Can a Company Charge Your Credit Card Without Authorization?

No, a company cannot legally charge your credit card without authorization, and if one does, federal law caps your personal liability at $50. In practice, most cardholders pay nothing, because Visa and Mastercard both apply zero-liability policies on top of the statutory floor. The harder question is usually whether a charge you don’t recognize is actually unauthorized, because plenty of surprising charges turn out to be ones you agreed to somewhere along the way.¹

First, Rule Out Charges You Actually Authorized

Before filing a dispute, check whether the charge fits one of these common patterns. Each one is technically authorized, even when it feels like a surprise.

Recurring subscriptions. When you sign up for a service, the terms almost always include automatic renewal at the end of each billing period. That renewal is authorized even if you forgot about it. Streaming services, cloud storage, and software licenses are frequent culprits.
Free-trial conversions. Many services collect your card at the start of a free trial and begin billing automatically when the trial ends. If you didn’t cancel before it expired, the company has permission to charge you.
Pre-authorization holds. Hotels, rental car companies, and gas stations routinely place temporary holds to confirm you can cover the final bill. A hold isn’t a completed charge, but it reduces your available credit and can look unfamiliar until the merchant finalizes or releases it.²
Unfamiliar merchant names. Statements often show a company’s legal or parent-company name rather than the brand you know. A quick web search of the merchant name and dollar amount usually clears this up.

If none of those explanations fit, treat the charge as unauthorized and move on to the protections below.

What You Could Owe on an Unauthorized Charge

Federal law puts almost all the risk on the card issuer. Under the Truth in Lending Act, your liability for unauthorized use of a credit card cannot exceed $50, and even that $50 applies only if the issuer met several conditions: it gave you notice of potential liability, provided a way to report loss or theft, and included a method for identifying authorized users. If any of those conditions is missing, you owe nothing.¹

Once you report a card as lost or stolen, your liability for any charge made after that report drops to zero. The statute says that outside the narrow window where the $50 cap applies, “a cardholder incurs no liability from the unauthorized use of a credit card.”¹

Card networks go further. Visa’s Zero Liability Policy covers you if your card is “lost, stolen or fraudulently used,” excluding certain commercial cards and anonymous prepaid cards like gift cards.³ Mastercard’s version covers purchases in stores, online, by phone, and at ATMs, with the same carve-outs.⁴ Both require that you used reasonable care with the card and reported the fraud promptly. These are voluntary network policies rather than laws, but they’ve been in place for years and cover most consumer cards. For most people, an unauthorized charge on a major-network credit card should cost nothing at all.

How to Dispute an Unauthorized Charge

Try the Merchant First

A quick call or email to the merchant resolves many billing errors faster than a formal dispute. Duplicate charges, processing mistakes, and forgotten cancellations are common, and a cooperative merchant can issue a refund within a few business days. Write down who you spoke with, when, and what they promised. That record helps if the informal route doesn’t work.

File a Formal Dispute With Your Card Issuer

If the merchant won’t help, or you’re dealing with outright fraud, the Fair Credit Billing Act gives you the right to dispute the charge with your issuer. Your written notice must reach the issuer within 60 days of the date the first statement containing the questionable charge was sent to you.⁵ Missing that 60-day window doesn’t eliminate your rights entirely, because the Truth in Lending Act’s unauthorized-use protections still apply, but it does strip away the specific procedural protections the FCBA provides. Treat the deadline seriously.

Most issuers accept disputes by phone or through their app, and that’s fine for straightforward cases. For anything complicated or high-dollar, send a physical letter by certified mail with a return receipt (roughly $10 to $11) to create a paper trail proving when the issuer received your notice. Address it to the “billing inquiries” address on your statement, which is often different from the payment address.

Your notice should include:

Your name and account number
The dollar amount and date of the disputed charge
The merchant name exactly as it appears on your statement
A plain explanation of why the charge is an error
Any supporting documents, such as receipts, cancellation confirmations, or screenshots of terms you agreed to

What Happens After You File

Once your dispute reaches the issuer, federal law sets the clock. The issuer must send you a written acknowledgment within 30 days of receiving your notice. It then has two full billing cycles, but no more than 90 days, to investigate and either correct the charge or explain in writing why it believes the charge is valid.⁵

During the investigation you can withhold payment on the disputed amount without damage to your credit. You still need to pay the rest of your bill on time. The issuer cannot close or restrict your account solely because you filed a dispute, and it cannot report the disputed balance as delinquent while the investigation is pending.⁵

If the investigation confirms the charge was unauthorized, any temporary credit becomes permanent and the charge is removed. If the issuer sides with the merchant, it will reinstate the charge and send a written explanation. You can then request copies of the evidence and, if you still disagree, escalate.

If Your Issuer Won’t Follow the Rules

A card issuer that ignores the dispute timeline or fails to investigate properly faces real consequences. Under the FCBA, a creditor that doesn’t comply with the dispute-resolution requirements forfeits its right to collect the disputed amount and any related finance charges, up to $50. That forfeiture applies whether or not the underlying charge turns out to be valid. A consumer can also sue to recover actual damages, statutory damages equal to twice the finance charges on the disputed transaction, and attorney’s fees.⁵

If you think your issuer is stonewalling, file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov/complaint. The CFPB forwards your complaint to the company, which generally responds within 15 days.⁶ A complaint doesn’t replace a lawsuit, but it creates a federal record and often gets the problem resolved faster than continued back-and-forth with customer service.

Debit Cards Are a Different Story

Everything above applies specifically to credit cards. If an unauthorized charge hits your debit card, the rules are less forgiving, and the money leaves your bank account immediately rather than sitting on a bill you haven’t paid yet. Debit cards fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, which uses a tiered liability system based on how fast you report.⁷

Report within 2 business days of learning about the fraud, and your liability is capped at $50.
Report after 2 business days but within 60 days of your statement, and liability jumps to as much as $500.
Report after 60 days, and the bank has no obligation to reimburse losses that it can show would not have happened had you reported sooner. You could lose the entire amount.

The practical difference is stark. A fraudulent $3,000 credit card charge costs you at most $50, and usually nothing. The same charge on a debit card, reported three months later, could cost you the full $3,000. If you notice an unfamiliar debit card transaction, report it immediately. The EFTA does extend reporting deadlines for extenuating circumstances like hospitalization or extended travel, but the law only requires that any extension be “reasonable” and doesn’t define exactly how long.⁷

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1643 – Liability of Holder of Credit Card
2
Federal Trade Commission. Fair Credit Billing Act
3
Visa. Zero Liability
4
Mastercard. Zero Liability Protection Policy
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Submit a Complaint
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693g – Consumer Liability