In the title compound, [Cu(2)Cl(4)(C(12)H(8)N(2)O(4))(2)]·4C(3)H(7)NO, which contains a chloride-bridged centrosymmetric Cu(II) dimer, the Cu(II) atom is in a distorted square-pyramidal 4 + 1 coordination geometry defined by the N atoms of the chelating 2,2'-bipyridine ligand, a terminal chloride and two bridging chloride ligands. Of the two independent dimethyl-formamide mol-ecules, one is hydrogen bonded to a single -COOH group, while one links two adjacent -COOH groups via a strong accepted O-H⋯O and a weak donated C(O)-H⋯O hydrogen bond. Two of these last mol-ecules and the two -COOH groups form a centrosymmetric hydrogen-bonded ring in which the CH=O and the -COOH groups by disorder adopt two alternate orientations in a 0.44:0.56 ratio. These hydrogen bonds link the Cu(II) complex mol-ecules and the dimethyl-formamide solvent mol-ecules into infinite chains along [-111]. Slipped π-π stacking inter-actions between two centrosymmetric pyridine rings (centroid-centroid distance = 3.63 Å) contribute to the coherence of the structure along [0-11].