Subscriptions will be easier to cancel from January 2027

New rules will make it easier to cancel a subscription from January 2027. The government has brought the start date forward from spring 2027.

The Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, and the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, announced the change on 9 August 2026.

What a company will have to do

The rules set out four things a company must do for a subscription:

• give clear information before someone signs up
• remind the customer before a free or discounted trial becomes a paid contract, and at least every 6 months after that
• let the customer cancel in a straightforward way, without unnecessary steps, and online if they signed up online
• give the customer 14 days to cancel after a trial ends, or after a contract of 12 months or more renews, with a refund for the time they have not used

When the rules start

The rules come from the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. They were due in spring 2027, but the government has moved the start to January 2027.

The same announcement said that a separate consultation this autumn will look at misleading pricing, not the detail of the subscription rules. The government said it will consult on whether to ban tactics such as fake “was” prices, invented discounts and misleading recommended retail prices (RRPs).

Why the government is acting

There are around 155 million active subscriptions in the UK. The government estimates that people spend £1.6 billion a year on ones they do not want. It puts the average saving at £14 a month for every unwanted subscription.

In the same announcement, Citizens Advice said that over 13 million people, 26% of UK adults, accidentally took out a subscription in a year.

An earlier government press release put the number of unwanted subscriptions in the UK at about 10 million. It put the saving from the new rules at £400 million a year. It also found that more than 3.5 million people are moved from a free or discounted trial onto a paid contract. Another 1.3 million are caught out by an unexpected renewal.

What people can do now

The rules are not in force yet, so the current position still applies. People who want to cancel now can follow the steps in our cancel a subscription tool.

Until the rules start, it helps to:

• note when a free trial ends, so it does not roll into a paid subscription
• keep the confirmation after cancelling a subscription
• ask the bank to stop any payment that still leaves an account after cancellation