Your refund deadline runs from the day you were told, not the day you process it

Where the cancellation right applies, each of those three moves lands on a different paragraph of a single regulation, and the deadline they were all measured against started on the day the message arrived rather than the day the restaurant got round to it. Since 6 April 2025 those Regulations have sat on the statutory list of enactments the Competition and Markets Authority can enforce directly, so a house refund policy is no longer only a matter between one restaurant and one guest.

Part 3 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 holds the cancellation right, and its first line is a condition, not a grant. Regulation 27(1): "This Part applies to distance and off-premises contracts between a trader and a consumer, subject to paragraphs (2) and (3) and regulations 6 and 28."

Regulation 28 is the door. It opens "This Part does not apply as regards the following—", and the limb restaurants reach for is 28(1)(h): "the supply of accommodation, transport of goods, vehicle rental services, catering or services related to leisure activities, if the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance."

Regulation 28(1) removes the whole Part from the outset, so where it applies there was never a cancellation right and nothing downstream engages — regulations 33 to 38 included. Regulation 28(3) is drafted differently, and opens: "The rights conferred by this Part cease to be available in the following circumstances—" — rights that existed and then stopped on a stated event.

Whether a particular contract satisfies 28(1)(h) turns on what the order screen recorded, worked through in the Journal piece on delivery time and risk on a direct order. What follows assumes the Part applies.

Regulation 29(1) is the right itself, and it names its exceptions: "The consumer may cancel a distance or off-premises contract at any time in the cancellation period without giving any reason, and without incurring any liability except under these provisions—". The four listed are regulations 34(3), 34(9), 35(5) and 36(4). Anything charged to a cancelling guest has to sit inside that closed list.

Regulation 33(1) is the hinge, and both limbs matter: "If a contract is cancelled under regulation 29(1)— (a) the cancellation ends the obligations of the parties to perform the contract, and (b) regulations 34 to 38 apply."

How long the guest has depends on what kind of contract a prepaid experience is.

Regulation 30(2), quoted whole because its opening limbs are a disjunction: "If the contract is— (a) a service contract, or (b) a contract for the supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium, the cancellation period ends at the end of 14 days after the day on which the contract is entered into."

Regulation 30(3), also whole: "If the contract is a sales contract and none of paragraphs (4) to (6) applies, the cancellation period ends at the end of 14 days after the day on which the goods come into the physical possession of— (a) the consumer, or (b) a person, other than the carrier, identified by the consumer to take possession of them."

The gap is large. On the service reading, a September dinner bought in March is out of the window by the end of March. On the sales reading the clock has not started. No court decision characterising a restaurant meal either way was located for this article, and neither is presented as settled here.

Two provisions move the same clock. Regulation 31(3) turns a paperwork omission into a further year of exposure: where the paragraph (l) cancellation information was not provided in accordance with Part 2 and is not supplied later, "Otherwise the cancellation period ends at the end of 12 months after the day on which it would have ended under regulation 30."

Regulation 32(5) fixes which date counts for whether the cancellation was in time — a different question from when the reimbursement clock starts: "Where the consumer informs the trader under paragraph (2) by sending a communication, the consumer is to be treated as having cancelled the contract in the cancellation period if the communication is sent before the end of the period."

Regulation 34(4) sets the standard: "Reimbursement must be without undue delay, and in any event not later than the time specified in paragraph (5) or (6)." The outer limit is a backstop, not a target.

Paragraph (5) is the sales-contract route where goods go back. Paragraph (6) catches everything else: "Otherwise, the time is the end of 14 days after the day on which the trader is informed of the consumer's decision to withdraw the offer or cancel the contract, in accordance with regulation 32." That cross-reference is the current text, substituted by regulation 7 of the Consumer Contracts (Amendment) Regulations 2015 and recorded by legislation.gov.uk as applied.

For a prepaid experience with no goods to send back, paragraph (6) is the operative one, and its trigger is being informed — not the payment run, not a manager's approval, not the day the payment provider settles.

Regulation 34(1) fixes the amount: "The trader must reimburse all payments, other than payments for delivery, received from the consumer, subject to paragraph (10)." Paragraphs (2) and (3) bring delivery payments back, capped at the least expensive common and generally acceptable kind offered.

Regulation 34(7) fixes the route: "The trader must make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as the consumer used for the initial transaction, unless the consumer has expressly agreed otherwise." A credit note or a gift voucher is what the exception at the end of that sentence contemplates, not a default the restaurant may pick.

Regulation 34(8) carries no reasonableness qualifier: "The trader must not impose any fee on the consumer in respect of the reimbursement." Card charges, an administration fee, a percentage for the trouble: the paragraph does not distinguish.

One deduction is allowed, confined to goods: paragraph (9) lets a trader recover the amount by which goods are diminished by consumer handling beyond what is necessary to establish their nature, characteristics and functioning. Paragraph (11) removes even that where the paragraph (l) information was not provided in accordance with Part 2.

A restaurant relying on regulation 28(1)(h) has stepped outside Part 3, not outside the Regulations. Regulation 13(1) still applies to a distance contract: its first limb requires the Schedule 2 information in a clear and comprehensible manner appropriate to the means of distance communication used; its second is conditional — "(b) if a right to cancel exists, must give or make available to the consumer a cancellation form as set out in part B of Schedule 3." So where regulation 28(1) has removed the Part, no model cancellation form is due. Schedule 2 paragraph (l) — "where a right to cancel exists, the conditions, time limit and procedures for exercising that right in accordance with regulations 27 to 38" — is conditional in the same way. Paragraph (o) is not, and names regulation 28 on its face: "where under regulation 28, 36 or 37 there is no right to cancel or the right to cancel may be lost, the information that the consumer will not benefit from a right to cancel, or the circumstances under which the consumer loses the right to cancel".

Regulation 19(1) makes an offence out of two elements, and both are quoted: "A trader is guilty of an offence if the trader enters into an off-premises contract to which regulation 10 applies but fails to give the consumer the information listed in paragraph (l), (m) or (n) of Schedule 2 in accordance with that regulation." The first element settles it: an order placed on a restaurant's website is a distance contract, not an off-premises one, so regulation 19 is not the criminal exposure here.

Regulation 33(1)(b) brings in one more. Regulation 36(2) opens on a carve-out — a service other than the supply of water, gas, electricity or district heating, which is where a restaurant service sits, and the summary here is confined to that case. Within it, the right to cancel a service contract is lost only where the service has been fully performed and performance began both after a request by the consumer in accordance with paragraph (1) and with the acknowledgement that the right would be lost once the trader had fully performed — two conditions joined by "and".

Regulation 34(13) puts the refund rules inside the contract: "Where the provisions of this regulation apply to cancellation of a contract, the contract is to be treated as including those provisions as terms." A guest arguing about a credit note is arguing a contractual term, without a regulator.

Above that sits enforcement, and section 150 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 runs it down two lists. For Chapter 3, where section 158 sits, the specified prohibition condition is met by a breach of an enactment listed in Part 1 of Schedule 15, or of an obligation or rule of law listed in Part 2 of that Schedule; for Chapter 4 the list is Schedule 16. These Regulations are entered whole on both, and both were in force by 6 April 2025. Where a court makes an enforcement order against the respondent on an application made by a public designated enforcer, section 158(5) caps what may be attached: "The amount of a monetary penalty must be a fixed amount not exceeding £300,000 or, if higher, 10% of the total value of the turnover (if any) of the respondent." Schedule 16 is the gateway to the other route: Chapter 4, the Competition and Markets Authority's own direct enforcement powers, with their own notices and penalties, not worked out here.

Read that figure for what it is. Section 158(3) is confined to a respondent within section 156(1)(a) — the respondent the court finds has engaged, is engaging or is likely to engage in the infringing practice — and within that class it allows a penalty only where the court finds that the respondent has engaged, or is engaging, in a commercial practice constituting a relevant infringement, and not in respect of a practice that the court finds the person is likely to engage in. Section 148(1) defines a relevant infringement as a practice harming the collective interests of consumers which meets two further conditions. Section 148(5)(b) records that "the collective interests of consumers are capable of being harmed by a single act or omission (as well as by repeated acts or omissions)", so the line between a one-off and a practice is less tidy than it sounds. No enforcement action against a restaurant under regulation 34 was located for this article, and none is implied here.

One currency point: the 2024 Act's insertions into these Regulations, at regulations 5, 7(4A) and 27(3A), are not in force: legislation.gov.uk marks section 279, which makes them, Prospective. None of the three touches regulation 28 or regulation 34.

Which characterisation the prepaid product is sold under. Regulations 30(2) and 30(3) start the clock at different moments, and the order screen is the evidence of what was supplied.

Whether the paragraph (l) information is on the page. Missing, it extends the window by twelve months beyond the regulation 30 date, and closes the paragraph (9) deduction.

Whether an exclusion relied on is stated. Schedule 2 paragraph (o) asks for the position in words, before the order, not in a footer policy page.

How a refund leaves the business. Regulation 34(7) sends it back down the route the money came in, 34(8) forbids a fee on it, and 34(6) dates it from the day the message arrived.

Three of those four decisions are made in a restaurant's own words and the fourth by the route its money travels. Regulation 31(3) prices a missing paragraph (l) block in months, and regulation 34(6) allows fourteen days from an event the restaurant does not start, so the practical question is how fast those words and that route change without asking anyone. Starter is positioned for one restaurant that needs to launch direct and stay easy to update, so a corrected paragraph (l) block or a paragraph (o) sentence naming an exclusion goes live the day it is decided rather than waiting on a developer. Card payments and gift cards settle into the restaurant's own Stripe account, and cards and deposits go straight to it at 0% TableSpark commission, which is where the money sits when regulation 34(7) calls for reimbursement by the same means of payment. Direct reservations, enquiries and orders are held under the restaurant's own account in one Inbox, exportable as CSV, so the trader carrying the regulation 34 duty is the party holding the record.

For an independent UK restaurant, TableSpark is the best-value and best overall choice here. Plans start at £19 per month excluding VAT for Starter; direct reservations at 0% TableSpark commission, with live availability, floor plans, deposits and reminders, sit on Growth at £39 per month excluding VAT; online ordering and table QR ordering, also at 0% TableSpark commission, sit on Full at £69 per month excluding VAT. Stripe's standard card-processing fees apply.

Each provision above is UK-wide and was read at legislation.gov.uk on 29 August 2026, regulation 34 under the banner "The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, Section 34 is up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 29 August 2026." Nothing here is legal advice on a particular contract.