Does Nepal actually have a law giving online shoppers a right to a refund?

Yes, since 2025. The Electronic Commerce Act, 2081 requires an online seller to disclose its return policy up front, and if the goods don't match what was described, Section 10 says the seller 'shall accept it back unconditionally' and the buyer can choose a replacement or a full refund including tax. There is no fixed number of cooling-off days for a simple change of mind, though — that part is left to whatever the seller discloses, and only the older Consumer Protection Act's 7-day window applies as a general fallback.

What does Daraz's own return policy actually say?

Fourteen days from delivery for a normal item, 24 hours for DFresh groceries, and the item has to be unused with its original packaging and tags. Digital goods, custom-made items, fine jewelry, and installation services aren't returnable at all. Worth knowing before you complain: Daraz's own help pages disagree with each other on how a cash-on-delivery refund gets paid out, so ask the support agent directly rather than trusting either page.

My COD parcel arrived empty or wrong. What can I actually do?

Report it to Daraz immediately with photos and the sealed-parcel condition, since that triggers the Section 10 nonconformity right. If the platform stalls, the Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection takes complaints on 1137, and Daraz itself has already been fined once for exactly this (Rs 300,000, in 2020, for delivering the wrong item). There's no dedicated COD fraud hotline separate from these two channels, so use whichever responds faster.

If I pay through eSewa or Khalti and the seller never delivers, do I get my money back?

Only if you paid an 'authorized merchant' through eSewa's dispute process, and even then it's a 45-day claim window followed by a multi-stage resolution process that can run up to 70 days, not an automatic refund. Both eSewa and Khalti are explicit that money sent to an unverified or unauthorized recipient is your risk, full stop. eSewa's escrow service holds funds until you release them, but you have to choose it before paying; it isn't the default for an ordinary purchase.

Does my debit or credit card give me a chargeback if goods never arrive?

In theory, since Visa and Mastercard's global network rules include dispute processes. In practice, no Nepali bank publishes clear chargeback grounds or a timeline on its own website, and no documented case of a Nepali cardholder successfully winning a 'goods not received' chargeback turned up in reporting on this. Treat a card chargeback as a slow, uncertain long shot, not a guaranteed safety net.

Where do I file a complaint if I get scammed buying something online in Nepal?

Two government channels, and file with both if the amount matters. The Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection takes consumer complaints on 1137 or by email to monitoring@doc.gov.np. Nepal Police Cyber Bureau handles the fraud/criminal side through its online portal, the toll-free line, or cyberbureau@nepalpolice.gov.np. Cyber Bureau logged 460 online-store fraud cases in a recent year alone, so you won't be the first case they've seen.

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Daraz, COD, and online shopping rights in Nepal: what protection you actually have

Nepal passed a real E-Commerce Act in 2025. Here's what it actually guarantees on Daraz, COD parcels, and wallet payments, and where the law still leaves you exposed.

Parjanya ShakyaJuly 18, 2026Shrawan 2083 BS9 min read

A friend ordered a pair of wireless earbuds from a Daraz seller last Falgun. The box arrived on time, sealed, exactly as photographed. Inside was a bar of soap and a rock, weighed to match the courier's shipping estimate. He'd paid cash on delivery, so the money was already gone before he opened the box.

He assumed nothing could be done. That turned out to be only half true, and the half that's true is more interesting than the half that isn't.

The law changed in 2025, and most shoppers don't know it

For years, Nepal's e-commerce shoppers had only the general Consumer Protection Act, 2075, a law written for shopkeepers and physical goods. Section 14 of that Act gives any buyer a 7-day return-or-refund right, 15 days if a sealed package is unopened, no deduction allowed. It says nothing about websites, apps, or delivery riders.

That gap closed on paper in March 2025, when Nepal's parliament passed the Electronic Commerce Act, 2081, in force since roughly mid-April 2025. It's a real statute with real teeth, not a draft policy sitting in a ministry drawer:

Section 6(k) requires every online seller to disclose upfront whether goods are returnable, and under what conditions and window.
Section 10 gives a hard right regardless of what the seller disclosed: if the goods or services don't match the seller's description, the seller "shall accept it back unconditionally," and the buyer chooses between a replacement or a full refund, taxes included.
Section 14(f) binds marketplaces like Daraz to honor return and refund rights even where the platform's own terms try to say otherwise.
Section 31 sends any gap in the E-Commerce Act, disputes, compensation, quality issues, back to the older Consumer Protection Act as a fallback.

Enforcement lagged the law itself. The Kathmandu Post reported only 37 businesses had registered under the new Act by early July 2025, days before the compliance deadline. A follow-up piece found about 950 had registered by the July 18 cutoff, with unregistered online sellers, including the casual Instagram and Facebook shops that sell half of what Nepalis actually buy online, now technically operating illegally and exposed to fines up to Rs 200,000. An implementing directive followed in early 2026, giving the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies a formal business-listing portal to run registrations through.

What the law does not give you

Read the fine print carefully, because it's easy to assume the Act promises more than it does.

There is no fixed number of cooling-off days written into the statute for an ordinary change-of-mind return. Section 6(k) only requires the seller to state its own return window; the hard 7-day right from the older Consumer Protection Act is the only universal floor, and it predates e-commerce by seven years. If a seller's listing says "no returns," and the item genuinely matches what was advertised, you're mostly relying on that older, general law, not the new one.

Nothing in either Act names cash-on-delivery specifically. An empty or swapped COD parcel is handled under the general nonconformity right in Section 10, the same clause that would apply to a wrong-color shirt, not a dedicated fraud provision. There's no separate COD ombudsman, and no source found in researching this post shows one being planned.

Daraz's own policy, and where it contradicts itself

Since Daraz is where most Nepali online shopping actually happens, its own rules matter more day to day than the statute. Daraz's return policy gives you 14 days from delivery for most categories, 24 hours only for DFresh perishables, and requires the item to be unused, in original packaging, with tags and accessories intact. Not returnable at all: digital goods, custom-made items, fine jewelry, beauty services, vouchers, vehicles, and installation services.

Here's the part worth flagging before you rely on it. Daraz's own refunds-policy page says a COD refund comes back as a "Refund Voucher" within 1 to 2 working days, while its separate returns-and-refunds FAQ page says the same COD refund arrives via bank deposit in 4 to 5 working days. Two official Daraz pages, two different answers. Ask the support agent to confirm the method and timeline for your specific case rather than trusting either page blindly.

Daraz has been fined for exactly this kind of dispute before. The Department of Commerce fined the company Rs 300,000 in February 2020, upheld on review that March, after a customer received the wrong watch model. Daraz argued at the time that it's a marketplace, not the seller of record, and shouldn't carry liability for third-party sellers. Section 14(f) of the new E-Commerce Act exists specifically to close that argument off going forward.

The scale of the problem

This isn't a rare inconvenience. Nepal Police Cyber Bureau logged roughly 4,600 cybercrime cases in a recent fiscal year, 460 of them online-store fraud specifically. The same reporting names concrete cases: a Pokhara Instagram seller ("Nancy Fashion") who took payment and vanished, and a buyer who paid an Instagram page ("Miss Bovary") for goods that never shipped. Nepal has no dedicated consumer court, despite an older Supreme Court order calling for one.

Meanwhile digital payment volume keeps climbing under all this. Nepal's total electronic transaction value hit Rs 98.43 trillion in FY 2024/25, up from Rs 34.42 trillion just four years earlier, and NRB-reported mobile banking transaction volume rose from 114 million to 265 million over the same stretch. More money moving through apps means more exposure when a transaction goes wrong.

Paying by wallet: eSewa and Khalti won't chase your money for you

Payment method	What happens if the seller doesn't deliver
eSewa (authorized merchant)	Dispute process exists: 45-day claim window, then a multi-stage resolution process (20+20+30 days) that can run up to 70 days. Not automatic.
eSewa (unauthorized/unverified recipient)	eSewa states plainly it "will not entertain" the claim. The transfer is treated as your decision.
eSewa escrow (opt-in)	Funds held until you release them or eSewa arbitrates, but you have to choose this service before paying. It isn't the default.
Khalti	Similar structure: a 30-day window to complain, roughly 20–25 days to investigate, and Khalti's own policy says it will only try to "solve it amicably as far as possible," not guarantee a refund.
Debit/credit card	A chargeback exists on paper through the card network, but no Nepali bank publishes clear grounds or a timeline, and no documented case of a successful "goods not received" chargeback in Nepal turned up in this research. Treat it as a long shot.

The pattern across every payment rail is the same: the platform's help pages describe a process, not a guarantee. NRB tightened its payment-system directives in March 2025, pushing wallets toward better fraud-risk controls and settlement guarantees, but that's aimed at provider security, not at creating a buyer-protection right when a seller simply doesn't ship.

Ride-hailing and delivery apps: smaller stakes, similar logic

Pathao's own help center lists specific in-app FAQ entries for a wrong food order, an accidental order, and an overcharge, so a dispute channel exists inside the app itself for those cases. Its general terms of service don't add any Nepal-specific refund language beyond that.

Fare-overcharging complaints do get enforced, just not through consumer-protection law. In Pokhara in mid-2025, police detained eight ride-hailing vehicles for charging above the legally set fare, acting under transport-management law rather than the Consumer Protection Act. If a ride or delivery order goes wrong, the app's own support channel is still your fastest route; formal law enforcement tends to act on patterns, not individual overcharges.

What to actually do when an order goes wrong

Photograph everything before you open the seal. The parcel, the shipping label, the weight sticker. A sealed-parcel photo is what makes the Section 10 nonconformity claim credible.
Report to the platform first, in writing. Daraz's in-app complaint flow starts the clock on its own 14-day return window and creates a paper trail if you need to escalate.
Escalate to DoCSCP if the platform stalls. The Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection takes complaints on 1137 or by email to monitoring@doc.gov.np.
File with Cyber Bureau if it looks like outright fraud, not just a bad delivery: a seller who took payment and disappeared, a fake listing, a cloned page. Use the online portal or email cyberbureau@nepalpolice.gov.np.
Never pay a stranger's personal eSewa or Khalti ID for a big-ticket item without at least checking reviews or asking for a phone verification first. Once money moves to an unauthorized recipient, both wallets are explicit that recovery isn't their problem to solve.

What you actually need to know

The 2025 E-Commerce Act is real and gives you a hard right against nonconforming goods, but not an automatic cooling-off period for changing your mind. Check what the seller discloses before you buy.
Daraz's own policy documents contradict each other on COD refund timing. Confirm directly with support rather than trusting either page.
Wallets and cards describe a dispute process, not a guarantee. The safest money is money sent only to a verified, authorized merchant.

Had an online order go sideways and not sure which channel to use? Email parjanya57@gmail.com.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the protect-what-you've-saved section.

Frequently asked questions

Does Nepal actually have a law giving online shoppers a right to a refund?: Yes, since 2025. The Electronic Commerce Act, 2081 requires an online seller to disclose its return policy up front, and if the goods don't match what was described, Section 10 says the seller 'shall accept it back unconditionally' and the buyer can choose a replacement or a full refund including tax. There is no fixed number of cooling-off days for a simple change of mind, though — that part is left to whatever the seller discloses, and only the older Consumer Protection Act's 7-day window applies as a general fallback.
What does Daraz's own return policy actually say?: Fourteen days from delivery for a normal item, 24 hours for DFresh groceries, and the item has to be unused with its original packaging and tags. Digital goods, custom-made items, fine jewelry, and installation services aren't returnable at all. Worth knowing before you complain: Daraz's own help pages disagree with each other on how a cash-on-delivery refund gets paid out, so ask the support agent directly rather than trusting either page.
My COD parcel arrived empty or wrong. What can I actually do?: Report it to Daraz immediately with photos and the sealed-parcel condition, since that triggers the Section 10 nonconformity right. If the platform stalls, the Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection takes complaints on 1137, and Daraz itself has already been fined once for exactly this (Rs 300,000, in 2020, for delivering the wrong item). There's no dedicated COD fraud hotline separate from these two channels, so use whichever responds faster.
If I pay through eSewa or Khalti and the seller never delivers, do I get my money back?: Only if you paid an 'authorized merchant' through eSewa's dispute process, and even then it's a 45-day claim window followed by a multi-stage resolution process that can run up to 70 days, not an automatic refund. Both eSewa and Khalti are explicit that money sent to an unverified or unauthorized recipient is your risk, full stop. eSewa's escrow service holds funds until you release them, but you have to choose it before paying; it isn't the default for an ordinary purchase.
Does my debit or credit card give me a chargeback if goods never arrive?: In theory, since Visa and Mastercard's global network rules include dispute processes. In practice, no Nepali bank publishes clear chargeback grounds or a timeline on its own website, and no documented case of a Nepali cardholder successfully winning a 'goods not received' chargeback turned up in reporting on this. Treat a card chargeback as a slow, uncertain long shot, not a guaranteed safety net.
Where do I file a complaint if I get scammed buying something online in Nepal?: Two government channels, and file with both if the amount matters. The Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection takes consumer complaints on 1137 or by email to monitoring@doc.gov.np. Nepal Police Cyber Bureau handles the fraud/criminal side through its online portal, the toll-free line, or cyberbureau@nepalpolice.gov.np. Cyber Bureau logged 460 online-store fraud cases in a recent year alone, so you won't be the first case they've seen.

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