The short answer
Once a cardholder files a dispute, the issuing bank sends notification through the card network to your acquirer, who sends it to you. From that moment, you have a defined window — typically 7–20 calendar days, set by the acquirer within the network's maximum — to respond with representment evidence.
In plain English
Miss the deadline and the case auto-resolves in the cardholder's favor. You keep the fee, lose the funds, and the dispute counts against your ratio. Responding in time doesn't guarantee you win — but not responding guarantees you lose.
The network maximums
- Visa — 30 days from notification to submit representment.
- Mastercard — 45 days from notification.
- Amex — 20 days from notification.
- Discover — 30 days.
Your acquirer usually shortens these further so they can submit upstream on time. Stripe gives you 7–20 days depending on the dispute reason. Adyen gives 8–20. Braintree gives 10–14.
What operators need to know
- The clock starts at acquirer notification, not issuer filing — there's often a 1–3 day lag.
- Weekends count — a dispute notified Friday is 2 days gone by Monday morning.
- Amex is aggressive at 20 days and doesn't accept late submissions.
- Missing the deadline can't be appealed — "I was on vacation" is not a defense.
- Automated intake is critical — webhook or email alert + ticketing workflow, not "someone checks the dashboard sometimes."
- Pre-arbitration windows are shorter — often 10 days, and also auto-resolve against you if missed.
Numbers to know
Industry studies show 30–50% of e-commerce merchants miss at least one dispute deadline per month. At a dispute fee of $15 plus the transaction loss, a single missed $100 order costs $115. Scaled to a 50-dispute-month portfolio, missing even 10% is $575/mo of preventable loss plus the hit to your dispute win rate.
Why multi-brand operators care
Each brand on its own gateway has its own notification channel. Without a unified dispute inbox, it's easy for one brand's disputes to slip while the others are handled cleanly. Aggregating dispute alerts into a single queue at the parent level is the cheapest possible fix.