In short
The withdrawal period (Widerrufsfrist) is the period within which a consumer can withdraw from a contract concluded online, by telephone or away from business premises without giving reasons. Under Section 355(2) of the German Civil Code (BGB), it is 14 days.
When these 14 days begin depends on the type of contract: for the purchase of goods, receipt of the goods counts; for services, usually the conclusion of the contract.
For online shops, the withdrawal period is more than a sentence in the withdrawal notice. It determines how long an order remains economically in limbo and when loyalty points can be credited definitively, commissions paid out or partners settled. This entry explains the statutory rules, the start of the period for each type of contract, the extension in the event of incorrect information, the exceptions and the consequences for the processes in your shop system.
Legal basis: 14 days under Section 355(2) BGB
The right of withdrawal for distance contracts derives from Section 312g(1) BGB, which refers to Section 355 BGB. There you find the core sentence: "The withdrawal period is 14 days. It begins with the conclusion of the contract, unless otherwise provided." For distance contracts, this basic rule is specified by Section 356 BGB, which sets a later start for the purchase of goods. You can find the full text of the law at Section 355 BGB on gesetze-im-internet.de (in German).
Withdrawal is effected by a declaration to the trader. It must make clear that the consumer wishes to withdraw from the contract. No reason is required. According to the wording of the law, simply sending the goods back without a recognisable declaration is not sufficient, even though in practice many retailers generously treat a return without comment as a withdrawal.
Who has a right of withdrawal at all
The statutory right of withdrawal is only available to consumers. Under Section 13 BGB, a consumer is any natural person who enters into a legal transaction predominantly for private purposes. On the other side there must be a trader within the meaning of Section 14 BGB. So it is about B2C contracts concluded at a distance, typically via an online shop, an app, by email or by telephone.
How the period is calculated
The general rules on time limits in the BGB apply to the calculation. Under Section 187(1) BGB, the day on which the event triggering the period occurs is not counted. If the parcel arrives on a Thursday, counting begins on the Friday. Under Section 188(1) BGB, the period ends at the end of the 14th day, i.e. at midnight.
If the last day falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, the end of the period moves to the next working day under Section 193 BGB. Important in practice: under Section 355(1) sentence 5 BGB, timely dispatch of the withdrawal is sufficient to meet the deadline. A letter posted on the last day meets the deadline, even if it only reaches you days later.
When the withdrawal period begins: start by type of contract
The start of the period is the point at which most misunderstandings arise in shops. For consumer sales, Section 356(2) BGB distinguishes four cases, and for services the basic rule from Section 355(2) sentence 2 BGB applies. The following overview summarises what this means for typical shop constellations. The full wording is provided by Section 356 BGB on gesetze-im-internet.de (in German).
| Type of contract | Start of the period | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Single item, one delivery | Receipt of the goods by the consumer or a third party named by them who is not the carrier | Section 356(2) no. 1 a BGB |
| Several items in one order, delivered separately | Receipt of the last item | Section 356(2) no. 1 b BGB |
| One item in several consignments or pieces | Receipt of the last consignment or the last piece | Section 356(2) no. 1 c BGB |
| Regular delivery over a fixed period (subscription) | Receipt of the first item | Section 356(2) no. 1 d BGB |
| Digital content not on a physical medium, electricity, gas, water, district heating | Conclusion of the contract | Section 356(2) no. 2 BGB |
| Services | Conclusion of the contract | Section 355(2) sentence 2 BGB |
Two details are decisive for the shop logic. First, receipt counts, not dispatch. Anyone who calculates the period from the dispatch date starts it too early. Second, a partial delivery postpones the start of the period for the entire order if the goods were ordered together. An order with an item delivered later therefore remains open to withdrawal for longer than one that arrives in a single parcel.
Extension if information is missing or incorrect
The 14 days only apply if you have informed the consumer properly. Under Section 356(3) BGB, the withdrawal period does not begin before the trader has informed the consumer in accordance with Art. 246a Section 1(2) sentence 1 no. 1 of the Introductory Act to the Civil Code (EGBGB). This provision requires information on the conditions, time limits and procedure for withdrawal as well as the model withdrawal form.
If the information is missing or incorrect, the period does not start at all. However, the contract does not remain open to withdrawal indefinitely: under Section 356(4) BGB, the right of withdrawal expires at the latest twelve months and 14 days after the regular start of the period. In the worst case, 14 days thus become a good year. For a retailer with seasonal goods, this is a real economic risk.
Then there is the competition law aspect. An incorrect or missing withdrawal notice violates statutory information obligations and is one of the classics of cease-and-desist letters in German e-commerce. What this can mean for you is explained in the glossary entry on the warning letter (Abmahnung). Anyone who sends the model withdrawal notice from Annex 1 to the EGBGB, correctly filled in, in text form meets the information obligation under Art. 246a Section 1(2) sentence 2 EGBGB.
When there is no right of withdrawal: exceptions under Section 312g(2) BGB
Not every distance contract can be withdrawn from. Section 312g(2) BGB lists thirteen groups of cases in which the right of withdrawal does not exist from the outset, unless the parties have agreed otherwise. For online shops, the following are particularly relevant:
- Custom-made goods that are not prefabricated and are produced according to the customer's specifications (no. 1), such as an engraved ring or a piece of furniture made to measure.
- Perishable goods or goods whose expiry date would quickly be exceeded (no. 2).
- Sealed hygiene or health products if the seal has been removed after delivery (no. 3).
- Sound or video recordings or software in sealed packaging after the seal has been removed (no. 6).
- Newspapers and magazines, with the exception of subscription contracts (no. 7).
- Leisure services with a fixed date, such as concert tickets, hotel bookings or hire cars for a specific period (no. 9).
A distinction must be made between these exceptions and early expiry. For services, the right of withdrawal expires under Section 356(5) BGB upon complete performance if the consumer has expressly agreed beforehand that you may begin before the period expires and has confirmed their knowledge of the expiry. Section 356(6) BGB provides correspondingly for digital content not on a physical medium. You must provide information on both under Art. 246a Section 1(3) EGBGB.
After withdrawal: return period and refund period
Once withdrawal has been declared, a second chain of deadlines begins. Under Section 357(1) BGB, the performances received must be returned at the latest after 14 days. For you as the trader, this period begins with receipt of the declaration of withdrawal; for the consumer, with its dispatch (Section 355(3) sentence 2 BGB). The consumer meets their deadline simply by sending the goods in time.
When refunding, you must also repay the cost of the original delivery, but only up to the amount of the cheapest standard delivery (Section 357(2) BGB). Repayment is generally made using the same means of payment that the customer used (Section 357(3) BGB). For the purchase of goods, under Section 357(4) BGB you may withhold the refund until the goods are back with you or the customer provides proof of dispatch.
The consumer only bears the direct costs of return if you have informed them of this beforehand (Section 357(5) BGB). For a loss in value due to use that goes beyond inspection, compensation may be due under Section 357a(1) BGB, again only if proper information has been given. You can find the text at Section 357 BGB on gesetze-im-internet.de (in German).
Distinctions: B2B business and voluntary return periods
B2B: no statutory right of withdrawal
If one company buys from another company, there is no statutory withdrawal period. Under Section 312(1) BGB, the rules of Sections 312 ff. BGB apply to consumer contracts. A B2B shop therefore does not have to offer a withdrawal notice or a cancellation button, provided it demonstrably addresses only traders.
It is precisely this "demonstrably" that is the catch. Anyone running their shop as a pure B2B shop should communicate this clearly and check it during registration, for example via the company name and VAT ID. Mixed shops that supply both private and business customers need the full programme for consumer orders. A contractual right of return for business customers is of course still possible, but only as a voluntary agreement.
Voluntarily extended return periods
Many retailers offer more than the statutory 14 days, such as 30 or 100 days for returns. A well-known example is Zalando: according to media reports, the fashion retailer shortened its return period from 100 to 30 days for orders from 7 January 2025. Both values are far above the statutory minimum.
Legally, the longer period is a contractual right of return that exists alongside the statutory right of withdrawal. You may set the conditions yourself, such as "only unworn, with label". However, the statutory right of withdrawal must not be watered down by this. The withdrawal notice and the return promise must be cleanly separated so that the customer can see which rights they have by law and which you grant voluntarily.
For your processes, an extended return period means that the economic period of limbo becomes longer than the legal one. If you link loyalty points or commissions to the end of the return option, you should base this on the longer of the two periods.
The withdrawal period and the cancellation button under Section 356a BGB
Since 19 June 2026, Section 356a BGB, the "electronic withdrawal function for distance contracts", has applied. Anyone concluding distance contracts via a website or app must provide a button labelled "Vertrag widerrufen" (withdraw from contract), through which the consumer can declare their withdrawal in two steps. Details of the process are described in the glossary entry on the cancellation button; the text of the law is provided by Section 356a BGB on gesetze-im-internet.de (in German).
The function is closely interlinked with the withdrawal period. Under Section 356a(1) sentence 3 BGB, it must be permanently available while the withdrawal period is running. Your shop therefore needs to know for each order whether the period is still running. Under Section 356a(5) BGB, the withdrawal is deemed to have been received in time if the customer sent it via the function before the period expired.
In addition, under Art. 246a Section 1(2) sentence 1 no. 1 EGBGB the withdrawal notice must now, where applicable, provide information on the existence and placement of the withdrawal function. A notice that conceals the button or places it in the wrong position can thus affect the start of the period under Section 356(3) BGB.
What the withdrawal period means for shop systems
As long as the withdrawal period is running, an order is not final. Everything linked to revenue is subject to reservation. For the technology, this means: you need a reliable end of the period for each order and processes that react to it. Typical places where this becomes relevant:
- Loyalty points and reward programmes. Points are booked as "pending" when the order is placed and only switched to "available" after the end of the period. If the customer withdraws, the pending booking is cancelled, instead of having to reclaim points that have already been redeemed.
- Commissions and affiliate payments. Partner commissions remain open until the order can no longer be withdrawn from and are only then released for payment.
- Settlements with partners and marketplace sellers. Credits and payouts to third parties sensibly only run after the end of the period, so that no reclaims are needed.
- Payment methods. With invoice payment, the payment term and withdrawal period overlap; a withdrawal before payment saves you the refund but requires a clean cancellation of open items.
The technical pitfall lies in the start of the period. The period starts with receipt of the goods, but many shop systems only know about dispatch. In Shopware 6, for example, the standard state machine for deliveries knows the states "open", "shipped", "shipped_partially", "returned", "returned_partially" and "cancelled", but no "delivered" state. This is shown by the Shopware developer documentation on the state machine.
Anyone who wants to calculate the end of the period exactly therefore needs the delivery date from the carrier's shipment tracking. Alternatively, you calculate conservatively: dispatch date plus maximum transit time plus 14 days plus a few days' buffer, because a withdrawal sent by post meets the deadline even if it only arrives later. For partial deliveries, the last consignment counts. Such logic belongs in the back end and in the e-commerce architecture, not in a spreadsheet in customer service.
A practical example
On Tuesday, 6 October 2026, a customer orders a jacket in three sizes and a tent from an outdoor shop. The shop awards one loyalty point per euro. The jackets arrive on Thursday, 8 October. The tent is not in stock and is delivered later, on Monday, 12 October. As everything belongs to one order, the period only begins with the tent under Section 356(2) no. 1 b BGB.
Under Section 187(1) BGB, 12 October is not counted. The withdrawal period therefore ends on Monday, 26 October 2026, at midnight. If the shop had calculated from the first delivery, it would have assumed Thursday, 22 October, and released the points four days too early. If the customer sends two jackets back, the corresponding pending points are cancelled; the rest switch to "available" after the end of the period plus a buffer.
And if the withdrawal notice was incorrect? Then the period would never have begun, and the right of withdrawal would only expire twelve months and 14 days after the regular start, i.e. in autumn 2027. That is why a correct withdrawal notice also matters for accounting.
Frequently asked questions about the withdrawal period
How long is the withdrawal period in online retail?
Under Section 355(2) BGB, it is 14 days. For the purchase of goods, it begins with receipt of the goods; for partial deliveries, with receipt of the last consignment; for services, with conclusion of the contract. If the end of the period falls on a weekend or public holiday, it moves to the next working day.
Does the day of delivery count?
No. Under Section 187(1) BGB, the day on which the goods arrive is not counted. The 14 days begin on the following day and end at the end of the 14th day.
What happens if the withdrawal notice is missing?
Then the period does not begin (Section 356(3) BGB). The right of withdrawal only expires at the latest twelve months and 14 days after the regular start of the period (Section 356(4) BGB). In addition, there is a risk of a warning letter under competition law.
Does the withdrawal period also apply to business customers?
No. The statutory right of withdrawal is only available to consumers. In B2B business there is no statutory right of withdrawal; however, a right of return can be agreed contractually.
How long do I have to refund the purchase price?
At the latest 14 days after receipt of the withdrawal (Section 357(1) BGB, Section 355(3) BGB). For the purchase of goods, you may withhold the refund until the goods are back or the customer provides proof of dispatch.
This entry gives a general overview of the legal situation in Germany and is no substitute for legal advice in individual cases. The provisions cited correspond to the status on gesetze-im-internet.de in October 2026. You can find the complete exceptions to the right of withdrawal in Section 312g BGB on gesetze-im-internet.de (in German).