What’s the true cost of a chargeback in 2025?

Each disputed transaction costs FIs $9.08 to $10.32 to process. Multiplied by an estimated 261 million chargebacks generated annually in 2025, this represents trillions of dollars of total expenditures across all FIs each year. When a merchant receives a chargeback, they’re not only faced with the cost of managing the dispute, but also may absorb the cost of the associated merchandise or service, if it was already provided. So, for merchants, the cost of a chargeback depends largely on the chargeback amount. And those amounts vary considerably by industry and region: