Refund Policy

There are two refund policies, and they do different jobs. Confusing them is the single most common reason a refund conversation goes wrong, so this document starts by separating them.

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1. Two policies, two jobs

The organizer’s per-event refund policy: whether you get a refund

Every organizer must publish a refund policy before their event can go on sale. It appears on the event page, and it is part of what you bought when you bought the entry.

It answers questions like:

• Is this entry refundable at all?
• Up to how many days before race day?
• Is a transfer to another runner allowed instead?
• What happens if the event is postponed?

Those answers vary from event to event. A charity fun run and a marathon with a capped elite field make different choices, legitimately. Laces does not set them and does not override them.

To find yours: open the event page you registered on and read the “This event’s refund policy” section, or look up your order at laces.run/o/{order_code}.

This document, the Laces platform policy: how a refund is processed

Once a refund is due under the organizer’s policy, or under section 4 below, this document governs the mechanics: how it is issued, where the money goes, how long it takes, and what happens to the fees.

In short: the organizer’s policy decides whether you are owed a refund. This policy decides how you receive it.

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2. How a refund is issued

• Refunds go back to the mobile-money account that paid. We cannot send a refund to a different number, because that is how refunds get diverted.
• You do not need to do anything to receive it beyond confirming the number.
• You will get a refund confirmation with the amount and the reference.
• The refund appears against your original order, which stays visible at laces.run/o/{order_code}.

Timing. Once a refund is approved, we submit it to the payment provider immediately. The money typically arrives within 3 to 10 business days, and the last stretch is not ours to control: it depends on the payment provider and on your mobile-money provider. We would rather quote you a range you can plan around than a same-day figure that is true only sometimes.

If a refund has not arrived after 10 business days, contact support@laces.run with your order code and we will trace it against the provider’s reference.

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3. What happens to the fees

Line	On a full refund
Entry	Refunded in line with the organizer’s policy
Add-ons and merchandise	Refunded, unless already collected
Donation	Refunded if we still hold it. Once forwarded to the beneficiary it is a completed gift and is not returned
Laces Service Fee (UGX 500 + 2.9%, effective 2026-09-10)	Not refunded, except where the fault is ours, see below
Payment Processing	Not recoverable. It is already covered inside the service fee and is never billed to you separately

Why the service fee is not returned

The fee is what pays to move the money, and that cost is incurred the moment your payment is processed. A refund does not un-incur it: the telco has already been paid to take your money, and will be paid again to send it back. Refunding the fee would mean Laces paying twice for a transaction that earned nothing.

On a partial refund, the entry amount is refunded proportionally and the service fee is retained in the same way.

When the fee comes back in full

Where the failure is ours, you get everything back, fee included:

• You were charged twice for the same order.
• Money left your account and no entry was created.
• The event was listed fraudulently by someone with no right to run it.

In those cases there is no honest argument for keeping a fee, and we do not. These are the cases in section 4 below.

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4. When Laces will act regardless of the organizer’s policy

The organizer’s policy governs the ordinary case. There are situations where Laces will step in anyway:

4.1 Duplicate charges

If you were charged twice for the same order, the duplicate is refunded in full, no questions and no reference to the event’s policy. Every payment attempt carries an idempotency key specifically so this should not happen; when it does, it is our problem, not yours.

4.2 A payment that took money without registering you

If money left your account and no entry was created, you get it back in full.

4.3 A cancelled event

If an organizer cancels an event, participants are entitled to a refund in line with the policy that organizer published.

Who funds it: the organizer. Section 6 of the Organizer Terms sets this out in detail. In summary:

• If the money has not yet been paid out to the organizer, we refund participants directly from the held funds. This is the best outcome, and it needs nothing from you.
• If the organizer has already withdrawn it, they are liable to repay it, and we will apply anything we still hold, offset it against their other events, and pursue the balance.

Be aware that organizers are paid out within a day or two of each sale, not after the event. So for a race cancelled close to its date, the second case is the likely one. “The hard case” below sets out plainly what happens when an organizer cannot pay.

We will not tell participants their money is gone because an organizer has stopped answering their phone. The settlement timing and the reserve in the Organizer Terms exist to make that outcome avoidable, and where it is avoidable we will avoid it.

The hard case, stated honestly

If an organizer has already been settled, has no reserve left, and cannot pay, Laces cannot conjure that money back. The debt is the organizer’s, not ours, and we do not guarantee an organizer’s obligations.

What we will actually do:

• Apply everything we hold. Any reserve, any unsettled funds, and any money held for another event of theirs on the platform is applied to what participants are owed, before anything else.
• Pursue the organizer for the balance, and suspend their ability to sell on Laces until it is paid.
• Tell you the truth, in writing. You will be told what is recoverable, what is not, and where your claim stands, not left to work it out from silence.
• Give you what you need to pursue it yourself. Your order record, the payment reference, and the organizer’s registered details are yours on request, so you can take it further, including to the courts.

This is precisely the outcome the settlement timing in section 5 of the Organizer Terms exists to prevent. Funds are held past the event date so that in the ordinary case the money is still with us when a cancellation happens, and participants are refunded from it directly. The scenario above is what remains after that design has been exhausted, and we would rather name it than let you assume a guarantee we have not given.

4.4 An event that materially changes

If an event changes so substantially that it is not what you bought (a different distance, a different city, a date you cannot make because it moved by months), the organizer’s policy governs, but we will engage with the organizer on your behalf if they are unresponsive.

4.5 Fraud

If an event was listed by someone with no right to run it, entries are refunded in full and the account is removed.

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5. How to request a refund

1. Check the event’s own refund policy first, on the event page. It tells you whether you are eligible and by when.
2. Contact the organizer. Their contact details are on the event page. Refunds under their policy are theirs to approve, and they can usually do it in a couple of minutes from their phone.
3. Contact Laces at support@laces.run if:
   • the organizer is unresponsive;
   • the situation is one in section 4 above;
   • the refund was approved but has not arrived.

Have your order code ready. It is on your confirmation and on screen at the moment you paid.

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6. Transfers instead of refunds

Many organizers allow an entry to be transferred to another runner rather than refunded, sometimes free and sometimes for a fee, usually up to a cut-off before race day.

Where the organizer allows it, you can request a transfer from your order lookup page. It is often the better outcome for everyone: you are not out of pocket, the organizer keeps their number, and someone else gets to run.

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7. Organizers

Your own refund obligations, the fee treatment on refunds you issue, and your liability if you cancel are in section 9 and section 6 of the Organizer Terms.

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8. Contact

• Refund and order help: support@laces.run
• Legal: legal@laces.run

Related: Terms of Service · Organizer Terms · Privacy Policy