Accepting payments in the Netherlands and Belgium. 6 chapters and a final quiz.

Chapter 1. Building the payment list and costing it.

A Dutch checkout and a Belgian checkout are built differently, and neither one starts with cards. The lineup follows from two measurements, and only two. The first is the share of revenue each method actually carries in the delivery country. The second is what each method costs the merchant, order by order. The two never move in the same direction.

Cards are priced as a percentage of the amount, while local rails charge a flat fee per transaction, so the trade-off turns on order value, not volume. A furniture retailer and a coffee merchant looking at the same rate card will not make the same decision. The calculation that separates them fits in three lines, and you should rerun it with your own negotiated rates.

PUBLISHED PRICING USED               Mollie, Netherlands pricing, 2026
  iDEAL | Wero            0.32 EUR per transaction
  Bancontact              0.39 EUR per transaction
  EEA consumer card       1.80% + 0.25 EUR
  SEPA direct debit       0.35 EUR per transaction
  Outgoing SEPA transfer  0.25 EUR per transaction

BREAKEVEN POINT   order value above which the flat fee costs less
  iDEAL       1.80% x P + 0.25 = 0.32   ->   P = 3.89 EUR
  Bancontact  1.80% x P + 0.25 = 0.39   ->   P = 7.78 EUR

EXAMPLE   10,000 orders/year, average order 68 EUR (revenue 680,000 EUR)
  All card     10,000 x (1.80% x 68 + 0.25)  =  14,740 EUR
  All iDEAL    10,000 x 0.32                 =   3,200 EUR
                                                 ----------
  DIFFERENCE                                     11,540 EUR/year
                                                 1.70% of revenue

WHAT THE CALCULATION DOES NOT TELL YOU
  The cheapest rail is useless if it is not offered in the right
  position. An iDEAL button in fourth place does not capture 70% of
  orders. The savings come from the display order, not from the
  rate card.

• One payment method lineup per billing country, not per interface language: the Belgian and Dutch domains do not show the same first button
• Each method's price in euros per transaction, never a blended rate: blended pricing hides exactly the trade-off calculated above
• The refund fee schedule: cost of a card refund, cost of an outgoing transfer, and the cap on partial refunds and how many are allowed
• The Wero roadmap in writing, with API deprecation dates and the planned behavior after December 31, 2027
• Monthly brand-mix reporting on Belgian co-badged cards: without it, chapter 3 has no data to work with
• Both direct debit schemes, Core and B2B, plus mandate signing through bank authentication in the Netherlands

Chapter 2. Integrating iDEAL and preparing for Wero.

iDEAL is not a card, and your code needs to know that. There is no authorization to capture and no chargeback to fight, because the payment is a SEPA credit transfer executed within the buyer's own bank. What the merchant receives is not a revocable promise of funds but a firm confirmation of execution. Three consequences follow, and the state machine lays them out.

POST /webhooks/psp
  1. verify the signature (HMAC, one secret per endpoint)
  2. return 200 immediately, process asynchronously
  3. DO NOT trust the message body:
     fetch the payment with GET /payments/{id} before deciding
  4. idempotency: key = (payment_id, status)
     a replayed webhook has no additional effect
  5. if status = paid AND order not yet released -> release
     otherwise -> log and exit

WHAT TRIGGERS SHIPPING
  paid webhook, confirmed server to server  ->  YES
  buyer returning to return_url             ->  NO
  thank-you page displayed                  ->  NO

SESSION EXPIRY                   (Mollie, 2026)
  iDEAL        15 minutes
  Bancontact   1 hour
  on expiry: release the stock, keep the order,
  offer a new payment rather than a flat cancellation

Brands the contract and checkout must name correctlyIDiDEALWEWeroBABancontactAdyenMOMollieWorldline

• API deprecation dates, version by version, and how long both versions will run in parallel during the migration
• The planned behavior on January 1, 2028, when the ideal method no longer exists in the PSP's catalog
• The contractual fallback during the migration window: international debit cards online, SEPA direct debit for recurring payments
• Liability for service outages during the migration, and the escalation channel named in the contract
• What happens to deferred payments: the first phase of Wero does not cover them, and the iDEAL–in3 partnership was phased out during 2025

Chapter 3. Setting up Bancontact online and in store.

Bancontact is configured in three places, and a merchant who configures only one pays for it twice. Online, the decisive setting is the button's position; in store, it is brand priority on a co-badged card; on mobile, it is the type of QR code displayed. None of these three settings lives in the merchant's website code. All of them are set in the PSP, terminal, or POS configuration.

Opening a store in Belgium adds an obligation the Netherlands does not have. Since July 1, 2022, every business must offer consumers an electronic payment method, within a narrow scope: B2C, in euros, with both parties physically present at the same time. Noncompliance is a level 2 offense, punishable by a criminal fine of €26 to €10,000. The obligation covers the offer, not the equipment. A mobile app is enough; an unplugged terminal is not.

• A static QR code does not carry the amount. It identifies the payee, not the transaction: reconciliation then relies on a reference, or does not happen at all
• A dynamic QR code carries the amount and a reference. It is the only kind that allows automatic reconciliation, at the register or on an invoice
• Meal vouchers, eco-vouchers, and consumption vouchers do not satisfy the Belgian requirement to offer an electronic method; virtual currencies are explicitly excluded
• Offering electronic payment does not entitle a merchant to refuse banknotes. Cash payments remain acceptable, up to a €3,000 limit under the 2017 anti-money laundering law
• Outside Belgium, the Bancontact brand does not exist. A Belgian cardholder shopping on a foreign site pays with the co-badged international brand, through the full card flow
• itsme (Belgian Mobile ID SA/NV, 2017) handles part of strong customer authentication in Belgium: confirm the integration with your PSP; do not assume it

Chapter 4. Building card-free recurring payments: incasso and domiciliëring.

A Dutch subscription billed to a credit card will not renew, for a simple arithmetic reason. Credit cards carry about 14% of Dutch e-commerce and are concentrated in travel, so six customers in seven have no card to store. In both countries, recurring payments run on SEPA direct debit, called incasso in the Netherlands and domiciliëring in Belgium. The interbank mechanism is the same; the way the mandate is obtained is not.

TIMELINE OF A DUE DATE               SDD rules, valid in NL and BE
  D-14   pre-notification to the debtor: amount + due date
         a dated schedule with amounts counts as pre-notification
         for every line on it
  D-14   earliest permitted submission
  D-1    latest submission, on a business day
  D      payer's account debited
  D+8w   end of the NO-QUESTIONS-ASKED refund right (SDD Core)
  D+13m  end of the refund right if the mandate is missing
         or invalid

WHAT SEPARATES THE TWO SCHEMES
  CORE   consumer AND business debtors
         8-week refund, no reason given, no investigation
         no prior mandate registration
  B2B    business debtors ONLY
         no refund right
         mandate REGISTERED in advance by the debtor's bank,
         and checked by it: otherwise the batch is rejected

REQUIRED WORDING ON A BELGIAN MANDATE
  the word "SEPA"
  the words "European Direct Debit" or "European Direct Debit B2B"
  the legal clauses, both parties' details,
  the IBAN, the purpose of the contract, the account holder's signature

• Banks do not check whether a collection is justified. They execute it. Managing, storing, and proving the mandate falls to the creditor alone
• Debtor filters exist in Belgium: list of authorized creditors, maximum amount, maximum frequency. They trigger an SL01, never a technical incident
• An immediate first payment validates the account. Collecting via iDEAL or Bancontact before starting recurring billing reduces rejects on the first installment
• The Dutch Acceptgiro was discontinued in mid-2023. A payment slip found in an old collections file can no longer be collected: its successors are direct debit and QR codes
• An SDD refund is not a chargeback. There is no evidence to submit, no arbitration, and no response deadline: the debit is simply reversed. Your defense is built beforehand, through the quality of the mandate

Chapter 5. Handling returns and refunds on rails with no refund.

The right of withdrawal is European, but the refund path is national, and Benelux integrations break at that seam. A Dutch buyer sends back a package, and the merchant must refund every payment received, including delivery costs, within 14 days. The original payment was an iDEAL credit transfer, and that rail has no refund function. So the refund takes the form of an outgoing transfer, to an IBAN you must have kept on file.

“The same payment method” does not mean “the same button.” On a credit transfer rail, a refund is a transfer in the opposite direction, executed by the PSP using the account details stored at payment. Mollie documents a window of 365 days after the transaction, for full and partial refunds, on both iDEAL and Bancontact. After that, the refund falls outside the automated process and becomes a manual transfer, and the customer has to be asked for their IBAN again.

• A BNPL payment is not refunded by bank transfer. The refund goes through the BNPL provider, which holds the receivable: refunding directly means paying twice
• An order canceled in full triggers a refund of delivery costs under Article 13: building this into the credit note engine avoids a dispute on every return
• An IBAN that changed between purchase and return falls outside the automated path. The refund becomes a manual transfer, with the name-IBAN pair collected and verified
• Refund costs are set in the contract up front: outgoing transfer fees, card refund fees, and the cap on partial refunds and how many are allowed
• A disputed direct debit does not call for a commercial refund. On an MD06, the debit has already been reversed: refunding again doubles the loss

Chapter 6. Handling intra-EU VAT, displayed prices, and corrections.

The price shown to a consumer includes tax, and the rate depends on the destination country. So the same selling price does not leave the same margin in Amsterdam and in Antwerp. The mechanism is simple to state and tedious to build. Above a single threshold of €10,000 in distance sales across the entire EU, VAT is due in the customer's country. The threshold is measured excluding tax and aggregated across all intra-EU sales. It is easy to cross.

The difference shows in the last row: a product taxed at the reduced rate in both countries leaves €0.52 more in Belgium at the same displayed price. Across 100,000 units sold, that gap reaches €52,000. The catalog therefore has two options: align the displayed price and accept a margin that varies by country, or align the margin and publish two prices. The choice is a marketing decision; it is implemented in the pricing engine.

AT CHECKOUT   in this order, and no other
  1. DESTINATION country of the goods (delivery), not billing country
  2. customer status: B2C, or B2B with a valid VAT number
  3. rate that applies to the product in that country
  4. displayed price = price excl. VAT x (1 + rate)

INTRA-EU B2B   reverse charge
  condition: customer's VAT number VALID at the time of sale
  check:     VIES lookup, timestamped and archived
  effect:    invoice without VAT, tax self-assessed by the customer
  if the number is NOT valid -> the sale is treated as B2C
  never apply 0% just because a number was entered

RETURNS AND CREDIT NOTES
  the refund executed by the PSP corrects NOTHING on the VAT side
  the correction goes in the Union scheme return,
  which is quarterly
  the credit note must be linked to the original sale:
  same order reference, same destination country

• The destination country is where the goods are delivered, not the card's country or the billing address. A Belgian customer receiving delivery in the Netherlands pays the Dutch rate
• A VAT number is verified, not just entered. Archive the VIES lookup with its timestamp: that is what justifies the reverse charge in an audit
• The OSS return and the PSP settlement do not reconcile on their own. One works by country and quarter, the other by settlement batch and payment method
• The €10,000 threshold applies across the entire EU, not just the Netherlands and Belgium. Opening a third country automatically brings you closer to it
• Crossing the threshold mid-year changes the rate mid-year. The pricing engine must be able to switch without a redeployment, and the catalog must keep up