Widerrufsrecht: The 14 Day Right of Withdrawal Under § 355 BGB

The German Widerrufsrecht is the 14 day right to walk away from a consumer contract without giving any reason. It is the single most useful consumer right in German law for anyone who buys online, and it is also the one most often misunderstood by newcomers, because it does not work the way an American return policy works and it does not apply everywhere people assume it does.

The core rule sits in § 355 BGB, which sets the 14 day period and says how a withdrawal is declared. § 312g BGB is what actually grants the right, and it grants it for two categories of contract only: contracts concluded away from the trader's business premises and distance contracts. § 356 BGB says when the clock starts, § 357 BGB says what has to be paid back, and § 357a BGB deals with compensation for value the goods lost while the consumer had them.

This page works through each of those in the order a real situation raises them, with worked numbers, and it is honest about the exceptions, because the exceptions are where most disputes actually happen.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Which contracts carry the right

§ 312g Abs. 1 BGB states the grant in one sentence: for contracts concluded away from business premises and for distance contracts, the consumer has a right of withdrawal under § 355 BGB. Everything else in this area is definitions and exceptions.

A distance contract, defined in § 312c BGB, is one where the trader and the consumer use only means of distance communication for the negotiation and the conclusion, within a distribution system organised for distance selling. § 312c Abs. 2 BGB lists letters, catalogues, telephone calls, fax, email, SMS, broadcasting and digital services as examples. An ordinary online order from a German shop is the standard case.

A contract concluded away from business premises, defined in § 312b BGB, covers the doorstep sale, the contract signed at a trade fair stand that is not the trader's own premises, the contract signed in the consumer's flat, and also the contract that is formally signed in the shop or online but where the consumer was personally and individually approached immediately beforehand outside the premises. § 312b Abs. 2 BGB defines business premises as immovable retail premises where the trader permanently operates, or movable retail premises where the trader usually operates.

The rule that surprises almost every expat: no withdrawal right in a shop

Because § 312g Abs. 1 BGB is limited to those two categories, a purchase made face to face inside a German shop falls outside it entirely. There is no statutory 14 day right to change your mind on a jacket bought in a department store, a phone bought in a mobile shop, or a sofa bought in a furniture showroom.

German retailers very often do offer a goodwill return window, sometimes 14 days, sometimes 30, sometimes only against a voucher rather than a refund. That is a contractual policy the shop sets and can limit as it likes, and it is not the Widerrufsrecht. This matters practically, because a shop is free to refuse a return that an online seller could not have refused, and the customer has no statutory answer to that refusal.

What the in-store buyer does keep is the entirely separate statutory liability of the seller for defects, which applies to every purchase regardless of where it was made. That is a different mechanism with different deadlines, and it is covered on the warranty rights page.

One further trap runs the other way. § 312 Abs. 2 Nr. 12 BGB disapplies these rules for contracts concluded away from business premises where the service is performed and paid for immediately at the end of the negotiations and the price does not exceed 40 euro. A small cash purchase at the door therefore carries no withdrawal right either.

When the 14 days start

§ 355 Abs. 2 BGB sets the default: 14 days, running from conclusion of the contract, unless something else is provided. For the contracts that matter most, something else is provided, in § 356 Abs. 2 BGB.

Goods

For a consumer sale of goods the period starts once the consumer, or a third party named by the consumer who is not the carrier, has received the goods. Ordering is irrelevant. A parcel ordered on 1 September and delivered on 9 September starts its clock on 9 September, and the period runs to the end of 23 September.

Several items, part-deliveries and regular deliveries

§ 356 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 BGB splits this carefully. Where the consumer ordered several goods in one order and they are delivered separately, the period starts on receipt of the last item. Where one item is delivered in several part-deliveries or pieces, it starts on receipt of the last part-delivery or piece. Where the contract is for the regular delivery of goods over a fixed period, a subscription box for example, it starts on receipt of the first delivery.

Services, utilities and digital content

For services the default in § 355 Abs. 2 BGB applies, so the clock runs from conclusion of the contract. § 356 Abs. 2 Nr. 2 BGB also puts the following on the conclusion date: supply of water, gas or electricity not offered in a limited volume or fixed quantity, supply of district heating, and supply of digital content not on a tangible medium.

Worked example: a split delivery

A reader in Berlin orders a desk and a chair from one online retailer in a single order on 3 March. The chair arrives on 8 March. The desk, out of stock, arrives on 14 March.

Because both items came from one order and were delivered separately, § 356 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 Buchst. b BGB starts the clock on 14 March, the date the last item arrived. The 14 days run to the end of 28 March, and that single deadline governs both items. Someone who assumed the chair had its own deadline of 22 March would have given away six days without needing to.

How to declare a withdrawal

§ 355 Abs. 1 BGB is unusually clear here, and it is worth reading closely. The withdrawal is effected by a declaration to the trader. The declaration must make the consumer's decision to withdraw from the contract unambiguously clear. The withdrawal need not contain any reasons. And to meet the deadline, timely dispatch of the withdrawal is sufficient.

Those last two sentences do a lot of work. No trader can require a reason, a justification, an explanation of why the item was not suitable, or a form filled in a particular way. A plain email saying that the sender withdraws from order number X is a valid Widerruf. There is a model withdrawal form in Anlage 2 to Art. 246a EGBGB that traders must make available, but using it is optional.

Dispatch rather than arrival is the test. An email sent at 23:50 on day 14 is in time even if the trader opens it two days later. Keeping proof of dispatch is nevertheless sensible, because § 361 Abs. 3 BGB puts the burden of proof on the trader only where the start of the period is disputed, not the fact of sending.

Simply sending the goods back without a word is risky. The statute asks for a declaration from which the decision to withdraw is unambiguously clear, so a silent return parcel is a weaker position than a short written message plus the return.

The electronic withdrawal function on online shops

§ 356a BGB requires traders concluding distance contracts through an online user interface to provide a withdrawal function on that interface. It must be clearly legible and labelled Vertrag widerrufen or another equally unambiguous wording, and it must be permanently available, prominently placed and easily accessible throughout the withdrawal period.

The function has to let the consumer transmit the declaration together with their name, details identifying the contract or the part of it being withdrawn, and details of the electronic means by which the confirmation of receipt should be sent, followed by a confirmation button labelled Widerruf bestätigen or equivalent. Under § 356a Abs. 4 BGB the trader must then send an acknowledgement on a durable medium containing at least the content of the declaration and the date and time it arrived.

§ 356a Abs. 5 BGB adds a useful protection: a declaration sent through that function before the deadline counts as having reached the trader within the period.

What the trader has to pay back, and by when

§ 357 Abs. 1 BGB requires the performances received to be returned within 14 days at the latest. Under § 355 Abs. 3 BGB that period runs for the trader from receipt of the withdrawal declaration and for the consumer from sending it.

§ 357 Abs. 2 BGB extends the refund to the delivery costs the consumer paid, with one carve-out: the extra cost is not refundable where the consumer chose a delivery method other than the cheapest standard delivery the trader offered. § 357 Abs. 3 BGB requires the refund to use the same means of payment the consumer used, unless something else was expressly agreed and it costs the consumer nothing.

§ 357 Abs. 4 BGB lets the trader hold the refund back on a consumer sale of goods until either the goods are back or the consumer has produced proof of dispatch. That is why proof of postage matters. It does not apply where the trader offered to collect the goods.

Worked example: a jacket bought online

A consumer orders a jacket for 189.00 euro. The shop offers standard delivery at 4.99 euro and express delivery at 12.99 euro, and the consumer chooses express, paying 201.99 euro in total. The jacket arrives on 4 June. On 11 June the consumer emails the shop withdrawing from the contract and posts the jacket back the same day at a cost of 5.49 euro, having been properly told in the shop's withdrawal instructions that return costs fall on the customer.

The refund is 189.00 euro for the jacket plus 4.99 euro for the delivery, so 193.99 euro. The 8.00 euro difference between express and standard delivery is not refundable under § 357 Abs. 2 Satz 2 BGB. The consumer is out of pocket by the 5.49 euro return postage as well, so the net cost of changing their mind is 13.49 euro. The shop must pay the 193.99 euro back to the same card within 14 days of receiving the email, though it may wait until the parcel arrives or the postage receipt is produced.

Who pays the return postage

This is the most commonly misstated point. Under § 357 Abs. 5 BGB the consumer bears the direct costs of returning the goods, but only where the trader informed the consumer of that obligation as required by Art. 246a § 1 Abs. 2 Satz 1 Nr. 2 EGBGB. A trader who never gave that information cannot then pass the postage on. § 357 Abs. 5 Satz 2 BGB also removes the burden where the trader has declared itself willing to bear the cost, which many larger shops do as a commercial choice.

Two further rules shift the position. § 357 Abs. 6 BGB removes any obligation to send the goods back at all where the trader has offered to collect them. § 357 Abs. 7 BGB goes further for contracts concluded away from business premises where the goods were brought to the consumer's home at the time the contract was concluded: if the goods are of a nature that they cannot be returned by post, the trader must collect them at its own expense. That is the rule for the mattress or the sofa sold at the door.

Finally, § 355 Abs. 3 Satz 4 BGB places the risk of the return shipment on the trader. A parcel lost in transit on the way back is the trader's problem, not the consumer's, provided it was actually sent.

Wertersatz: paying for handling beyond a test

§ 357a Abs. 1 BGB is the provision traders reach for when goods come back used. It allows a claim for compensation for a loss in value only where two conditions are both met. First, the loss in value must be attributable to handling of the goods that was not necessary to check their nature, characteristics and functioning. Second, the trader must have informed the consumer about the withdrawal right in accordance with Art. 246a § 1 Abs. 2 Satz 1 Nr. 1 EGBGB.

The standard is deliberately generous to the consumer. Trying on clothing, unpacking and switching on an appliance, or examining an item the way a customer would examine it in a shop all fall on the permitted side. Wearing a coat outdoors for a week, mounting a television on a wall, or running a garden tool through a real job do not.

The statute sets no tariff for the amount, so the trader has to justify the reduction rather than name a round number. If a 189.00 euro jacket comes back visibly worn after a week of outdoor use and the shop can only resell it as a returned item for 120.00 euro, the shop would be arguing for a 69.00 euro deduction against a refund of 189.00 euro, leaving 120.00 euro plus the refundable delivery cost. If the shop never gave proper withdrawal instructions in the first place, the second condition in § 357a Abs. 1 BGB fails and no Wertersatz can be claimed at all, however worn the jacket is.

§ 357a Abs. 2 BGB deals with a different situation: services already performed, or unmetered water, gas, electricity or district heating already supplied, before the withdrawal. Compensation there is owed only where the consumer expressly asked for performance to begin before the period expired, where in an off-premises contract that request was transmitted on a durable medium, and where the trader gave the proper information. The calculation is based on the agreed total price, unless that price is disproportionately high, in which case the market value of the performance is used instead.

§ 357a Abs. 3 BGB is worth remembering: where the consumer withdraws from a contract for digital content not supplied on a tangible medium, no Wertersatz is owed.

Where the right does not exist: § 312g Abs. 2 BGB

§ 312g Abs. 2 BGB lists thirteen contract types where, unless the parties agreed otherwise, the withdrawal right does not exist. The ones that come up in ordinary life are:

The hygiene exception in Nr. 3 is narrower than shops often claim. It applies to goods sealed for health or hygiene reasons where the seal has actually been removed, not to anything that merely touched skin. The custom-made exception in Nr. 1 is likewise about genuine individual specification, not about a colour or size chosen from a standard range.

Digital content and completed services work differently

This is the point most often stated the wrong way round, so it is worth being precise. Digital content that is not supplied on a tangible medium, a downloaded game or a streamed film for instance, is not in the § 312g Abs. 2 BGB exception list. The withdrawal right exists and then extinguishes early under § 356 Abs. 6 BGB.

For a paid contract, § 356 Abs. 6 Nr. 2 BGB requires four things together before the right lapses: the trader has begun performance, the consumer expressly consented to performance beginning before the withdrawal period expired, the consumer confirmed knowledge that this consent causes the right to lapse once performance begins, and the trader supplied a confirmation under § 312f BGB. Miss one of those and the right survives. For a contract where the consumer pays no price, § 356 Abs. 6 Nr. 1 BGB lets it lapse simply once the trader has begun performance.

Services follow a parallel structure in § 356 Abs. 5 BGB. For a paid service the right lapses on complete performance, provided that before performance began the consumer expressly consented to it starting before the period expired, transmitted that consent on a durable medium in the case of an off-premises contract, and confirmed knowledge that the right lapses on complete performance.

The practical consequence is the same in both cases: the tick box at checkout asking the buyer to agree that performance may start immediately and that the withdrawal right will lapse is not a formality. It is the mechanism that extinguishes the right, and if the shop did not obtain it correctly, the right is still there.

A sealed physical medium is the different case. A DVD or a boxed software disc falls under § 312g Abs. 2 Nr. 6 BGB, and there the right is excluded from the start once the seal has been broken.

When the trader gets the instructions wrong

§ 356 Abs. 3 BGB says the withdrawal period does not begin before the trader has informed the consumer in accordance with Art. 246a § 1 Abs. 2 Satz 1 Nr. 1 EGBGB. That provision requires information about the conditions, the time limits and the procedure for exercising the right, the model withdrawal form in Anlage 2, and where applicable the existence and placement of the withdrawal function under § 356a BGB.

So defective instructions do not shorten the period, they stop it from starting. A shop that gave no withdrawal instructions at all, or gave instructions naming the wrong deadline, has a customer whose 14 days have not begun to run.

That suspension is not open-ended. § 356 Abs. 4 Satz 1 BGB sets the outer limit precisely: the withdrawal right expires at the latest twelve months and 14 days after the point in time named in § 356 Abs. 2 BGB or § 355 Abs. 2 Satz 2 BGB. For an ordinary online purchase of goods, that means twelve months and 14 days after the goods were received. A consumer who bought on 1 February 2026, received the goods on 5 February 2026 and was never given withdrawal instructions could still withdraw up to 19 February 2027.

A trader can also fix the position part way through. If the instructions are supplied late, the period starts running from that later point, subject to the same outer limit.

Defective withdrawal instructions are also one of the most frequent triggers for a competitor or an association to send a German trader a formal warning letter, which is covered on the Abmahnung page. That is a risk for a business, not for a consumer, but it explains why German shops tend to reproduce the statutory wording almost verbatim.

Linked credit agreements

Many larger purchases are financed by a loan arranged at the point of sale. § 358 Abs. 1 BGB provides that where the consumer has effectively withdrawn from the contract for the goods or services, the consumer is also no longer bound by the declaration concluding a loan agreement linked to it. § 358 Abs. 2 BGB runs the same rule in the other direction, from a withdrawn loan to the purchase.

§ 358 Abs. 3 BGB defines when the two are linked: the loan serves wholly or partly to finance the other contract and the two form an economic unit. That is assumed in particular where the trader itself finances the consideration, or, where a third party finances it, where the lender used the trader's involvement in preparing or concluding the loan.

Two consequences matter in practice. § 358 Abs. 4 Satz 4 BGB excludes claims for interest and costs against the consumer arising from unwinding the loan. And § 358 Abs. 4 Satz 5 BGB puts the lender into the trader's position for the consequences of the withdrawal where the loan money had already reached the trader when the withdrawal took effect, so the consumer deals with one counterparty rather than being caught between two.

Where the two contracts do not meet the linked-contract test, § 360 BGB covers merely related contracts and releases the consumer from those as well, applying the same unwinding rules.

A few boundary cases worth knowing

§ 312 Abs. 3 BGB is a genuinely useful rule for people arriving in Germany. Residential tenancy agreements are largely outside this chapter, but § 312g BGB on the withdrawal right is applied to them, with an important qualification: those provisions do not apply to the creation of a residential tenancy where the tenant viewed the flat beforehand. A lease signed remotely, sight unseen, is in a different position from one signed after a viewing.

§ 361 Abs. 1 BGB provides that no further claims exist against the consumer as a result of the withdrawal beyond those in this sub-title, so a trader cannot invent a restocking or administration charge. § 361 Abs. 2 BGB makes the whole regime mandatory in the consumer's favour and applies it to arrangements designed to circumvent it. A term in general terms and conditions purporting to require a reason, to charge a fee for withdrawal, or to shorten the period is ineffective.

For an overview of the other German consumer rules covered here, see the consumer law hub, and for the wider Germany guides see Germany law explained.

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