Chargebacks on Mollie: what happens and what to do

A chargeback on Mollie can mean two quite different things. For SEPA Direct Debit, it is a reversal the customer has a right to, which you cannot argue with in the first 8 weeks. For cards and some other methods, it is a dispute you may be able to answer with evidence. The right response depends on which one you are looking at, and on a subscription business it also affects every future charge.

This guide explains what Mollie documents about each case, how to read chargebacks in the API, and what to do with the customer and the subscription afterwards. It sticks to Mollie’s documentation: the Chargebacks API and Get chargeback references, and the help center articles What is a SEPA Direct Debit chargeback?, What is an Unauthorised Direct Debit Report?, How do I resolve a card chargeback?, How do I respond to a dispute? and What happens to a mandate after a reversal? (all accessed November 2026). Field descriptions were also checked against Mollie’s official Node.js API client.

SEPA Direct Debit: a right, not a dispute

SEPA gives customers strong refund rights, and Mollie’s help center describes two windows:

When	What the customer can do	Can you dispute?
Up to 8 weeks after the debit	Ask their bank to reverse the payment	No. Mollie says that once a chargeback is requested, you cannot dispute it.
8 weeks to 13 months	File an Unauthorised Direct Debit Report	The bank checks whether the mandate was valid. If the debit was unauthorised, the customer gets the money back and you pay the cost of the report, which Mollie’s article puts at €65 excluding VAT.

Two consequences for subscriptions:

1. The mandate is gone. Mollie’s help center says it revokes the mandate after a reversal. Further charges on it will not work, and Mollie’s recurring payments guide lists “return of funds requested by end customer” (MD06) among the reasons that lead to the subscription being cancelled after repeated occurrences.
2. Keep proof of the mandate. For the 13-month window, what matters is whether the customer authorised the debit. Keep the first payment, the date, the IBAN holder name and anything they accepted at signup.

Cards: a dispute with a deadline

Card chargebacks go through the card schemes, and you can sometimes contest them. Mollie’s help center describes two ways of responding, and they are not the same:

• The older article, How do I resolve a card chargeback?, says Mollie forwards the chargeback to you by email, gives you several days to object with documentation (for example the invoice, proof of delivery, your terms and your communication with the customer), and that objections go to Mollie by email. It says the bank’s decision can take up to 45 days, and that if the objection is rejected the payment is reversed and a chargeback fee is deducted.
• The newer article, How do I respond to a dispute?, describes a Dispute Portal in the Mollie dashboard, marked as beta. Each dispute shows a response due date; until then you can defend or accept it, and if the date passes the dispute is recorded as lost.

Which one applies to your account depends on whether you have the Dispute Portal. Check your dashboard before you rely on email. In both cases, the deadline is short and set by Mollie and the scheme, so the evidence needs to be ready before the chargeback arrives. Mollie’s dispute fees article explains when a fee is charged; the amounts depend on the method and your contract.

Other methods have their own rules. Mollie documents separate dispute processes for methods such as Klarna and Wero in its help center.

Reading chargebacks in the API

The Chargebacks API has two ways in:

• GET /v2/chargebacks lists chargebacks across all your payments, newest first.
• GET /v2/payments/:paymentId/chargebacks and .../chargebacks/:id list or fetch those of one payment.

A chargeback object carries:

Field	Meaning
amount	The amount charged back
settlementAmount	What will be deducted from your balance, in your settlement currency (negative); amounts Mollie does not settle, such as PayPal chargebacks, are not reflected
createdAt	When the chargeback was issued
reason.code, reason.description	The bank’s reason; only for SEPA Direct Debit chargebacks
reversedAt	When the chargeback was reversed, if it was
paymentId	The payment it belongs to
settlementId	The settlement it was deducted in, once settled

A chargeback changes the payment, so your payment webhook is the place to notice it: fetch the payment, check whether it has chargebacks, and fetch them. Because webhooks can be missed, also run a daily job on GET /v2/chargebacks and compare it with what you have stored. reversedAt matters too: a chargeback can be undone, and your records should follow.

What to do, step by step

1. Record it on the customer. Amount, reason code, date and the subscription it belongs to.
2. Stop the next charge from failing. For a SEPA reversal, the mandate is revoked, so the subscription will not collect again. Decide now whether to end access, pause it, or ask for payment by another method.
3. Contact the customer, without accusing them. Many reversals come from customers who did not recognise the debit or could not find how to cancel. Ask, and give them a clear way to cancel or to pay again.
4. For card disputes, answer before the deadline. Send what proves the customer subscribed and used the service: signup date and terms accepted, renewal reminders sent, usage after the charge, and any support conversation. Do not send more than is relevant.
5. Look for patterns. Several reversals around renewal dates point to a reminder or description problem. Several on new accounts may point to fraud.

Prevent the next one

• Use a description customers recognise. Mollie includes the subscription description in each payment’s description.
• Remind before renewals, especially annual ones.
• Make cancelling easy. A customer who can cancel in two clicks has no reason to go to their bank.
• Refund when it is the right call. If a customer asks for a refund you would grant anyway, a refund is cleaner than a reversal.

Doing this with NoChurn

Mollie handles chargebacks and decides with the banks; NoChurn does not submit evidence to Mollie. NoChurn reads your Mollie chargebacks and shows them read only on the customer’s timeline, where they also count in the churn score from 0 to 100. What NoChurn adds on Mollie is upstream of a chargeback: a cancel flow with a one-click cancel always visible, recovery emails with a link to pay again, and win-back emails at day 30, 60 and 90. See NoChurn + Mollie.