest within 14 days of being told of your decision. The refund is made using the same means of payment you used, unless you agree otherwise. A trader may hold off refunding until they have the goods back or proof that you sent them. Our dedicated page on the right of withdrawal goes into the mechanics in more detail.

When the right of withdrawal does not apply

The right of withdrawal is powerful but not universal. Article L221-28 lists situations where it does not apply. These include goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised, goods that spoil quickly, sealed items that cannot be returned for health or hygiene reasons once unsealed, and digital content supplied online once you have started downloading it after expressly waiving the right. Newspapers and certain other categories are also excluded.

It is just as important to know where the right of withdrawal does not reach at all: an ordinary purchase made in a physical shop. When you buy in person, French law gives no automatic right to change your mind. If a store lets you bring something back for a refund or exchange, that is a commercial gesture set by the shop's own return policy, not a legal entitlement. This is a frequent source of confusion, because the 14-day distance-selling rule is often assumed to apply everywhere.

Faulty or broken on arrival: the legal guarantee

If the problem is not that you changed your mind but that the item is defective, damaged, or does not match what was advertised, the right to rely on is the legal guarantee of conformity, set out in the Code de la consommation from Article L217-3. This guarantee is free and mandatory, it runs for two years from delivery, and it operates against the seller. For new goods, a defect that appears within that period is generally presumed to have existed at delivery, so you do not have to prove it was already there.

Under this guarantee you can ask for the item to be repaired or replaced, and, in defined circumstances, for a price reduction or a refund. This is a distinct right with its own conditions, explained on our page about the legal guarantee of conformity. It is separate again from the hidden-defect action for latent faults, which has its own rules.

Your order never arrived

A different scenario is the order you paid for that simply never turns up. The Code de la consommation sets a default rule in Article L216-1: if no delivery date was agreed, the trader must deliver without undue delay and at the latest within 30 days of the contract. Where that deadline passes, the following articles let the consumer put the trader on notice to deliver, and, if delivery still does not happen within a reasonable further time, cancel the contract. Once the contract is cancelled on that basis, the trader must refund all sums paid, at the latest within 14 days of the cancellation.

This is a genuine legal remedy, distinct from both withdrawal and the conformity guarantee. It rests on the trader failing to perform the delivery they promised.

Chargeback is a bank scheme, not a legal right

People often reach for a card chargeback when a refund stalls. A chargeback is a procedure offered by the card networks and your bank that can reverse a card payment in certain cases, such as fraud or a service not provided. It can be useful in practice, but it is a private payment-scheme service, governed by the card network's rules and your bank's terms, not a right that French consumer law grants you. It does not replace the withdrawal right, the legal guarantee, or the non-delivery remedy, and a bank is not obliged to treat every dispute as a chargeback case.

If a trader refuses a refund you are legally owed and ignores a formal notice, enforcing the debt can ultimately involve a court decision and an officer such as a commissaire de justice. For the wider set of protections, see our French consumer rights section, part of our France legal information hub.