What Is a Refundable Buyer Deposit?
Written by Christopher Krassnig - Founder - Kairos Exchange and ZenoX Media. Last reviewed 11 August 2026.
A refundable deposit is what a buyer pays to unlock a listing's private financials, the numbers the public card does not show. On Kairos it is EUR 250, refunded if you walk away and credited toward the price if you buy. Buyers without verified funds can hold at most 3 deposits at once, which keeps a listing's real numbers open to people who mean it.
Looking to buy one? Join the buyer waitlist
Why a Deposit, and Not Just an NDA
An NDA stops a leak. It does nothing about a buyer who signs one, opens a seller's real financials, and never engages again, at no cost to them and real cost to the seller's time. A refundable deposit changes the arithmetic: opening the books costs something, which filters out most of the lookers who were never going to buy, without charging a serious buyer anything they do not get back.
What Happens to the Money
EUR 250 holds while the listing stays unlocked. Withdraw interest, or the deal does not go your way, and it refunds. Close the purchase, and it credits straight toward the price, so a serious buyer never actually pays it out of pocket. Buyers with verified funds skip the deposit entirely and unlock for free, because the thing the deposit exists to prove, that you can actually pay, is already established a different way.
The Cap, and Why It Exists
A buyer without verified funds can hold at most 3 deposits at once. Without a cap, a buyer with money to spare could open every listing's private numbers on the site and sit on all of them, which is exactly the behavior a deposit is supposed to price out. Get your funds verified once, and the cap and the deposit both disappear, because a lender or a bank statement already answered the question the deposit was standing in for.
Buying a Store Somewhere Else?
Kairos Due Diligence works on any deal - Flippa, a broker, a private sale. A person reads the store's raw numbers and writes you a report. If the deal is bad, the report says walk away. From EUR 1.5k, no account needed.
Answered. Now Get in Line for the First Store
When the doors open, verified stores go to the waitlist first. You have done the reading part. The list is the part with a queue.