The most-used payment method in the Netherlands is being switched off. iDEAL is migrating to Wero, a new pan-European system, and the deadline is real. Here is what is happening, when, what changes for you, and what you actually need to do.
If you accept payments in Europe, this is the biggest change to your checkout in twenty years. And unlike most industry news, it comes with a fixed end date.
What Wero actually is
Wero is a European payment system built by the European Payments Initiative, a consortium of sixteen major European banks and payment providers. It launched in July 2024 and now has more than 1,100 members, split between banks on the consumer side and acquirers on the merchant side.
Technically it is an account-to-account system. Money moves directly from your customer’s bank account to yours, in real time, without a card network in the middle. Your customer approves the payment in their own banking app, exactly as they do with iDEAL today.
The reason it exists is worth understanding, because it explains why this is happening whether merchants asked for it or not. Europe currently depends on American payment networks for a large share of its transactions. Wero is a deliberate attempt to build a European alternative, on European infrastructure, overseen by European regulators.
It is already large. Wero has been live for person-to-person payments in Belgium, France and Germany since 2024, and now serves around 56 million users.
What it is replacing
Wero is not being added alongside the local methods. It is absorbing them.
Giropay and Paylib have already gone into Wero. Payconiq in Luxembourg is migrating. And iDEAL, the payment method behind roughly 71 percent of Dutch online transactions and offered by more than 350,000 businesses, is next.
In October 2023, EPI acquired both iDEAL and Payconiq outright, including iDEAL’s technology provider, precisely so the migration could be managed rather than improvised.
The timeline, as it stands
This is the part to put in your calendar.
The co-branded iDEAL | Wero logo has been appearing at Dutch checkouts since January 2026, with live Wero payments starting on 31 March 2026. For e-commerce, Wero went live in Germany at the end of 2025, with Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands following through 2026.
From October 2026, all Dutch issuing banks will be connected to Wero and ready for the next phase. The merchant rollout begins in earnest in the fourth quarter of 2026, which is when contracts and technical migration start moving for real.
Through 2027 the capabilities keep expanding, and on 31 December 2027 the migration is finalised and iDEAL is decommissioned. After that, Wero is the only name your customers see.
Purchase protection rolls out in phases, with full coverage targeted for 1 January 2028. And to give merchants some certainty, Wero scheme pricing will stay broadly aligned with the current iDEAL | Wero level until 31 December 2028.
That roadmap was confirmed by EPI on 16 July 2026, together with the Dutch banks, payment service providers and industry bodies including Thuiswinkel.org, eCommerce Europe and the Dutch Payments Association. This is not a rumour or a proposal. It is an agreed plan with named dates.
What actually changes for you
Here is the reassuring part, and it is the reason not to panic.
If you accept payments through a payment service provider such as Mollie, the migration is largely handled for you. Providers are building Wero support directly into their existing dashboards and APIs, so iDEAL is replaced without you rewriting anything. Merchants who built a direct iDEAL integration themselves are the ones facing real technical work.
What you will need to do is smaller and mostly visual. The iDEAL logo at your checkout becomes the co-branded iDEAL | Wero logo, and eventually the Wero logo. If you run a custom integration you may need to update those assets by hand.
Two changes are worth reading twice, though, because they genuinely affect how you run your business.
Chargebacks are coming to bank payments
Under iDEAL, a completed payment is final. There is no mechanism for a customer to contest it afterwards. That certainty is one of the quiet reasons Dutch merchants love iDEAL.
Wero introduces a formal dispute process. Purchase protection is part of the design, and it arrives in phases with full coverage targeted for the start of 2028.
For your customers that is a benefit. For you it means a payment you thought was final can, in future, be challenged. If you have never had to think about disputes because you only ever took iDEAL, that habit needs updating.
The pricing model changes shape
iDEAL has always been a flat fee per transaction. Wero moves to a percentage-based model with caps.
EPI has committed to keeping the overall level broadly aligned until the end of 2028, so this is not a sudden cost increase. But the shape is different, and if your average transaction value is high, a percentage behaves very differently from a flat fee. It is worth modelling your own numbers rather than assuming it evens out.
If you sell subscriptions, your renewals are safe
This is the question we get asked most, and the answer is a relief.
Recurring payments do not run on iDEAL. They never did. iDEAL is only involved at the moment of sign-up, when your customer authorises a SEPA Direct Debit mandate. Every renewal after that is collected through SEPA Direct Debit, which is entirely unaffected by the Wero migration.
So if you run membership packages that renew automatically, the change at your checkout is cosmetic. The engine underneath your recurring revenue keeps running exactly as it does today.
Why Mollie’s position matters here
In January 2026, Mollie became a Principal Member of EPI. That is not a press release detail; it puts Mollie inside the organisation running the migration rather than reacting to it from outside.
In practice it means Wero can be switched on through the Mollie dashboard you already use, with minimal technical work at your end. Mollie has stated that Wero will be available to its merchants in Germany and Belgium in the first half of 2026, with France and Luxembourg shortly after, and that the Dutch migration from iDEAL starts in late 2026 and completes by the end of 2027.
If you are choosing a payment provider right now, that position is worth weighing. The providers closest to EPI will have the smoothest path through the next two years.
What this means for a real estate website
If you run a property platform and charge agents for memberships or listings, the Wero migration reaches you through your payment provider rather than through your theme.
That is an argument for keeping your payment layer thin and modern. A checkout that runs through Mollie will follow Mollie through this transition. A checkout stitched together from a webshop platform, a bridge plugin and a separate subscriptions extension has more places for a migration to snag.
Mollie for Houzez is a single plugin that connects your Houzez site straight to Mollie, with 30 payment methods available today, recurring memberships handled natively, and no WooCommerce underneath. We are following the Wero rollout closely, and we will enable it in the plugin as soon as Mollie makes it available to merchants.
What we would do now
Nothing dramatic, but a few sensible things.
Update your checkout branding to iDEAL | Wero if you have not already, since that is expected of Dutch merchants during the co-branding phase. Ask your payment provider for their specific migration timeline, because it varies by provider. If you have a direct iDEAL integration, start planning now rather than in 2027.
And take the advice EPI’s own partners are giving: treat this as a moment to look at your whole payment stack rather than a box to tick. If you are going to touch your checkout anyway, it is a good moment to ask which methods you actually want to offer, and whether the machinery behind them is heavier than it needs to be.
Explore Mollie for Houzez: https://blog.quantumaddons.com/mollie-for-houzez-european-payments-no-woocommerce/
Frequently asked questions
Is iDEAL really disappearing?
Yes. iDEAL is migrating to Wero, and the migration completes on 31 December 2027, after which iDEAL is decommissioned. The co-branded iDEAL | Wero logo has been in use since January 2026.
Do I need to do anything technical?
If you use a payment service provider such as Mollie, largely no. Providers are building Wero into their existing dashboards and APIs. Merchants with a direct iDEAL integration will need to migrate to Wero’s APIs themselves.
Will my subscription renewals break?
No. Recurring payments run on SEPA Direct Debit, not on iDEAL. iDEAL is only involved in the initial sign-up, when the mandate is authorised. SEPA Direct Debit is unaffected by the migration.
Will Wero be more expensive than iDEAL?
Scheme pricing is committed to stay broadly aligned with the current iDEAL | Wero level until 31 December 2028. The model changes from a flat fee to a percentage with caps, so the effect depends on your average transaction value.
Can customers dispute a Wero payment?
Yes, and this is new. iDEAL payments are final once completed, while Wero introduces a formal dispute process with purchase protection rolling out in phases, targeted for full coverage on 1 January 2028.
Which countries will Wero cover?
The first wave is Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, with one integration covering all of them. That cross-border reach is one of the main reasons Wero exists.
Learn more on the feature overview (https://blog.quantumaddons.com/mollie-for-houzez-features/), the pricing page (https://blog.quantumaddons.com/mollie-for-houzez-pricing/), or the documentation (https://blog.quantumaddons.com/docs/mollie-for-houzez-theme/).
Mollie for Houzez is a Quantum Add-ons product. Premium WordPress plugins, built with security and reliability. Made in the Netherlands.