The Complete Guide to the EU Right of Withdrawal and the Withdrawal Button for PrestaShop Merchants (2026)

If you sell to consumers anywhere in the European Union from a PrestaShop store, the right of withdrawal is one of the few consumer rights your shop is legally required to honour on essentially every online order. It gives shoppers a period in which they can change their mind, hand the goods back, and get their money returned — without having to give any reason at all. It underpins the trust that makes distance selling work, and getting it wrong is both a legal risk and a reputational one. This guide explains the right in plain British English, walks through when the clock starts, how consumers exercise the right, what you must refund and when, the full list of exceptions, and the tricky treatment of digital content and services. It then looks ahead to the proposed EU “withdrawal button” and the concrete precedent Germany has already set, before mapping everything onto practical PrestaShop configuration.

Throughout, we link to focused explainers elsewhere on this site — including our overview of the withdrawal button law, the Germany implementation guide, and short FAQs on what the withdrawal button is and whether it is mandatory yet. Use those where you want to drill down. This is a long, reference-style guide; bookmark it and work through the checklist section by section.

What the right of withdrawal actually is

The right of withdrawal comes from the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU (often abbreviated to the “CRD”). For most distance contracts — that is, contracts concluded online, by phone or by mail order — and for off-premises contracts, EU consumers have a 14-day right of withdrawal. Within that window the consumer can withdraw from the contract for any reason or none at all. They do not have to explain themselves, they do not have to prove the goods are defective, and they do not have to justify a change of heart. This is a “cooling-off” right, and it is entirely separate from your obligations around faulty or non-conforming goods.

Because it derives from a directive rather than a regulation, each Member State transposes the CRD into its own national statute. The core 14-day period is harmonised across the EU, so you can rely on it as a baseline everywhere you sell. National differences tend to appear at the edges — in enforcement culture, in the precise wording of information duties, and in national options the directive permits. Where a country is materially stricter or has an existing precedent, we flag it; Germany in particular is worth reading about separately in our Germany country guide.

One important framing point before we go further: the right of withdrawal and the much-discussed “withdrawal button” are not the same thing. The right of withdrawal is settled, binding law today. The withdrawal button is a proposed mechanism to make that existing right easier to exercise online. We keep the two clearly separated throughout, and we deal with the proposed button in its own section below.

The 14-day right explained: when the clock starts

The single most common source of confusion is when the 14 days begin to run. The answer depends on what the consumer bought. For goods, the period generally runs from the day the consumer (or a third party they nominate, other than the carrier) takes physical possession of the goods — in other words, from delivery, not from the order date. For services and for digital content supplied on a non-tangible medium, the period runs from the day the contract is concluded. Getting this starting point right matters because a mistimed refund is still a breach even if you eventually pay.

The table below summarises the start of the 14-day window by contract type. Note the special handling of multi-item orders, regular deliveries and subscriptions, which frequently trip merchants up.

Contract type	When the 14-day withdrawal period starts
Single item of goods	Day the consumer receives physical possession of the goods (delivery).
Multiple items in one order, delivered separately	Day the consumer receives the last item.
Goods consisting of multiple lots or pieces delivered over time	Day the consumer receives the last lot or piece.
Regular delivery over a defined period (e.g. a recurring goods subscription)	Day the consumer receives the first item.
Services	Day the contract is concluded.
Digital content on a non-tangible medium (download/stream)	Day the contract is concluded (subject to the express-consent rules below).

Two practical consequences follow. First, for a shopper who orders a jacket and a pair of boots in a single basket but receives them in two parcels on different days, the clock does not start until the second parcel arrives. Second, the period is counted in calendar days, and if the last day falls on a public holiday or weekend the deadline rolls to the next working day. Build your returns policy around delivery dates, not order dates, and you will avoid the most frequent timing mistake.

How consumers exercise the right

To withdraw, the consumer must make an unequivocal statement of their decision to withdraw before the 14-day period expires. The directive gives them two routes and you may not force them down only one of them. They may use the Model Withdrawal Form set out in Annex I of the directive, or they may make any other clear statement — an email, a letter, a message through your contact form, or a completed returns form of your own. What matters is that the statement is clear; the consumer does not have to use any particular magic words, and they certainly do not have to say why.

The burden of proof that they withdrew in time falls on the consumer, so it is in their interest — and yours — to make the channel easy and to acknowledge receipt. If you offer an online withdrawal option (a web form or a button), the directive requires you to send the consumer an acknowledgement of receipt on a durable medium, such as an email, without delay. Providing a smooth online route is good practice today and is the direction the proposed withdrawal button pushes the whole market in.

The Model Withdrawal Form

The Model Withdrawal Form in Annex I is a short, standardised template addressed to the trader, in which the consumer states that they withdraw from the contract for the sale of the specified goods or service, gives the order and delivery dates, their name and address, and the date. You must make this form available to the consumer — the cleanest way is to include it as a downloadable document and reproduce it in your terms. Offering the form does not oblige the consumer to use it, but failing to provide it is itself an information-duty breach with consequences we explain next.

Trader information duties and the 12-month extension penalty

Before the consumer is bound by the contract, you must give them clear, comprehensible information about the right of withdrawal — whether the right exists, the conditions, time limits and procedures for exercising it, and you must supply the Model Withdrawal Form. The simplest compliant approach is to use the directive’s model instructions on withdrawal, which, if filled in correctly and given to the consumer, are treated as satisfying the information requirement.

The penalty for getting this wrong is severe and automatic. If you fail to inform the consumer of the right of withdrawal, the 14-day period is extended by up to 12 months. In practice this means the withdrawal window does not close 14 days after delivery but can remain open for 12 months and 14 days. If you supply the missing information at some point during that extended period, the ordinary 14-day clock then starts running from the day the consumer receives that information. A single missing sentence in your checkout or a broken link to the withdrawal instructions can therefore convert a two-week liability into a year-long one across every order you took while the information was absent.

Fail to tell the consumer about the right of withdrawal and the cooling-off period does not expire after 14 days — it can stay open for up to 12 months and 14 days. Correct, complete pre-contract information is the cheapest insurance you can buy.

This is why the information duty is not a box-ticking chore but the single highest-leverage thing you can get right. Present the withdrawal information plainly at checkout, confirm it on the durable medium (your order-confirmation email), and keep a record of exactly what wording each customer saw and when. If a dispute arises, that record is your defence.

Refund rules and timing

Once a consumer validly withdraws, you must reimburse all payments received, including the cost of standard delivery, without undue delay and no later than 14 days from the day you are informed of the withdrawal. The refund of the standard delivery cost catches many merchants out: if the consumer paid you to ship the goods to them, that outbound standard delivery charge must come back to them on withdrawal. You do not have to refund any extra cost arising from the consumer choosing a more expensive delivery method than the cheapest standard option you offered; you only need to refund up to the cost of your standard delivery.

You must make the reimbursement using the same means of payment the consumer used for the initial transaction, unless the consumer has expressly agreed otherwise and provided they incur no fees as a result. You cannot unilaterally refund a card payment as store credit.

There is, however, an important cash-flow protection for the trader in the case of goods. You may withhold the refund until you have received the goods back, or until the consumer has supplied evidence of having sent the goods back, whichever happens first. This means you are not forced to refund before you have any assurance the goods are on their way — but the moment the consumer provides tracking or proof of postage, the 14-day refund clock is running and you must pay. This withholding right does not apply where you have offered to collect the goods yourself.

Return costs and diminished value

Two questions arise once the consumer sends the goods back: who pays the return postage, and what happens if the goods come back used?

On return postage, the default rule is that the consumer bears the direct cost of returning the goods — but only if you have informed them that they will have to bear that cost. If you fail to tell the consumer, at the pre-contract stage, that they must pay to return the goods, then you must bear that cost. Many merchants choose to offer free returns as a commercial decision, but if you intend to make the consumer pay, you must say so clearly up front. There is also a special rule for goods that, by their nature, cannot normally be returned by post (bulky items): you must at least indicate the cost, or the manner in which it is calculated, in advance.

On diminished value, the consumer is entitled to handle and inspect the goods to the extent necessary to establish their nature, characteristics and functioning — much as they could in a physical shop. They are liable only for any diminished value resulting from handling beyond what is necessary for that purpose. So a consumer may try on a coat, as they would in a changing room, without penalty; but if they wear it out for an evening and return it soiled, you may deduct for the loss in value. Crucially, you can only make this deduction if you gave the consumer the required withdrawal information in the first place — another reason the information duty is central.

The full list of exceptions

Not every contract carries a right of withdrawal. The directive sets out a closed list of exceptions where the right does not apply. These are exceptions to be read narrowly — if a contract does not clearly fall within one, the right applies. Below is the list most relevant to online shops, with a practical note on each.

• Goods made to the consumer’s specifications or clearly personalised — bespoke furniture, engraved jewellery, a made-to-measure suit, a custom-printed mug. Because you cannot resell them, no cooling-off right applies.
• Goods that deteriorate or expire rapidly — fresh food, cut flowers, perishable groceries. Their nature makes a return impractical.
• Sealed goods unsuitable for return on health or hygiene grounds, once unsealed — cosmetics, underwear, earrings, certain personal-care items. The right applies while sealed and is lost only once the seal is broken.
• Goods inseparably mixed with other items after delivery — for example fuel or a liquid tipped into a tank, which cannot be separated out again.
• Sealed audio, video recordings or computer software, once unsealed — a shrink-wrapped CD, DVD or boxed software loses the right once the seal is broken.
• Newspapers, periodicals and magazines — single copies are excepted (though subscription contracts for them are treated differently).
• Accommodation, transport of goods, car hire, catering and leisure services for a specific date or period — a hotel booking for a set night, a concert ticket, a car-hire reservation. These date-specific services are excepted.
• Services fully performed, where the consumer expressly requested performance to begin — once the service is completely delivered and the consumer knew they would lose the right by asking you to start, the right falls away.
• Digital content supplied on a non-tangible medium, where performance has begun with the consumer’s prior express consent and their acknowledgement that they thereby lose the right — the download/streaming case dealt with in detail below.

A word of caution: these exceptions are frequently over-claimed. “Personalised” means genuinely made to the individual’s specification, not merely a standard product the customer happened to choose a colour for. “Health or hygiene” only removes the right once the seal is broken, not before. If in doubt, assume the right applies and honour it — the cost of an unnecessary refund is far smaller than the cost of an unlawful refusal.

Digital content and services: the express-consent nuance

Digital content and services deserve their own treatment because the right of withdrawal interacts with them in a way that is easy to get wrong. For digital content supplied on a non-tangible medium — a downloaded e-book, a streamed film, purchased software, an app — the consumer loses the right of withdrawal only if all three of the following are true: performance began during the 14-day period; the consumer gave prior express consent to that early start; and the consumer acknowledged that they would thereby lose the right of withdrawal. If you let a customer download a file the moment they pay but never captured that express consent and acknowledgement, the ordinary 14-day right survives — and you may find yourself refunding content that has already been consumed.

The practical answer is a clear, affirmative step at checkout for digital items: an unticked checkbox by which the customer expressly agrees that supply begins immediately and expressly acknowledges losing the right of withdrawal. Record that consent and reflect it in the durable-medium confirmation. Do not bundle it silently into your general terms; the consent must be specific.

For services, the parallel rule is that if the consumer expressly asks you to begin performance during the 14 days and the service is then fully performed, the right is lost; if performance has only partly happened when the consumer withdraws, they must pay a proportionate amount for what was already provided. Again, the express request must be captured.

Finally, the Omnibus Directive extended the reach of these rules to certain “free” digital services and digital content where the consumer pays not with money but by providing personal data. In other words, “free” is not always free in the legal sense, and a data-for-service arrangement can still attract withdrawal-style protections. Read our Omnibus overview for how that broadening works alongside the wider modernisation of EU consumer law.

The proposed EU withdrawal button and Germany’s precedent

Now to the mechanism that gives this guide its name. The European Commission, as part of its broader consumer-law modernisation work, has proposed making the existing right of withdrawal easier to exercise online through a standardised, easy-to-find “withdrawal button” or function. The idea is straightforward: rather than hunting through terms and conditions or drafting a bespoke email, a consumer would click a clearly labelled, prominent control and withdraw in a couple of steps, with the trader acknowledging receipt automatically.

It is essential to frame this correctly. The withdrawal button is proposed and forthcoming — it is not yet binding EU law, and the exact date on which any such requirement would take effect is unsettled. You should not tell customers a button is legally mandated across the EU today, and you should treat any specific “deadline” you see quoted with caution. What you can do is prepare, because the direction of travel is clear and the underlying right it serves already binds you. See our FAQ on whether the withdrawal button is mandatory yet for the current status, and our explainer on what the withdrawal button is.

The concrete precedent already in force sits in Germany. Since 1 July 2022, German law has required a mandatory cancellation button — the “Kündigungsbutton” under §312k BGB — for continuing-obligation contracts concluded online, such as subscriptions and ongoing service contracts. The button must be clearly labelled, permanently available and easy to find, leading the consumer to a confirmation page from which they can cancel with a further click, and the trader must confirm the cancellation on a durable medium stating its content and timing. Note the distinction: the German Kündigungsbutton is a cancellation button for ongoing contracts, which is related to but not identical with the EU’s withdrawal button proposal for the cooling-off right. Even so, it is the clearest real-world model of what a mandated, standardised online exit control looks like, and it is instructive for any merchant selling into Germany. Our dedicated Germany withdrawal-button guide covers the detail.

What good practice looks like now

You do not need to wait for a mandated button to adopt the practices it embodies. The merchants who will be least disrupted by any future requirement are the ones who already make withdrawal painless. Good practice today looks like this:

• A visible, plain-language withdrawal and returns policy, linked from the footer, the checkout and the order-confirmation email — not buried in dense terms.
• The Model Withdrawal Form published as a downloadable document and reproduced on a dedicated page, in every language you sell in.
• An easy online withdrawal channel — a form or button — that captures the request and acknowledges receipt by email on a durable medium automatically.
• Correct, complete pre-contract information shown at checkout and confirmed afterwards, including who pays return postage and the express-consent step for digital items.
• Prompt refunds to the original payment method, including standard outbound delivery, within the 14-day deadline once the consumer has returned the goods or provided proof of return.
• A durable record of exactly what withdrawal information each customer saw and when, so you can defend any dispute.

Framed positively, easy withdrawal is a conversion tool, not just a compliance burden. Shoppers buy more readily from stores whose returns are visibly simple. The law and good commercial sense point the same way here.

Withdrawal-readiness checklist

Work through this checklist for each country and language you sell into. Every item maps to an obligation discussed above.

• We clearly state that a 14-day right of withdrawal exists, with the conditions, time limits and procedure, before the consumer is bound.
• We provide the Model Withdrawal Form and also accept any other clear statement of withdrawal.
• Our policy measures the 14 days from delivery of the goods (last item for multi-parcel orders), or contract conclusion for services and digital content.
• We confirm the withdrawal information on a durable medium (the order-confirmation email).
• We state clearly who pays return postage; if we intend the consumer to pay, we say so up front.
• We refund all payments including standard delivery, to the original payment method, within 14 days of the return or proof of return.
• We only deduct for diminished value where handling exceeded what was necessary to inspect the goods, and only where we gave the required information.
• For digital content we capture express consent to immediate supply and acknowledgement of losing the right via an affirmative checkout step.
• We apply the correct exceptions narrowly and never over-claim “personalised” or “hygiene” grounds.
• We offer an easy online withdrawal channel and send an automatic acknowledgement of receipt.
• For subscriptions sold into Germany, we provide a compliant cancellation button (§312k BGB).
• We keep timestamped records of the withdrawal information shown to each customer.

PrestaShop implementation notes

PrestaShop gives you most of the moving parts you need; the work is in configuring and connecting them so the legal flow above is reflected end to end. Below is a practical mapping.

Order statuses and the withdrawal lifecycle

Model the withdrawal lifecycle explicitly in your order statuses so nothing falls through the cracks. Consider adding statuses such as “Withdrawal requested”, “Awaiting return”, “Return received”, and “Refunded (withdrawal)”. Each status should trigger the right internal action and, where appropriate, a customer email. Tying the refund deadline to the “Return received” or “Proof of return supplied” status keeps you inside the 14-day window and gives you an auditable timeline.

Returns and RMA

PrestaShop’s built-in merchandise returns (RMA) feature lets customers request a return from their account and generates a return slip. Enable it, but remember it is not identical to the legal right of withdrawal — the native RMA is often geared to faulty-goods or time-limited return windows. Configure the return window and rules so they never undercut the statutory 14-day right, and make clear that a customer can also withdraw simply by sending any clear statement, independent of the RMA workflow. Treat the RMA as a convenience layer over the legal right, not a replacement for it.

Refund workflow

Use partial refunds and credit slips carefully. On a valid withdrawal you must refund to the original payment method — so favour the payment-gateway refund over issuing a voucher, unless the customer expressly agrees to a voucher and incurs no fee. Ensure the refund includes the standard outbound delivery charge; PrestaShop lets you choose whether to refund shipping on a credit slip, so make refunding standard shipping the default for withdrawals. Where you deduct for diminished value, record the reason against the order. Set an internal SLA well inside 14 days from proof of return so you never breach the deadline.

CMS pages for the policy and the model form

Create dedicated CMS pages for your withdrawal/returns policy and for the Model Withdrawal Form, and link them from the footer, the checkout and every order-confirmation email. Publish the Model Withdrawal Form both inline and as a downloadable file. Because the information must reach the consumer before they are bound and again on a durable medium, embed the key withdrawal wording into your order-confirmation email template, not merely on a page the customer has to seek out.

Per-language configuration

PrestaShop is multi-store and multi-language, and the right of withdrawal must be communicated in the language of each market you serve. Translate the policy page, the Model Withdrawal Form, the checkout notices and the email templates for every active language, and review each translation against local transposition where a country is known to be strict. Do not rely on a single English policy for a multi-country storefront. If you sell subscriptions into Germany, plan for the §312k cancellation button as a distinct, always-visible control on the relevant storefront.

Common mistakes

The same errors recur across audits. Avoiding them puts you ahead of most stores.

• Starting the clock at the order date for goods instead of at delivery — and forgetting that multi-parcel orders run from the last item.
• Omitting the standard delivery charge from the refund, or refunding to store credit instead of the original payment method.
• Failing to inform the consumer of the right, thereby extending the window to up to 12 months and 14 days across every affected order.
• Not telling the consumer they must pay return postage, which shifts that cost onto you by default.
• Over-claiming exceptions — treating an ordinary product as “personalised”, or refusing a sealed hygiene item that was never actually unsealed.
• Letting customers download digital content without capturing express consent and the acknowledgement of losing the right.
• Refusing an unequivocal statement because it did not use your form — any clear statement is valid.
• Confusing the proposed EU withdrawal button with settled law, or telling customers it is mandatory everywhere today when it is not.

Mini-FAQ

Does the consumer have to give a reason to withdraw?

No. Within the 14-day period the consumer may withdraw for any reason or none at all. You cannot require an explanation, and you cannot make the refund conditional on the reason given.

Is the EU withdrawal button mandatory yet?

Not as a standalone EU-wide requirement. The withdrawal button is proposed and forthcoming, not yet binding EU law, and the exact effective date is unsettled. The underlying 14-day right, however, already binds you today. Germany separately requires a cancellation button (§312k BGB) for online continuing-obligation contracts since 1 July 2022. See our status FAQ.

Do I have to refund the delivery cost?

Yes — you must refund the standard delivery cost the consumer paid to receive the goods. You do not have to refund the extra cost of a premium delivery option the consumer chose over your cheapest standard method; you refund up to the standard cost only.

Can I wait until I get the goods back before refunding?

For goods, yes — you may withhold the refund until you have received the goods back or the consumer has supplied evidence of having sent them back, whichever is first. Once either happens, the 14-day refund clock runs and you must pay. This does not apply if you offered to collect the goods yourself.

Does the right apply to downloads and streaming?

It applies unless the consumer gave prior express consent to supply beginning during the 14 days and acknowledged losing the right. Capture both with an affirmative checkout step; otherwise the ordinary 14-day right survives even after the content is delivered.

Bringing it together

The right of withdrawal is settled, harmonised EU law: 14 days, no reason required, running from delivery for goods and from contract conclusion for services and digital content. Inform your customers correctly or face a window that stretches to over a year; refund promptly and to the original method including standard delivery; apply the exceptions narrowly; and handle digital content and services with the express-consent step they require. The much-discussed withdrawal button is a proposed way to make that existing right easier to exercise — not yet binding EU law — while Germany’s §312k cancellation button shows the real-world shape of things to come. Configure PrestaShop so the whole flow, from checkout information to refund, reflects these rules in every language you sell in, and you turn a legal obligation into a genuine trust advantage. Start from our withdrawal button overview and work outward.

This guide is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consumer law is implemented differently across EU Member States and changes over time, and the withdrawal button remains a proposal whose final form and timing are not yet settled. You should consult a qualified lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction before making compliance decisions for your business.