If it is not appropriate to accept the dispute or work with your end-customer to withdraw the dispute, please follow these steps to enter the dispute process and submit your evidence:
Dispute process
When a dispute is opened by a customer with their bank, the following events occur (in order):
The customer’s bank notifies Stripe of the dispute.
The bank automatically deducts the disputed amount and a dispute processing fee from Stripe.
Stripe removes the funds from the merchant’s Stripe account balance to cover the dispute deduction.
Stripe notifies the account owner of the dispute, passing along all information received from the bank related to the dispute via the Dashboard and over email.
Once the dispute is opened and the funds have been deducted, the merchant has the opportunity to submit evidence in order to prove the charge was legitimate and potentially overturn the dispute.
Submitting evidence
If you believe the dispute is in error and want to challenge it, you can upload evidence supporting why the payment was valid through the Dashboard or via the API. When you formally submit evidence, Stripe will immediately send the evidence to the cardholder’s bank for review.
Some things to keep in mind about submitting dispute evidence:
Banks only review evidence once, so evidence can only be submitted once. Use the Save for later button to return to the submission process if there is more you want to add later (before the submission deadline).
You will want to tailor the evidence submission to the type of dispute it is. We have a comprehensive guide with suggestions for what to submit broken out by type of dispute.
The bank will make a decision somewhere between 60-75 days after the evidence due date. The decision is the bank’s alone and the outcome is final.
If the dispute is decided in your favor, the funds will be returned to your Stripe balance, including the dispute fee.
You can also accept a dispute if the cardholder's dispute was valid - at this point, the customer has already received their refund via the dispute process. Accepting a dispute is not considered an admission of wrongdoing and is sometimes the most appropriate response.