Is the FTC click-to-cancel rule still law?
Where subscription cancellation regulation actually stands, as of August 2026 — not where a headline from 2024 left it.
If you've seen "click-to-cancel" mentioned as an active FTC requirement, that's out of date. Here's the actual sequence, in order.
What happened: the rule was vacated
In October 2024, the FTC finalized amendments to its Negative Option Rule — widely nicknamed "click-to-cancel" — requiring that cancelling a subscription be as easy as signing up for one. It was scheduled to take effect on 14 July 2025.
It never took effect. On 8 July 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated the rule in full in Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC. The court's reasoning was procedural, not a judgment on the policy itself: the FTC had skipped a preliminary regulatory analysis that is legally required once a rule's projected cost exceeds $100 million a year — the click-to-cancel rule's estimated cost cleared that bar, and the FTC didn't do the analysis anyway. Skipping that step, the court held, denied businesses a fair opportunity to weigh in during the rulemaking process. Vacating the whole rule, rather than issuing a narrower fix, was the remedy.
What is in force today
The vacatur erased the specific 2024 rule. It did not erase the older law that rule was trying to sharpen. Three things were never touched and remain fully enforceable right now:
- ROSCA — the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, a federal law aimed specifically at negative-option and auto-renewal billing.
- Section 5 of the FTC Act — the FTC's general authority to act against unfair or deceptive practices, which covers a cancellation flow designed to frustrate or bury the ability to cancel.
- Roughly 30 state auto-renewal laws, including California, New York, and Colorado, several of which impose their own cancellation-ease requirements independent of anything the FTC does.
In other words: there is currently no federal click-to-cancel rule, but there was never a moment where cancellation-friction became legal.
Is a replacement coming?
One is being drafted, but it does not exist yet, and treating it as settled would be premature. The FTC submitted a draft Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) on negative-option practices to OIRA for review on 30 January 2026, and opened it for public comment on 11 March 2026, with comments due around 13 April 2026. An ANPRM is the first step of a new rulemaking — it's the FTC asking questions in public, not issuing a rule. Whatever eventually results, and on whatever timeline, is not yet written.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Oct 2024 | FTC finalizes the "click-to-cancel" Negative Option Rule amendments |
| 8 Jul 2025 | Eighth Circuit vacates the rule in full, days before it was due to take effect (Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC) |
| 14 Jul 2025 | Original scheduled effective date — never reached |
| 30 Jan 2026 | FTC submits a draft ANPRM on negative-option practices to OIRA, restarting the rulemaking |
| 11 Mar 2026 | FTC opens the ANPRM for public comment |
| ~13 Apr 2026 | Public comments due |
What this means in practice for a cancel flow
Practically, not much changes from how a cancellation flow should have been built all along:
- Never block or gate the actual ability to cancel. ROSCA and FTC Act Section 5 already reach a flow that traps someone in retention offers with no real exit — that was true before the 2024 rule and remains true with it vacated.
- Check your specific states. If your customers are concentrated in California, New York, Colorado, or another state with its own auto-renewal law, that state's requirement doesn't care what's happening at the federal level.
- Watch the ANPRM, don't assume it. A comment period closing in April 2026 doesn't mean a rule exists in April 2026 — rulemaking after the comment period typically takes months to years. Treat "cancelling should be no harder than subscribing" as the design target regardless of the calendar.
Why Cancel Desk is built this way anyway: every flow always ends in a working path to actually cancel — declining a save offer completes the cancellation immediately, on every plan, with no exceptions. That was true before the vacatur and doesn't change because of it. "Cancelling should be no harder than subscribing" is the FTC's own stated reading of ROSCA, not a rule that can be switched off by an appeals court.
Questions
Is the FTC's click-to-cancel rule in force right now?
No. The Eighth Circuit vacated it in full on 8 July 2025, days before its scheduled 14 July 2025 effective date. As of August 2026 there is no federal click-to-cancel rule in force.
Why was the rule vacated?
On procedural grounds, not because a court disagreed with the goal. The FTC skipped a legally required preliminary regulatory analysis after the rule's estimated cost was projected to exceed $100 million a year, and the Eighth Circuit held that skipping it denied businesses a fair chance to weigh in during the rulemaking.
Is a replacement rule coming?
One is being drafted, but it does not exist yet. The FTC submitted a draft ANPRM to OIRA on 30 January 2026 and opened it for public comment on 11 March 2026, with comments due around 13 April 2026 — the start of a new rulemaking process, not a rule in force.
So is cancellation-friction regulation dead until a new rule exists?
No. ROSCA, Section 5 of the FTC Act, and roughly 30 state auto-renewal laws — including California, New York, and Colorado — were never touched by the vacatur and remain fully enforceable today.
Does this change how a cancel flow should be built?
Not really. The FTC's own stated reading of ROSCA is that cancelling should be no harder than subscribing was, and that principle predates the vacated rule and will likely survive whatever replaces it.
Sources
- WilmerHale — "Eighth Circuit Vacates the FTC's 'Click to Cancel' Rule, but Federal and State Regulators Likely to Remain Active" (August 2025)
- Gibson Dunn — "FTC Restarts Negative Option Rulemaking After Eighth Circuit Vacatur"
- Federal Trade Commission — "FTC Submits Draft ANPRM Related to Negative Option Plans to OMB for Review" (30 January 2026)
- Federal Trade Commission — "FTC Seeks Public Comment in Response to Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Negative Option Marketing Practices" (11 March 2026)
Cancel Desk is a hosted cancel flow built around never blocking the exit, regardless of which specific rule is active this year.
See how it works