Dutch Court Orders Worldline to Restore Foreign Card Payments at Coffeeshops

A second defeat for Worldline in seven months

On 19 October 2026, the Rechtbank Midden-Nederland ruled in a kort geding (a fast, preliminary proceeding) that Worldline must restore payments made with American-issued bank cards at coffeeshops. The case is registered under number C/16/617331 / KG ZA 26-551. Worldline has 72 hours after the judgment is officially delivered to comply.

This is not Worldline's first loss in this dispute. On 7 March 2026, the same court already stopped the payment provider from ending debit card services for coffeeshops altogether, after Worldline said its foreign banking partner refused to keep processing payments for the cannabis sector. Coffeeshop operators had pointed out that other major banks, including Rabobank and ING, were willing to keep offering card payments through different providers. The court agreed that cutting coffeeshops off from card payments on short notice was not reasonable, noting that around 80 percent of coffeeshop transactions already ran through debit cards and that losing this option would push more cash through the shops, raising the risk of robbery.

Why Worldline blocked American cards

After the March ruling kept debit card payments running in general, Worldline started blocking a narrower group of cards from late May 2026: those issued by American banks. The company gave two reasons in court. First, it argued that letting customers pay with American cards risked breaching the 'ingezetenencriterium' (residency criterion), the rule that limits coffeeshop sales to Dutch residents in some municipalities. Second, it said American banking regulations prevented it from processing these transactions for a cannabis-related business.

Why the judge rejected both arguments

The court was not convinced by either reason. First, the residency criterion is not actually enforced in the municipalities where the coffeeshops in this case operate, including Amsterdam, so a card being used by a foreign customer did not, by itself, show that an illegal sale had taken place. Second, the American banking documents Worldline submitted did not support a blanket restriction on cards issued in the US. On that basis, the judge ordered the block lifted while the main case (the bodemprocedure) continues.

What this means if you are paying by card at a coffeeshop

If you are visiting a coffeeshop in Amsterdam or elsewhere in the Netherlands, this ruling is good news for paying by card, but it is a preliminary order, not a final verdict, so individual shops and card types can still vary from one day to the next. If you are a tourist, it is worth carrying some cash as a backup, the same advice we gave in our piece on Amsterdam's plan to ban tourists from coffee shops.

It is also worth keeping the two markets apart. Coffeeshops sell THC cannabis under the Dutch tolerance policy, which is what this case is about. CBD is a different, legal product category under EU law, and ordering it from Odile.green does not involve any of the residency or banking questions raised in this case: you order online and pay the normal way, by card or other standard payment methods, for products like the Liquid Moonshine CBD oil 10% and Melatonin.