All About Cookies is an independent, advertising-supported website. Some of the offers that appear on this site are from third-party advertisers from which All About Cookies receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear).
All About Cookies does not include all financial or credit offers that might be available to consumers nor do we include all companies or all available products. Information is accurate as of the publishing date and has not been provided or endorsed by the advertiser.
The All About Cookies editorial team strives to provide accurate, in-depth information and reviews to help you, our reader, make online privacy decisions with confidence. Here's what you can expect from us:
Joining a gym can take five minutes. Canceling one can feel like a part-time job.
You sign up online, enter a credit card, and start paying almost immediately. But when you want out, suddenly there’s no cancellation button. Maybe you have to call during business hours, sit on hold, send a letter, or show up in person just to stop the charges.
That kind of runaround is exactly what New York City is targeting with its new “Click to Cancel” rule, which took effect October 1. If a business lets you sign up for a subscription online, it generally has to give you a straightforward way to cancel online, too.[1]
And the rule goes beyond gyms. It covers qualifying automatic-renewal and continuous-service subscriptions, giving New Yorkers new protections against cancellation mazes, surprise renewals, and businesses that simply drag their feet when customers try to leave.
NYC’s new Click to Cancel rule took effect on October 1, 2026, and the basic idea is remarkably simple: Businesses shouldn’t make breaking up with them harder than getting together in the first place.
Say you join a gym on its website. You choose a membership, enter your payment information, and click a few buttons. Under the new rule, that gym can’t then tell you that cancellation requires a phone call, a mailed letter, or a trip to the front desk. If you can sign up online, you need a straightforward way to cancel online, too.
The rule also prohibits businesses from obstructing, ignoring, or unreasonably delaying a cancellation. Hanging up on customers, giving misleading cancellation instructions, or misrepresenting what happens when someone cancels can all cross the line.
Many of these tactics fall under the umbrella of dark patterns. One is literally called a “roach motel,” meaning it's easy to get in but deliberately difficult to get out. Free trials that quietly become paid subscriptions and cancellation buttons buried behind endless menus are variations on the same idea. NYC’s rule is designed to make those tactics much harder to use.
And apparently, New Yorkers have had enough. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection received more than 100 complaints about subscription cancellation problems in 2025 alone. The city estimates the new rule could save consumers between $21.5 million and $162.5 million every year.
Businesses must also provide upfront disclosures about consent and billing, including what’s being renewed, how much it costs, and how often the charges will occur. Companies must also disclose the cancellation deadline and the methods available to cancel.
The same rule also outlines various notices that businesses must provide.
Any violation of the Click to Cancel rule would attract penalties. Civil penalties are set at $525 for a first violation, $1,050 for a second violation, and $3,500 for a third and each subsequent violation. In addition to these civil penalties, a business found in violation would also owe the consumer whatever it charged after the first cancellation attempt.
In addition to imposing obligations on businesses, the official NYC website also offers a complaint form where consumers can report a business if they face unreasonable hurdles while canceling their subscriptions.
This applies in various circumstances, such as when you weren’t clearly told the subscription terms, it was hard to cancel the service, the business delayed canceling the subscription, or you weren’t informed of changes to the subscription terms or auto-renewal.
/images/2026/10/02/nyc-click-to-cancel_01.png)
You can identify the business, explain what happened, and tell the city what outcome you want, including cancellation, a refund and cancellation, or an anonymous tip. If you provide your contact information, DCWP may follow up and can assign a mediator to work with you and the business.
Subscription traps are mostly a consumer protection problem, but there’s a privacy lesson here, too. Signing up for a service often means handing over your name, email address, payment information, and sometimes much more. Getting the company to stop charging you doesn't necessarily mean it will erase that information.
Cancellation and account deletion are often separate processes. A company may continue retaining some information after you leave, depending on its policies and legal obligations.
So once you cancel a service you no longer use, it’s worth checking whether you can also delete the account and remove information you no longer want the company to keep. The less unnecessary personal information sits in company databases, the less could potentially be exposed in a future data breach.
Joining a gym shouldn’t take three clicks while canceling it requires three phone calls and a trip across town. NYC’s “Click to Cancel” rule is designed to close that gap by requiring businesses to make cancellation straightforward and preventing them from deliberately creating unnecessary hurdles.
The rule also requires advance notice about renewals, material changes, and the end of free trials, while businesses that violate it can face civil penalties of up to $3,500. For New Yorkers, the takeaway is simple: If a company makes it easy to sign up, it can’t make getting out unnecessarily difficult.
Top-rated data removal service that scrubs your info from 420+ data broker sites automatically
Independently verified by Deloitte, meaning removals are actually sent, confirmed, and not just claimed
The Unlimited plan extends coverage to 2,000+ additional sites with human-assisted custom removals
/images/2022/08/11/nordvpn-review.png)
/images/2023/04/19/best_ad_blockers_for_android.jpg)
/images/2026/10/02/unhappy_woman_talking_on_smartphone_with_bank_client_support_operator__drBC4Pt.jpg)
/images/2026/07/23/california-first-privacy-audit-gig-workers.jpg)
/images/2023/07/07/termly-review.png)
/images/2023/03/08/gavel-digital-code-privacy-laws.jpg)
/images/2023/02/08/what_are_dark_patterns.jpg)
/images/2023/02/01/what_is_the_right_to_be_forgotten.jpg)
/authors/krishi_chowdhary_headshot.jpg){kind=small}
/authors/kate-quinlan-new.jpg){kind=small}
/images/2025/09/11/incogni-logo.png){kind=logo}
/authors/krishi_chowdhary_headshot.jpg)