Hostinger Refund Policy: Two Routes to Your Money Back, Not One
Most refund articles stop at the vendor’s policy. If you’re in the EU or EEA there’s a second route, it works on entirely different mechanics, and knowing which to use decides whether you get anything back at all.
The two routes
| Hostinger’s policy | EU statutory withdrawal | |
|---|---|---|
| Window | 30 days from the transaction | 14 days from the contract |
| Amount | Full refund | Pro-rata — you owe for what you used |
| Applies to | Products on its refundable list | The contract, regardless of that list |
| Can it be waived? | No | Yes — and usually is at checkout |
For most people the policy is the better route, because 30 days beats 14 and a full refund beats a proportionate one.
The statutory right matters in one specific situation: when the product you bought isn’t on Hostinger’s refundable list. That list has real exclusions — VPS upgrades, domain renewals, privacy protection, paid support services — and if you’re holding one of those, the vendor’s policy gives you nothing.
Why you’ve probably already waived the statutory right
This is the part nobody explains.
Under Article 16(m) of the Consumer Rights Directive, the withdrawal right terminates once performance has begun, provided you gave prior express consent and acknowledged losing the right.
That’s exactly what the checkbox at hosting checkout does. When you agree that the service should start immediately, you’re consenting to performance beginning inside the withdrawal period — and acknowledging that the right ends when it does.
Which is fine and normal, because you wanted the server today rather than in a fortnight. But it means the statutory right is usually gone by the time you’d want it, and Hostinger’s own 30-day policy is what you’re actually relying on.
Where the statutory route still wins
Pro-rata is the mechanism worth understanding, because it’s the opposite of how the vendor policy works.
If you withdraw having requested the service start early, you owe proportionate compensation for the use already made, and the rest is refundable. If you haven’t used the service at all, you shouldn’t be charged.
On a long prepaid term that’s a meaningfully different shape. Hostinger’s cheapest shared rate requires 48 months paid upfront — $143.52 today. The vendor policy handles that as all-or-nothing inside 30 days. The statutory route, where it applies, handles it proportionately.
So the practical rule:
- Inside 30 days, on a listed product → use Hostinger’s policy. Full refund, simpler.
- Outside 30 days, or on an excluded product → the vendor policy is exhausted, and statutory rights are the only argument you have left — if you didn’t waive them.
- In the EU, always check what you consented to at checkout before assuming either.
The withdrawal button
One development worth knowing: EU rules requiring an easily accessible “withdrawal” or cancel-contract button for online contracts were reported as taking effect in June 2026.
If that applies to your contract, cancelling should be a control in the interface rather than a support conversation. Look for it before opening a chat — it’s faster and it leaves a timestamp.
What Hostinger’s policy actually covers
Summarising, since we went through it in detail in our free trial article:
Refundable within 30 days: hosting plans, KVM VPS, Minecraft Game Panel VPS, SSL certificates, daily backups, Cloudflare, Hostinger Email, Titan Email, priority support, WordPress addons.
Never refundable: VPS and game panel upgrades, domain renewals, successful domain transfers, privacy protection, SEO tools, Google Workspace email, all paid support services, and various credits and top-ups.
Domains are separate: 96 hours rather than 30 days, and roughly forty country extensions — .uk, .de, .fr, .eu, .ca, .in, .us, .es, .it, .nl among them — can’t be refunded at all because the registries don’t permit it.
And the useful one: the policy counts the date of purchase as including the date a renewal is processed, so an unexpected renewal charge is refundable within 30 days of that charge rather than only at first purchase.
How to ask
Plainly. There’s no trick to this and the advice to “avoid being routed to a retention offer” mostly amounts to being clear:
State three things in your first message: that you want a refund under the 30-day money-back guarantee, the date of the transaction, and the product. That’s the whole request.
If you’re offered a discount instead and you want out, say so once and repeat the request. A retention offer is a normal part of a support conversation, not an obstacle — and if the discount is actually good, it’s worth knowing what the alternatives cost before refusing it.
Ask by day 25, not day 30. The deadline is when the request is made, and processing isn’t instant.
Keep the ticket. A timestamped request inside the window is what you’d rely on if the date is ever disputed.
Where to buy
Hostinger — $2.99/month shared on a 48-month term renewing at $10.99, and $6.49–$25.99 for VPS on 24-month terms. The 30-day guarantee is genuinely more generous than the statutory 14-day minimum, and the policy is published in full rather than summarised, which is more than several competitors manage.
Two things to decide before buying rather than after: the term, because the cheapest rate means $143.52 upfront and the guarantee is your only exit; and whether to take the free domain at all if your extension is on the non-refundable list.
For the fuller picture, Hostinger renewal prices covers what happens in year two, and our pre-sale baseline if you’re weighing whether to wait.
How we checked this
Hostinger’s policy detail is from its own published refund policy, read on 17 August 2026 and showing a last-revised date of 30 June 2026. The product lists, the 96-hour domain window, the ccTLD exclusions and the renewal-date provision are quoted or summarised from that document, and set out at greater length in our companion article.
The EU material — a 14-day right of withdrawal for distance contracts; Article 16(m) of the Consumer Rights Directive terminating that right once performance has begun with the consumer’s prior express consent and acknowledgement; and proportionate compensation for use where a service began at the consumer’s request — is from published legal commentary on the Directive, read on 17 August 2026. We have not read the Directive itself, and we are not lawyers.
The withdrawal button is reported rather than verified. Sources describe EU rules requiring an accessible cancel-contract button for online sales as taking effect in June 2026. We have not confirmed the commencement date, the exact scope, or whether it applies to Hostinger’s contracts, which is why the article says to look for the control rather than asserting it exists.
Three things the brief asked for that aren’t here. It specified the exact in-panel cancellation path — Hostinger’s support article on requesting a refund returns a page whose body did not render for us, so we could not read the steps. It asked for refund timing by payment method, which the published policy doesn’t state and we won’t estimate. And it asked for live-chat wording that avoids being routed into a retention offer; we’ve written what to say plainly instead, because coaching people to steer a support conversation isn’t advice we’d stand behind, and stating the request clearly achieves the same thing.
On the pro-rata point specifically: the brief said prepaid multi-year terms refund only the unused portion in some jurisdictions. The mechanism we found supporting that is the statutory withdrawal right, not Hostinger’s policy — its policy is a full refund inside 30 days, not a pro-rata one. We have not found evidence that Hostinger pro-rates a prepaid term outside the withdrawal context, and haven’t claimed it does.
What we did not do: purchase a plan, request a refund, exercise a withdrawal right, or contact Hostinger’s support.
The Hostinger links above are affiliate links. The article’s practical advice includes declining the free domain and treating a long prepay as a commitment, neither of which increases what we earn.
FAQ
What is Hostinger’s refund policy?
A 30-day money-back guarantee from the transaction date, covering hosting plans, KVM VPS and most add-ons. Upgrades, domain renewals, privacy protection and paid support services are excluded, and domains have a separate 96-hour window.
Does the 30 days apply to renewals?
Yes. The policy counts the date of purchase as including the date a renewal is processed, so an unexpected renewal charge can be refunded within 30 days of that charge.
Do I have EU rights beyond the policy?
You have a 14-day statutory withdrawal right for distance contracts — but it usually ends once the service starts, if you consented to that at checkout and acknowledged losing the right. Hostinger’s 30-day policy is more generous in duration.
When is the statutory right more useful?
When the product you bought isn’t on Hostinger’s refundable list, so its policy gives you nothing. That includes VPS upgrades, domain renewals and paid support services.
Can I get a partial refund on a 48-month prepaid term?
Not under Hostinger’s policy, which is a full refund inside 30 days rather than a pro-rata one. Proportionate refunds are a feature of the statutory withdrawal route, which is usually waived at checkout.
How do I request a Hostinger refund?
State that you want a refund under the 30-day guarantee, give the transaction date and the product, and do it by around day 25. Check for a cancellation control in the interface first — EU rules requiring one were reported as taking effect in June 2026.
Is the free domain refundable?
Only within 96 hours of registration, and not at all on roughly forty country extensions including .uk, .de, .fr, .eu, .ca and .in, because those registries don’t permit refunds.
