Shopify NDRP: What It Means and How to Get Out of It

What NDRP is

The Network Dispute Resolution Program, or NDRP, is an account action Shopify applies to some stores on Shopify Payments. Card networks set limits on how many chargebacks a merchant can have. When a store goes past those limits, or looks likely to, Shopify can enroll it in NDRP.

Once a store is enrolled, its disputes stop following the normal chargeback path. Shopify resolves them automatically, before they turn into formal chargebacks. The customer gets the full order amount back. The merchant pays a fee for each resolved dispute.

That sounds like a convenience. It is not. NDRP is a containment measure. It exists to stop a high dispute rate from turning into a bigger problem with the card networks, and it takes several tools away from you while it runs.

Why a store gets enrolled

Shopify describes two routes into the program.

• Automatic enrollment. A store with a chargeback rate of 1.5% or higher over the last 90 days is enrolled automatically. Stores below a minimum order volume are excluded. Shopify does not publish that minimum on its help page.
• Account review. Shopify runs regular reviews. A review can place a store in the program if it finds elevated chargeback risk, based on factors such as dispute history and business practices. This route does not need the 1.5% line to be crossed.

You get a notification when you are enrolled. If you have been terminated from Shopify Payments, you can still be enrolled after a review of past transactions. In that case, disputes on orders processed before termination are auto-resolved with a fee. Disputes on orders created after termination are not eligible and follow the regular chargeback process.

The underlying causes are usually familiar. Customers who do not recognize the charge on their statement. Parcels that arrive late or not at all. Products that do not match the listing. Refund or cancellation policies that are hard to find. Support inboxes that go quiet. Plus actual card fraud that got through checkout.

What changes once you are enrolled

Shopify documents five changes. It is worth reading them as a set, because together they shift both cash flow and control.

• Disputes are resolved automatically. The customer is reimbursed the full order amount.
• No evidence and no appeal. There is no evidence submission window. Shopify states the outcome is final and cannot be appealed or reversed through Shopify.
• A fee per resolved dispute. The fee depends on your country or region. Shopify lists it in a table on the NDRP help page. Examples it gives include $15 USD in the United States, £10 GBP in the United Kingdom, €15 EUR in Germany and $25 AUD in Australia. Some countries add VAT. The fee for each case appears on the order details page in your admin.
• A 10% reserve on payouts. Shopify holds 10% of Shopify Payments payouts. The terms are sent by email. The reserve can be lifted early if you exit the program.
• Possible escalation. If your 90-day rate stays above 1% after the initial reserve expiration date, further reserves or payout holds may apply. Shopify does not state the length of the initial reserve period on the help page. It is in the terms you receive.

	Standard Shopify Payments chargeback	Dispute under NDRP
Can you submit evidence?	Yes, within the deadline Shopify shows you	No evidence window
Can you win the money back?	Yes, if the issuer rules for you	No. The outcome is final
Fee	Chargeback fee by country, returned if you win	Per-dispute fee by country
Payout impact	Disputed amount and fee deducted	Full refund to customer plus a 10% payout reserve
Counts in the NDRP rate?	Yes	Yes

To find resolved disputes, open Orders and filter by "Chargeback and inquiry status" set to "Resolved".

The practical result: inside NDRP, representment stops being a lever. Every dispute that reaches the program costs you the order value plus a fee, with no way to argue it. The only way to lower that cost is to have fewer disputes reach the program in the first place.

How the NDRP-inclusive rolling 90-day rate works

Shopify tracks an NDRP-inclusive rate over a rolling 90-day window. It counts three kinds of events:

• standard chargebacks,
• disputes automatically resolved under NDRP,
• disputes you won.

That last item surprises people. Winning a chargeback recovers the money, but the dispute still happened, so it still counts. You cannot argue your way out of the rate. You can only prevent disputes from being filed.

The default chargeback rate in your admin also includes NDRP disputes. To watch it, go to Analytics, then Reports, and open "Rolling 90-day chargeback rate (NDRP)". Shopify does not publish the exact formula on the NDRP page, so treat that report as the source of truth rather than a number you calculate yourself.

Two features of a rolling window matter for planning.

• It lags. Customers can dispute weeks after they order. A fix you ship today protects orders placed from today, but disputes from older orders can keep arriving for a while. Expect the rate to respond slowly.
• Old disputes roll off. Every day, the oldest day in the window drops out. If you stop new disputes from entering, the rate falls on its own as the bad period ages out.

How to exit the program

Shopify's exit rule is specific. Your rate must drop below 1.00% and stay there for 30 consecutive days, while you are still processing on Shopify Payments. If you have been suspended or terminated from Shopify Payments, you may not be eligible to exit.

Note the gap between the two numbers. You can be enrolled automatically at 1.5%, but you exit only below 1.00%. A store that drifts back to 1.2% is no longer at the enrollment line, but it is not out either. And after the initial reserve expires, staying above 1% can bring more reserves or holds.

So the target is not "get under 1.5%". It is "get under 1%, hold it for a month, and keep it there".

A practical plan to bring the rate down

There are two jobs. Stop disputes that are about to be filed. Then remove the reasons customers dispute at all.

Job one: catch disputes before they are filed. Chargeback alert networks exist for exactly this. Ethoca Alerts, from Mastercard, pass confirmed fraud and customer dispute cases from participating issuers to the merchant in near real time, so the merchant can stop fulfillment and refund. Verifi's CDRN pauses a dispute for 72 hours and lets the merchant issue a credit before it becomes a chargeback. Visa's Rapid Dispute Resolution, or RDR, resolves pre-disputes automatically against rules the merchant sets in advance.

The idea is simple. A refund issued in response to an alert closes the case before a dispute exists. That is the one outcome that keeps a case out of a dispute count. Shopify's NDRP page does not address alert refunds directly, so confirm with Shopify Support how a given alert type is reflected in your NDRP rate before you plan around it.

Alerts have limits. Coverage depends on which issuers take part. Speed matters, because the issuer can still file if you do not act inside the window. And alerts do nothing for disputes that never touch a card network.

Job two: fix the root causes. Shopify's own prevention guidance points at the same handful of things most stores get wrong.

1. Make the billing descriptor recognizable. Shopify advises that your statement text should be easy for customers to recognize, using your store name or domain. An unfamiliar descriptor turns a real purchase into a "fraud" report.
2. Review risky orders before you ship. Investigate suspicious orders before fulfillment. For physical goods shipped to the US, UK or Canada, Shopify suggests shipping only orders that pass an AVS check, or contacting the customer first when the address fails.
3. Ship with tracking and delivery confirmation. Use online tracking and delivery confirmation when you can. Send the tracking link to the customer. A customer who can see where the parcel is rarely calls the bank.
4. Put policies where people look. Make return, refund and cancellation terms easy to find on the store, at checkout and in confirmation emails. Clear terms help prevent "credit not processed" and subscription disputes.
5. Answer support fast. Make contact details easy to find and respond quickly. Refund accidental double charges right away. A customer who gets a reply usually does not go to the bank.
6. Read your disputes by reason. Group the last 90 days by reason code and product. If most are "not received", it is a shipping problem. If most are "unrecognized" or fraud, it is a descriptor or checkout risk problem. Fix the biggest bucket first.
7. Turn on alerts and act on them the same day. Connect the alert networks that cover your card mix, and make sure every alert gets a decision inside its window.

None of this works in a week. Because the window is 90 days and disputes lag orders, plan for a quarter, and watch the NDRP report rather than daily dispute counts.

Where Recoup fits

Recoup matches Ethoca, RDR and CDRN alerts to the exact Shopify order and refunds inside the alert window, so cases are closed before they become disputes. Disputes that still arrive outside NDRP are fought with evidence pulled from the store, carrier tracking, risk signals and customer conversations, filed automatically or after your approval.