A new “click to cancel” provision in the Connecticut Autorenewal Law took effect on July 1. Now, private companies in Connecticut must notify consumers of automatic subscription renewals before they occur.
“For too long, corporations have designed deliberate, digital mazes to trap Connecticut residents into recurring payments they don’t want,” said Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, in a press release from Attorney General William Tong’s office. Lemar is the co-chair of the General Law Committee. “By requiring companies to make cancelling a subscription just as fast and seamless as signing up, we are eliminating predatory junk fees, restoring basic fairness, and putting hard-earned money back into the pockets of our working families.”
The new law also requires companies to streamline the cancellation process.
Businesses can no longer require a person to show up in person or send mail to cancel a subscription. If the business has an online platform, the law requires them to have a “clear cancellation option or a dedicated email address consumers can use to cancel.” Companies that do not have websites or other online platforms must provide a phone number consumers can call, and if a customer leaves sufficient information in a voicemail, the business must cancel their subscription within a day.
“This new law was a priority of Senate Democrats because too many Connecticut residents have been caught off guard by unexpected charges on their credit card statements only to realize a subscription renewed without any warning,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff in the press release. “With this law now taking effect, those days are over… This is a commonsense protection that puts people back in control of their own finances.”
There has been a bipartisan effort across the country to regulate subscription auto-renewals. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—under the Trump Administration—attempted to pass a national click-to-cancel regulation that regulated auto-renewals, but it was struck down in federal court. Judges in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that FTC officials did not follow proper procedures when attempting to create this regulation; judges did not say that the regulations themselves were unlawful.
If the FTC wants to pass a regulation that could have an annual economic impact of $100 million or more, it needs to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis. The FTC tried to claim that regulating auto-renewal subscriptions would not have that large an economic impact, but the justices disagreed with the FTC’s assessment.
Since the FTC’s regulation was first challenged, more than a dozen other states, including Massachusetts, New York, Idaho, and Tennessee, have passed similar regulations.
“Connecticut is putting consumers back in control with strong new ‘click to cancel’ rights,” Tong said in the press release. “Businesses that fail to comply may be engaging in unfair trade practices, and we will not hesitate to enforce the law.”
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