The €35 temporary hold

It is not a charge

When you start a session we ask your bank to reserve €35. This is a pre-authorisation, the same mechanism a hotel or a petrol station uses. The money is held, not taken. Nobody has been paid, and EV Loader has not received it.

The app tells you so at the moment you start:

Temporary hold of €35. The final payment will be calculated at the end of the session and can be lower than €35.

Why we hold anything at all

Because nobody knows in advance how much energy you will take. The hold guarantees the session can be paid for, whatever it turns out to cost, so that charging can start immediately rather than making you commit to an amount up front.

What you actually pay

Only for the energy you used, plus a start fee if the station has one. Take 8 kWh at €0.45/kWh and you pay €3.60. The remaining €31.40 is released.

If a session costs more than €35, which is unusual on AC charging, the difference is charged when the session settles.

When it comes back

The hold is settled when you unplug, which is the moment the final amount is known.

• If you used energy, the real amount is taken and the rest released.
• If no energy flowed at all, the hold is released with nothing taken. That usually clears within a few hours by itself.

How quickly you see it depends on your bank, not on us. A release typically shows within a few days, and a card refund can take up to about a week to appear on a statement.

If you were charged twice

A duplicate payment, or a payment for a session that never charged, is refunded automatically. See Refunds and how long they take.

If a hold is still there weeks later

That needs looking at. See A hold that has not been released.

Avoiding the hold

Paying from a Token Wallet balance takes the cost from your balance instead of holding anything on a card. That suits people who charge often. For occasional charging a card is simpler, because no money of yours sits in the app. See Token Wallet.