Google Play Shifts App Chargebacks Burden to Developers

Google Play is changing how it handles chargebacks, switching to a model of splitting the costs with developers instead of absorbing the fees entirely. The change was first reported by technology news site Piunika Web, based upon an official support page for the app store announcing the update.

De facto, developers’ responsibility for app chargebacks in the Google Play store will be similar to all other merchants. They will have to cover the purchase price of the good and any chargeback fee levied by the financial institutions. Google Play’s participation in costs is limited to the service fee it collected on the transaction, which it will return.

Google plans to launch an optional Review Refund API in July 2026 that lets developers share transaction details, like delivery status and item consumption data, so Google Play can identify and contest illegitimate chargebacks on their behalf.

The Google Play support page noted that the app store prevented $3.4 billion in fraud and abuse on its platform in 2025.

Epic Games v. Google settlement

The change in app chargeback rules in the Google Play store comes after some additional changes in the app store’s payments setup announced in March this year following years of legal battles with the game developer Epic Games, which resulted in a settlement.

Most pertinent among the changes, were Google’s decision to reduce Google Play’s share of developer revenue garnered from the platform from 30% to 20% in the U.S. market. It will also soon let developers offer their own billing systems for payments to be hosted outside the Play Store, according to PC Mag.

While Google didn’t officially justify its decision to shift chargeback costs onto app developers, it’s highly likely that shifting of the chargeback burden onto developers is related to the reduction in Google Play’s take of developers’ revenue from its app store.