You have just received an email from your payment processor asking you to provide your terms of sale. Or worse, your account is already under review and your funds are temporarily held. In 2026, this situation affects thousands of online merchants across Europe who did not realise that their payment provider could demand legal documents — and suspend their account if they are missing.
Payment processors such as Stripe, PayPal, and Adyen operate under the EU’s Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and anti-money laundering regulations. These obligations require them to verify that their merchants conduct business transparently and lawfully. And the first thing they check? That your website displays clear, accessible terms of sale.
This article explains why payment processors require terms of sale, what your terms must contain, what happens if you do not have them, and how to become compliant quickly.
Why Payment Processors Require Terms of Sale
The regulatory obligation
As licensed payment institutions within the European Economic Area, payment processors must comply with the Payment Services Directive (PSD2), anti-money laundering regulations (Directive 2015/849), and card network rules (Visa, Mastercard). These regulations require processors to ensure that their merchants operate lawfully and transparently.
In practice, service agreements from major processors stipulate that each merchant must display clear terms of sale on their website, a refund and return policy, and customer service contact details. The absence of these elements constitutes a breach of the processor’s terms of service and can trigger immediate action on your account.
What processors actually check
Payment processors carry out checks at several points: during onboarding, after an unusual spike in activity, following a customer dispute, or as part of periodic reviews. During these checks, processors examine:
- The presence of terms of sale accessible from your website (link in the footer or during the checkout process)
- A refund policy clearly stated
- Merchant contact information (email, address, phone number)
- Consistency between your declared business and your website (do the products sold match what you declared?)
- Legal notices identifying the site operator
These checks are not random. Processors use automated systems that scan your website and flag shortcomings. A site without terms of sale will be systematically flagged for manual review.
What Happens When Your Processor Detects a Problem
The account review process
When a payment processor identifies a compliance gap, the process typically follows these stages:
- Email notification: you are asked to provide the missing documents within a set deadline (usually 7 to 14 days).
- Payment holds: if you do not respond, the processor may delay transfers to your bank account. Your funds remain with the processor, but you lose immediate access.
- Account suspension: without a satisfactory response, the processor can suspend your ability to accept new payments.
- Account closure: in the most serious cases or in the event of repeated non-compliance, the processor may permanently close your account.
The concrete consequences
A suspended payment account triggers cascading effects on your business:
- Immediate sales interruption: your customers can no longer pay on your website
- Funds held: the processor can retain your funds for 90 to 120 days to cover potential refunds or disputes
- Reputational damage: a site that cannot accept payments loses customer trust
- Difficulty migrating: other processors often ask whether you have previously been suspended, and a positive answer complicates opening a new account
This situation is particularly damaging for merchants who do not have a backup payment solution.
What Your Terms of Sale Must Contain
Payment processors do not impose a specific template, but your terms must cover certain elements to satisfy both processor requirements and EU consumer protection law.
Processor requirements
Processor service agreements typically require that your terms of sale cover at minimum:
- A clear description of the goods or services sold
- Prices and currency
- Payment methods
- Refund and return policy
- Delivery timeframes (where applicable)
- Customer service contact details
EU and national legal requirements
Under the Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU) and national consumer protection laws, your terms of sale must also include:
- The right of withdrawal: 14-day cooling-off period, with applicable exceptions and a standard withdrawal form
- Legal guarantees: guarantee of conformity and guarantee against hidden defects, as required by national law
- Prices inclusive of tax with a breakdown of delivery charges
- Delivery conditions and the maximum delivery period of 30 days
- The competent court in the event of a dispute
- Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms
For a complete overview of common errors in drafting terms of sale, see our guide on compliant terms of sale: the 5 costly mistakes.
The intersection with GDPR
If your site collects personal data during the checkout process (which is always the case for e-commerce), your terms of sale must also reference your privacy policy. Articles 12, 13, and 14 of the GDPR require clear information about data processing. The CNIL and other European data protection authorities have emphasised that this information must be easily accessible at the point of data collection.
Your terms of sale do not replace a separate privacy policy, but they must refer to it. To understand the distinction between these documents, read our article on the difference between terms of use and terms of sale.
Other Legal Documents Required by Payment Processors
Payment processors are not the only ones that require legal documents. Card networks (Visa, Mastercard) impose similar rules on all merchants. Beyond terms of sale, your e-commerce website must also display:
- Legal notices identifying the operator (required under EU e-commerce directives)
- A privacy policy compliant with the GDPR
- A cookie policy meeting data protection authority requirements
- Terms of use governing the use of your website
The absence of these documents exposes your business not only to payment account suspension but also to administrative fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of annual turnover under the GDPR (Article 83), and further penalties for missing legal notices. For a complete inventory, see our guide on the 4 essential legal documents for every e-commerce website.
How to Get Compliant Terms of Sale: Your Options
Four solutions are available to obtain terms of sale that satisfy both your payment processor and the law:
Hire a lawyer (500-2,000 euros): you benefit from personalised advice and comprehensive legal expertise. A lawyer can tailor your terms to your specific business and sector. However, the timeline is several weeks — a luxury you do not have if your processor has already started a review process.
Draft them yourself with templates (0 euros, high risk): free templates exist online, but they are rarely up to date with the latest regulatory requirements. A generic template will not cover the specifics of your business, and your processor may consider obviously copy-pasted terms as insufficient.
Use generic AI (0 euros + 150-300 euros for review): tools like ChatGPT can produce drafts, but each section must be generated separately, leading to inconsistencies between different parts of the document. A professional review remains essential to ensure legal validity.
Use a specialised legal AI (€14.90-19.90): solutions like WebLegal.ai generate compliant terms of sale in under 10 minutes, with guaranteed consistency across all your legal documents (terms of sale, terms of use, privacy policy, cookie policy). The guided form asks the right questions about your business to produce documents tailored to your situation and compliant with both processor requirements and European law.
Conclusion
Having your payment account suspended for missing terms of sale is an avoidable situation with serious consequences. In 2026, payment processors are tightening their checks under regulatory pressure, and an e-commerce site without compliant legal documents is a site on borrowed time. Do not treat your terms of sale as a mere administrative formality: they are your contractual protection with customers, your compliance guarantee with regulators, and your condition of access to payment services. If your processor has already contacted you, act within days — not weeks. And if you have not yet received a notification, do not mistake that for an absence of risk: it simply means your turn has not yet come.