NYC's click-to-cancel rule took effect Oct. 1

New York City has brought back click-to-cancel for its residents, a year after a federal appeals court killed a nationwide version.

CNET reports the rule, announced last week by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, took effect Oct. 1. It covers gym memberships, cellphone contracts and apps that charge a monthly fee. Under the rule, a company must make canceling a subscription as easy as signing up for it. The city's version is similar to the 2024 federal click-to-cancel proposal that never fully rolled out.

"No one should need 45 minutes of hold music to stop paying for something they never wanted," Mamdani said in the announcement.

How to complain

New Yorkers can file complaints on a city web page. They can search for or add a business, even one based outside New York City, choose an issue such as "The business delayed canceling your subscription," upload documents such as screenshots, and request an outcome like "refund and cancel subscription."

Full-time staffers, not chatbots, will handle those complaints, Samuel Levine, commissioner of the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, told The Verge. "We're going to have actual people whose full-time job is to help them."

Businesses found in violation can be fined up to $525 per violation.

The rest of the country

The rest of the country still has no national rule. A CNET survey found Americans spend on average more than $1,300 a year on subscriptions, some unused or accidental.

State and local laws are filling the gap. California requires explicit consent before a renewal charge, and its law was expanded to require cancellation on the same medium used to sign up, plus renewal notices. Maryland's law, in effect since June, requires a "cost-effective, timely and easy-to-use" way to cancel auto-renewals, with fines up to $10,000 per violation and $25,000 for repeat violations. Colorado's Online Cancellation Act, in effect since 2025, requires a one-step cancellation link.

The national rule was struck down by the Eighth District Court of Appeals because the proper regulatory analysis hadn't been done, not because the court disagreed with its approach. The FTC has shown some signs of revisiting the issue. In January it said it was submitting a draft proposal related to "Negative Option Plans," and in March it opened a public comment period after receiving 100,000 complaints in five years about difficult cancellations. The FTC told CNET it had no update on click-to-cancel or the New York City law.

Emily Peterson-Cassin of the Consumer Federation of America said the city rule shows local governments can protect consumers when federal agencies don't. "This innovative move highlights yet again that local and state consumer protection agencies are stepping up to protect consumers even while federal agencies aren't and provides a roadmap for other regulators to do the same."

For New Yorkers, the practical step is to keep screenshots of sign-up and cancellation attempts and file a complaint on the city's page if a company won't cancel. For everyone else, the patchwork of state laws means protections vary by location.

• click-to-cancel
• consumer protection
• FTC
• NYC
• subscriptions
• Zohran Mamdani