The EU's new withdrawal button rule: what it means for your marketplace

If your marketplace has customers in the EU, the right of withdrawal is an important consumer protection rule you should be aware of.

EU consumer protection rules make sure that when someone buys goods or services in the EU, they have clear information about what they’re buying, how much it costs, shipping and delivery fees, and their rights if something goes wrong.

The right of withdrawal is about the last point. It guarantees customers are able to cancel a purchase and get refunded easily and without having to disclose a reason.

This article covers what exactly the right of withdrawal is, when the right of withdrawal applies, how marketplaces need to incorporate it in their user interface, and what to check to make sure that your marketplace adheres to it.

If you have a marketplace built on Sharetribe, here's how Sharetribe handles this: Understanding the right of withdrawal on your marketplace (https://www.sharetribe.com/help/en/articles/15654240-understanding-the-right-of-withdrawal-on-your-marketplace).

The right of withdrawal is an EU consumer rights protection rule that's been in force since 2014. Under the Consumer Rights Directive, a consumer who buys something at a distance (in practice, usually online or by phone) has 14 days to cancel the purchase without giving a reason, and usually at no cost. For physical goods, the 14-day cancellation period starts at delivery. For services, it starts when a contract is made. The seller then has 14 days to refund the customer after notice of the cancellation, but for physical goods, the trader can withhold the refund until they get the goods back or see proof of return shipment, whichever comes first.

The right of withdrawal is a business-to-consumer (B2C) protection. It hinges on whether the seller is a trader and the buyer is a consumer, not on whether the sale happened online. Since "trader" is the term used in the directive, we'll use it in this article to describe a professional seller or provider, as distinct from a private individual selling online.

Who counts as a trader isn’t always obvious. A trader is essentially anyone selling as part of a business activity, whether or not they're formally registered. Registered companies and individual entrepreneurs are the clearest examples, but a private person who sells regularly and at scale can count as a trader too, even without ever registering. The Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed this in Kamenova (C-105/17, 4 October 2018) : trader status depends on a case-by-case assessment of factors like regularity, organization, and profit motive, not on formal status, and even several simultaneous listings don't automatically make someone a trader.

The right of withdrawal affects all online marketplaces with customers in the EU, but the ways you need to facilitate it in your UI depend on who your sellers are and what they sell. Even if your customers don’t have the right of withdrawal, you’ll still need to communicate that to them clearly and explicitly.

Please note: We don’t have the resources to research the law for each individual EU state, so the lists below were compiled with the help of AI. Please take this article purely as directional guidance, and make sure to verify with a legal professional if you have any questions.

• When a trader sells to consumers, the legal obligation is to honor the right of withdrawal sits with the trader. In practice, the marketplace operator builds the mechanism, because sellers don't control the platform's interface or payment flow.
• On mixed marketplaces, where both professional traders and private individuals sell, the right applies to transactions with traders. You need to indicate clearly whether a seller is a trader or a private individual.
• You sell directly to consumers as the operator: your customers have the right of withdrawal with no ambiguity.

• When private individuals sell to each other (C2C/P2P marketplaces). The sellers aren’t acting as traders, but you still need to tell buyers that EU consumer protection rules, including the right of withdrawal, do not apply to purchases from these sellers.
• On mixed marketplaces, where both professional traders and private individuals sell, the right doesn’t apply to transactions with private individuals. You need to clearly indicate to customers if a seller is a private individual.

There are also exceptions regardless of whether the seller is a trader, based on the type of product that’s sold. Buyers of these products don’t have the right of withdrawal:

• Goods made to the consumer's specifications (custom work)
• Perishable goods like food, beverages, or plants
• Unsealed goods that can't be returned for health or hygiene reasons
• Date-specific services like accommodation or transport
• Some digital content once performance has started

Article 16 of the directive (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2011/83/oj/eng) has the complete list.

To summarize: If your marketplace is exclusively peer-to-peer, the right of withdrawal likely doesn’t apply, but you still need to disclose to buyers that no EU consumer protection rights apply to their purchase. If your marketplace has any traders, or you sell directly to your customers yourself, you also need to have a right of withdrawal button for the contracts where the right applies.

A trader who doesn't tell a consumer about the right of withdrawal before purchase risks a much longer withdrawal window under Article 10 of the original directive (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2011/83/oj/eng). Instead of customers having a 14-day period to withdraw a purchase, the withdrawal period can extend up to 12 months and 14 days. On top of the extended window, member states set their own fines for non-compliance. Below you'll find an overview per EU state.

[INSERT TABLE]

The Directive 2019/2161 added Article 6a to the Consumer Rights Directive. It requires the marketplace operator to tell the buyer, before the purchase or offer:

• Whether a seller self-declares as a professional trader or not (Article 6a(1)(b))
• When a seller does not self-declare as a professional trader, inform the buyer that no consumer rights or protection apply. (Article 6a(1)(c))

It has been in force since 28 May 2022.

Two things follow from this. First, you need to know whether a seller on your platform is a professional trader or an individual. Second, that information has to reach the buyer before they make a purchase. In practice, this means that the seller’s status has to be indicated on the listing or offer itself, not in a footer link or a terms page.

If a seller declares themselves a trader, that signals that the right of withdrawal applies to their listings. If they are an individual seller instead, the marketplace operator is required to tell the buyer, upfront, that no EU consumer protection rights apply to a purchase from that seller, right of withdrawal included.

The Directive 2023/2673 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2023/2673/oj/eng) added Article 11a into the Consumer Rights Directive. It requires a specific, standardized withdrawal mechanism on the same online interface where the contract was concluded. Put simply, your marketplace needs to have an easy-to-find way for customers to cancel their purchase.

Member states had to write the rule into national law by 19 December 2025, and it has applied since 19 June 2026. Here’s what the withdrawal mechanism has to do:

• The starting point to withdraw a purchase needs to be clear. The function "shall be labelled with the words 'withdraw from contract here' or an unambiguous corresponding formulation" (Article 11a(1)). A generic "returns" or "contact us" link doesn't meet this on its own.
• Capture the customer’s name, purchase details, and email. The withdrawal statement must let the consumer "easily provide or confirm... his or her name; details identifying the contract from which he or she wishes to withdraw; details of the electronic means by which the confirmation of the withdrawal will be sent" (Article 11a(2)).
• Have a clear confirmation step. Once the withdrawal statement is filled in, the consumer submits it "by means of a confirmation function," which "shall be labelled... only with the words 'confirm withdrawal' or with an unambiguous corresponding formulation" (Article 11a(3)).
• Send an acknowledgment automatically. Once the consumer confirms the withdrawal, the trader must send "an acknowledgement of receipt of the withdrawal on a durable medium, including its content and the date and time of its submission, without undue delay" (Article 11a(4)).
• Stay available the whole time. The function must be "continuously available throughout the withdrawal period" and "prominently displayed on the online interface and easily accessible to the consumer" (Article 11a(1)).

None of this replaces the underlying right. The update to the directive merely standardizes how a consumer exercises it online. Essentially, it makes cancelling as easy as ordering.

Six things apply to all marketplace founders with customers in the EU:

1. Your terms and policy pages have to state the right of withdrawal and how a buyer can exercise it.
2. Checkout and order confirmation messaging has to disclose the 14-day window before purchase, not after.
3. If your marketplace has private individuals as sellers, your buyers need to be clearly informed that the right of withdrawal does not apply to purchases from them before a purchase takes place.
4. A withdrawal mechanism has to be reachable throughout the 14 days. The buyer doesn’t have to hunt for or email support to find it.
5. You have a refund process where you can actually pay out within 14 days of receiving the withdrawal notice. That deadline runs from the notice, not from whenever it's convenient to process it. However, with physical goods, the trader may withhold the refund until the goods come back or the buyer shows proof of return shipment.
6. Buyers need a way to tell you which transaction they're withdrawing from. On a marketplace with many providers and many parallel orders, that's not always immediately clear, and it's worth checking before the first withdrawal comes in.

Beyond the above, here are two platform-level questions to determine how much work making your platform compliant actually is:

1. Can you disclose the right of withdrawal where the sale happens? You’re able to disclose the right of withdrawal on the listing or seller profile itself, not just on your generic marketplace terms page.

2. Can a buyer identify which contract they're withdrawing from, and does your mechanism capture that? This is good UX as well as the law: the withdrawal statement has to let the consumer "easily provide or confirm... details identifying the contract from which he or she wishes to withdraw" (Article 11a(2)(b)). Some marketplace platforms don't expose an order or transaction ID to buyers by default, which makes this requirement harder to satisfy cleanly, but still, it’s not optional.

If your platform doesn’t expose the order or transaction ID by default, a form-based mechanism can still work. For example, label the entry link "Withdraw from contract here" (or an unambiguous equivalent) and include:

• A field for the buyer's name
• A way to identify the order (a free-text description and date can work)
• A field for an email address, per Article 11a(2)
• The submit action, labeled "confirm withdrawal," per Article 11a(3);

Then, configure the confirmation email to echo back exactly what was submitted, with a timestamp, sent without undue delay, per Article 11a(4). Without even one of these pieces, your form will fall short of Article 11a, no matter how easy it is to find.

The right of withdrawal, the requirement to indicate a seller’s status as a professional trader or a private individual, and the withdrawal button requirement are all in effect for marketplaces with customers in the EU.

If you haven't reviewed your setup yet, start with two things: check whether your seller base is B2C, C2C, or mixed; and decide how a buyer will actually exercise the right of withdrawal on your marketplace.

This is EU consumer law, and enforcement details differ by member state. For anything beyond the general shape of the rule, talk to a local legal advisor, especially if a meaningful share of your sellers are professional traders.

See also: user data protection (https://www.sharetribe.com/academy/user-data-protection/) and DAC7 reporting requirements (https://www.sharetribe.com/academy/what-is-dac7/) for two other EU compliance topics that affect marketplace operators.

Generally, no. The right is a B2C consumer protection, so it applies when the seller is a professional trader. Purely peer-to-peer transactions between private individuals usually fall outside it. However, you still need to indicate to customers that transactions on your marketplace don’t have a right of withdrawal.

You risk being out of compliance with EU consumer protection law. For example, you’re exposed to an extended withdrawal window if consumers weren't properly informed. [TODO: add jurisdiction-specific penalty detail once confirmed]

No. If a buyer requests a refund under the right of withdrawal, you must refund the full payment.

No. The law requires the function to be "labelled with the words 'withdraw from contract here' or an unambiguous corresponding formulation" (Article 11a(1)). A dispute or complaint button is labeled, and designed, for something else. It doesn't meet this requirement on its own, regardless of where it sits in your interface.

Yes. Article 6a of the Consumer Rights Directive, in force since 2022 (a separate, earlier rule from the withdrawal-button requirement), requires marketplaces to disclose a seller's trader status before the buyer commits to the purchase, and to state that no consumer rights apply if the seller isn't a trader.

If you have a marketplace built on Sharetribe, here's how Sharetribe handles this: Understanding the right of withdrawal on your marketplace (https://www.sharetribe.com/help/en/articles/15654240-understanding-the-right-of-withdrawal-on-your-marketplace).