Overview
- The electronic Widerrufsbutton became law on Friday, June 19, 2026, after the Bundestag and Bundesrat approved implementation of an EU directive as §356a of the BGB.
- The function must be easy to find, available for the full 14-day withdrawal period, work without a login or extra app, follow a two-step confirmation flow, and deliver an immediate receipt such as an email.
- The obligation covers most B2C online sales of goods, services and many financial products while standard exceptions remain for perishable items, opened sealed media, sealed hygiene products, customised goods and many travel tickets or services.
- Marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay bear responsibility for providing the button on listings, and trade groups warn that smaller merchants face implementation costs and risks of abuse like bots placing and mass-withdrawing orders.
- The Widerrufsbutton comes with wider consumer-law changes that cut some paper duties and limit long-standing withdrawal windows for certain financial products, and regulators and consumer groups say enforcement and warnings (Abmahnungen) will follow to ensure compliance.