Right to Withdraw (EU Cooling-Off Period)

The Right to Withdraw automation helps you comply with the European Union’s statutory cooling-off period for online (distance) and off-premises sales. When enabled, eligible EU customers can withdraw from their purchase and return their order for a refund, directly from the Corso customer portal.

This article is the authoritative reference for how Corso implements the right of withdrawal. It is intended to help you configure the automation correctly. It is not legal advice — consult your own counsel for guidance specific to your business.

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Legal Basis

The right of withdrawal is established by the EU Consumer Rights Directive (Directive 2011/83/EU) and applies across all 27 EU member states. For distance and off-premises contracts, consumers may withdraw from a purchase within 14 calendar days, without giving any reason and without justification.

• Goods — the 14-day period starts the day after the customer (or a third party they nominate) receives the goods. For an order delivered in multiple shipments, it starts the day after the last item is received.
• Services & digital content — the period generally starts the day after the contract is agreed.
• Deadlines on non-working days — the period is counted in calendar days, but per the European Commission, “If the cooling-off period expires on a non-working day, your deadline is extended until the next working day.” This working-day extension is a requirement of the right, not an optional courtesy.
• Returning the goods — after notifying the merchant of their decision to withdraw, the customer has a further 14 days to send the goods back.
• Refunds — the merchant must refund within 14 days of being informed of the withdrawal, including the standard delivery cost of the original order. The merchant may withhold the refund until the goods are received back (or the customer provides proof of return).

Authoritative source

Corso’s implementation follows the European Commission’s official guidance on the right of withdrawal. For the definitive legal text, see the EU’s Your Europe — Returns and refunds page and Directive 2011/83/EU.

Who pays for return shipping?

By default, the customer is responsible for the direct cost of returning the goods, unless the merchant has agreed to bear that cost or failed to inform the customer that they would be responsible for it before purchase. Where an item is defective, the merchant is responsible for the return shipping cost. See How Corso handles return shipping below. You shoulld ensure that this is fully outlined on your site so that a customer is made aware of any obligations they or you have in accordance with EU law.

When the right does not apply

The right of withdrawal does not apply to certain categories, including:

• Custom-made or clearly personalized goods
• Perishable goods or goods with a short expiry
• Goods unsealed after delivery that are not suitable for return on hygiene or health grounds
• Sealed audio/video recordings or software that have been unsealed
• Digital content already downloaded or streamed (where the customer expressly consented and acknowledged losing the right)
• Goods whose price depends on financial-market fluctuations
• Newspapers and magazines (except subscriptions)
• Transport, accommodation, car rental, and leisure bookings for a specific date
• Urgent repairs or maintenance the customer specifically requested

12-month extension

If the merchant does not inform the customer of their right of withdrawal, the withdrawal period is extended by up to 12 months from the end of the original 14-day period. If the merchant provides the missing information at any point during those 12 months, a fresh 14-day period begins from the day the customer receives that information.

Surfacing the right clearly — which the Right to Withdraw automation does in the customer portal — is what keeps the period at the standard 14 days. The automation is your primary safeguard against triggering the extension.

Handling the extended window in Corso

The Right to Withdraw automation itself uses the 14-calendar-day + working-day extension window described above. To operationally honor a longer window for EU shoppers — for example, to provide a buffer against the 12-month extension, or simply to offer a more generous EU policy — use Corso’s Return and Warranty Eligibility rules, which let you adjust return, store-credit, exchange, and warranty windows for a targeted set of orders.

1. Create a Return or Warranty Eligibility rule in the Automations engine.
2. Add an Order country condition targeting the EU member states you want to cover (the same 27 countries listed above). Order country is a built-in condition — see Building Automation Rules.
3. Set the eligibility window to the longer duration you want to honor for those countries (for example, an extended return window or warranty duration).
4. Use rule priority so this EU rule takes precedence over your shorter default policy when both could apply.

Caution

Return/warranty eligibility windows and the statutory right of withdrawal are separate mechanisms. Configuring a country-targeted eligibility rule is a way to operationally offer a longer window in Corso; it does not, by itself, satisfy the legal obligation to inform customers of the withdrawal right. Always confirm your approach with your own legal counsel.

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How Corso Handles It

Eligibility conditions

When you add the Right to Withdraw automation, Corso automatically applies a required condition that the order’s destination country is in the EU. The automation only offers withdrawal to orders shipping to one of the 27 member states:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

You can add further conditions (for example, by product or order tag), but the EU country condition is required and cannot be removed.

How the withdrawal window is calculated

Corso determines whether an order is still within its cooling-off period from the order’s most recent delivery date (the latest delivered fulfillment on the order). The window follows the statutory 14 calendar days, with a working-day extension when the deadline lands on a day that can’t be used:

Delivery dates must be synced to the order

The withdrawal window is calculated entirely from the delivery date recorded on each fulfillment of the Shopify order. Corso does not generate this date — it relies on your fulfillment provider, carrier, or shipping app to sync and propagate accurate delivery dates back to the Shopify order.

If delivery dates are missing, delayed, or inaccurate on the order, the automation cannot calculate the window correctly — eligible customers may not be offered withdrawal, and ineligible orders may be shown it. An order with no recorded delivery date will not surface the withdrawal option at all.

It is the merchant’s responsibility to ensure delivery dates are reliably synced to Shopify orders. Corso is not liable for incorrect eligibility resulting from missing, delayed, or inaccurate delivery data supplied by third-party fulfillment or tracking providers.

1. Start from the most recent delivery date on the order.
2. Count forward 14 calendar days.
3. If that end date falls on a non-working day — a weekend or a public holiday in the customer’s country — roll it forward to the next working day. This implements the EU rule that a deadline expiring on a non-working day extends to the next working day.

If the current date is on or before that computed end date, the order is eligible and the withdrawal option is shown to the customer.

Holiday-aware by country

The working-day extension is part of the right itself — “If the cooling-off period expires on a non-working day, your deadline is extended until the next working day.” Corso applies this per destination country using a holiday calendar for all 27 EU member states (public, bank, observance, optional, and school holidays). So a customer in France and a customer in Poland can have different effective deadlines for the same order, based on their local holiday calendar.

The customer experience

1. An eligible customer opens their order in the portal and chooses to withdraw.
2. They verify the shipping address Corso will use for the return.
3. They confirm whether one or more items are defective.
4. Corso creates a return claim for the entire order (all line items, as a refund) and quotes return shipping.

Because a withdrawal returns the whole order, customers who only want to send back some items are directed to start a standard return instead.

The withdrawal process must be made clear to customers as well. This is generally understood to mean having a link that states “Withdraw from Contract”, which initiates the return process (i.e. points them to a return portal). The legislative language is generally interpreted to mean that a link in the footer where it is accessible to all pages, is acceptable.

Return shipping and defective items

When the customer indicates an item is defective, Corso records the reason as “Defective – Right to Withdraw” and the merchant absorbs the return shipping cost (the quoted label cost is applied as merchant-paid). For non-defective withdrawals, the reason is recorded as “Not Defective – Right to Withdraw” and return shipping follows your standard return-shipping configuration.

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Setting It Up

1. Go to Automations and create a new Right to Withdraw rule.
2. Confirm the EU country condition is present (added automatically) and add any additional conditions you need.
3. Set the Title and Description shown to customers in the portal. The description is a good place to summarize the customer’s rights and link to your own policy.
4. Save and enable the rule.

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FAQs

Q: Does the withdrawal window use calendar days or business days? Calendar days. The statutory period is 14 calendar days, extended to the next working day if it expires on a non-working day. Corso counts 14 calendar days from the most recent delivery date and, if that deadline lands on a weekend or a public holiday in the customer’s country, rolls it forward to the next working day. This satisfies the working-day extension the law requires.

Q: Which delivery date is used if an order ships in multiple packages? The most recent delivery date on the order. This matches the Directive, where the period for a multi-shipment order starts after the last item is received.

Q: What happens to return shipping costs? If the customer marks an item as defective, the merchant pays for return shipping. Otherwise, return shipping follows your standard return-shipping settings.

Q: Can a customer withdraw only part of an order? No. A withdrawal returns the entire order for a refund. Customers who want to return only some items should start a standard return instead.

Q: Why don’t I see the withdrawal option on a non-EU order? The automation requires the order’s destination country to be in the EU. Orders shipping outside the 27 member states are not eligible.