New York City consumers are getting a new Click-to-Cancel rule from October 1.
The rule gives consumers numerous protections, including forcing companies to clearly explain subscription terms and to clearly disclose consumers’ rights when buying or cancelling subscriptions.
From October, companies will also need to provide customers with a straightforward cancellation process via the same method they signed up with. In addition, companies will be unable to ask customers to pay to ship items that were given to them for free. The new rule is expected to save New Yorkers $21.5 million to $162.5 million annually, according to the Roosevelt Institute.
The new rule will be enforced by the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), and was signed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine. New York joins states like Utah, Idaho, California, Massachusetts, Georgia, Minnesota, Colorado, Illinois, and Arkansas, which have all already enacted click-to-cancel protections in recent years.
“Whether it’s hidden fees that suddenly appear at checkout or subscriptions that take one click to sign up for and a dozen steps to cancel, the result is the same: working people pay more while corporations profit,” said Mayor Mamdani. “That ends now.”
The rule will only apply to people living in New York City itself, rather than New York State as a whole, though they may get some other protections under New York State law.
Though consumers in New York will soon be getting Click-to-Cancel protections, it may take a long time, if ever, until consumers in the rest of the US do.
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A federal Click-to-Cancel regulation was originally set to take effect on July 14, 2025, but it was blocked and voided by a US appeals court in St. Louis, which claimed that the FTC had “failed to follow procedural requirements” during the rule’s development.
This federal Click-to-Cancel rule was finalized in October 2024 under the Biden administration and was originally set to take effect on May 14, 2025. But it had been hit by lawsuits from prominent trade bodies like the Internet & Television Association (NCTA), which represents some of America’s largest telecom and internet firms, including Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Disney Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Alongside the new Click-to-Cancel rule, the mayor’s office also proposed a new “junk fees” rule, which is set for a public comment period and public hearing on August 7th. The proposed rule would force businesses to advertise the full price of goods and services upfront, including all mandatory charges and fees.
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