No, third-party cookies have not disappeared in 2026: Chrome keeps them, officially and with no end date. But the retargeting that relies on them reaches an audience that shrinks year after year. Safari and Firefox have blocked these cookies by default for a long time, a share of visitors refuses consent, and tracker lifespans are getting shorter. So the question is no longer “when will cookies disappear?”, but “what share of my audience can I still reach, and with what data?”.

A few figures for context. According to StatCounter, in early 2026 Safari accounts for roughly 19% of web traffic in Europe and Firefox around 2 to 3% worldwide: two browsers where retargeting via third-party cookies does not work. On the consent side, the 2025 Privacy Barometer by Commanders Act (more than 1,300 banners analysed) measures an average acceptance rate of 78%: one visitor in five therefore explicitly refuses the placement of advertising trackers.

For a Belgian SME, the stakes are concrete: remarketing lists shrink and cost per conversion rises. The good news: the data you already own, customers, quotes, newsletter, is worth more than any rented cookie.

Third-party cookies in 2026: what changed, what didn't

Why did Chrome give up on removing third-party cookies?

Google had announced as early as 2020 the end of third-party cookies in Chrome, postponed three times. Then, a reversal: in July 2024, the Privacy Sandbox team officially announces it is dropping the forced deprecation. And in April 2025, Google confirms it is even abandoning the dedicated choice prompt: third-party cookies remain active by default in Chrome, under pressure from regulators and from an advertising industry unconvinced by the alternatives. An official status quo, but a misleading one.

Safari and Firefox: blocking is already the norm

Because while Chrome was dithering, the other browsers acted. Safari has blocked third-party cookies by default since 2020. Firefox has partitioned them since 2021 with its total cookie protection. On these browsers, your retargeting pixels no longer follow anyone from one site to another, and they haven't for years.

In Belgium, where the iPhone is very widespread, the share of traffic going through Safari is far from marginal, especially among urban or B2B customers. Chrome's status quo protects only part of your audience, and nothing guarantees it will last.

Why your remarketing lists shrink anyway

GDPR consent cuts into the addressable base

Even on Chrome, no advertising cookie can be placed without prior consent, a European rule applied in Belgium by the Data Protection Authority. The Commanders Act 2025 Barometer shows that beyond the 22% of explicit refusals, nearly 40% of desktop visitors make no choice at all, and without a choice, no tracker. Your remarketing list therefore contains only a fraction of your visitors.

Add to this a quieter phenomenon: tracker lifespan is shrinking. Safari caps certain cookies at a few days, ad blockers are gaining ground and apps partition browsing. A “visitors of the last 30 days” list therefore contains many expired profiles that your campaigns pay to re-target.

First-party data: the asset that replaces rented cookies

Customer Match: your customer lists as an advertising audience

The principle: you import a list of contacts (emails, phone numbers, addresses) collected with consent, the platform matches them with its user accounts, in a hashed and irreversible way, and you obtain an activatable audience, without cookie or browser.

List quality is everything. According to Google, importing two types of identifiers (email + phone, for example) increases the match rate by 28% on average, and three identifiers bring it to 35%. Still according to Google, adding Customer Match signals to existing campaigns delivers on average 5.3% additional conversions. Realistic figures, and therefore credible.

Performance Max and audience signals

In automated campaigns like Performance Max, your lists no longer serve only to re-target: they serve as a learning signal. The algorithm learns what your real customers look like and broadens delivery toward similar profiles. A clean list thus becomes an acquisition lever, not only a retention one. A detailed approach on our Google Ads advertising page.

How do you build this base when you start from scratch?

• Newsletter with a real incentive: practical guide, welcome discount or priority access.

• Customer accounts and purchase history: every documented sale enriches your future audiences.

• Quote requests and contact forms: valuable in B2B, where every contact is worth a lot.

• Offline data: trade shows, shop, invoicing, with explicit agreement to collection.

• Explicit advertising opt-in box: clearly mention advertising use at the point of collection.

GDPR consent is not the obstacle: it's the prerequisite

Many advertisers see the GDPR as the brake that killed retargeting. It's the opposite: clean consent is what makes your lists usable. An email list collected fairly, with the advertising purpose mentioned, can be imported entirely legally. A list bought without a legal basis is risky (the Belgian Data Protection Authority has already penalised consent breaches) and contractually unusable by ad networks.

Three concrete projects for a Belgian SME:

• A compliant consent banner: real choice, refusing as easy as accepting, proof retained.

• The Consent Mode of your advertising tools correctly configured, to model the conversions of visitors who refused rather than lose them.

• A clear register of purposes: who is in your base, what they accepted, when. That is what secures your imports.

The investment is modest and determines everything else: reliable measurement, activatable lists, optimisable campaigns.

Frequently asked questions

Did third-party cookies disappear from Chrome in 2026?

No. Google officially gave up on it in July 2024, then dropped the dedicated choice screen in April 2025: they remain active by default. But Safari and Firefox have blocked them for years, and consent remains mandatory in Europe.

Is retargeting dead without third-party cookies?

No, it changes fuel. Re-targeting still works via your imported customer lists (Customer Match), the audiences collected with consent on your site and the audience signals from automated campaigns. What dies is the passive tracking of anonymous users from site to site.

Can I import my customer email list into Google Ads?

Yes, if it was collected with a valid legal basis and the advertising use was mentioned at collection. The data is hashed before matching and unreadable by the ad network. A list bought from a third party almost never meets these conditions.

Priority action plan

1. Audit your dependency: measure the share of your conversions attributed to cookie-based retargeting and the real size of your lists.

2. Bring your consent up to standard: compliant banner, configured Consent Mode, proof of collection.

3. Centralise your customer data: export and clean emails, phone numbers and purchase history from invoicing, shop and CRM.

4. Activate Customer Match: import your lists with at least two identifiers per contact, add them as a signal in your automated campaigns and compare cost per conversion over 60 days.

The retargeting of 2026 rewards advertisers who own their data rather than those who rented others'. For a Belgian SME, that's good news: budget matters less than the quality of the customer relationship. Building a clean, consented and structured base right now gives a head start that cookies will never offer again.

If you want to assess what your customer data can already produce in a campaign, our digital advertising service can run that diagnosis with you.