How are chargeback fees handled?

A disputed payment reaches your P&L only when Shopify records it as a refund on the order. It is then booked as a return on that day. The dispute fee is not on the statement yet. A dispute, also called a chargeback, is when a customer asks their bank to take a payment back.

nouz does not read Shopify's dispute records today, so it cannot see the fee. Shopify lists each dispute with its fee in your Shopify admin. Add those fees up when you close a month.

The rule for both parts is already set. The disputed money counts as a return, because it went back to the customer. The dispute fee counts as a transaction cost, beside your other payment fees. Today only the first part can reach your P&L, through a refund that Shopify records.

A dispute never adds return processing. No parcel comes back, so a return label and handling would invent work that never happened. A refund for a dispute carries return costs only if its items are marked as returned to stock. Like any refund, it lands on the day it was recorded. The payment fee on the first sale is not paid back, since payment providers keep it.

To see what a dispute costs in full, try the chargeback cost calculator. It adds up the lost money, the goods that do not come back, the fee and your time. Act early if disputes start to rise, because payment providers raise prices on such accounts, and sometimes close them.