The UK Department for Business and Trade published on 2 April 2026 its formal response to the consultation on the implementation of the new subscription contracts regime, setting out how it will use secondary legislation to bring into force the consumer protection provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA). The regime, expected to commence in spring 2027, will impose mandatory cooling-off refund rights, straightforward cancellation requirements, and new information duties on every trader that sells goods, services, or digital content through a subscription model.

The scale of the problem the government is trying to address is substantial. According to the government response, there are approximately 155 million active subscriptions in the UK, representing consumer spending of approximately £26 billion per year. The average person holds around 3 subscriptions and spends approximately £500 per year on them. More striking is what happens with contracts consumers no longer want: an estimated 5.8% of active subscriptions are unwanted, translating to roughly 9.7 million contracts. Of these, around 3.6 million are thought to have rolled over from a free or discounted trial period, and approximately 1.3 million are the result of auto-renewal. The government estimates that £1.6 billion per year is spent by UK consumers on subscriptions they do not want.

The anticipated benefit of the new regime is £400 million per year in consumer savings. For each unwanted subscription that a consumer can exit earlier, the projected saving is £14 per month.

Cooling-off periods: the two-window structure

The DMCCA creates two distinct 14-day windows in which a consumer can cancel without penalty. The first is the initial cooling-off period, which begins when a subscription contract is entered. The second is a renewal cooling-off period that starts when a trial or a contract of 12 months or more auto-renews. Both exist alongside existing protections under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (CCRs), which the government has been careful not to dilute.

According to the government response, the initial cooling-off period largely mirrors the right already available under the CCRs, with one significant expansion: under the CCRs the initial right applies only to contracts entered at a distance or away from business premises, while under the DMCCA it applies to all subscription contracts regardless of how they were entered.

The renewal cooling-off period is entirely new. It provides consumers with 14 days after a trial or a 12-month-plus contract auto-renews to cancel and receive a refund - even if they had not acted before the renewal date. The government frames this as a direct response to what its own data characterises as a significant cause of unwanted subscriptions.

Refunds for goods: returnable, perishable, sealed

The legislation will distinguish between several categories of physical goods, each attracting different refund treatment. Where goods are returnable, a consumer who cancels during a cooling-off period will receive a full refund, provided the goods are returned. This includes the standard delivery charge, though if the consumer chose a more expensive delivery option, the refund covers only the trader's least expensive rate.

Perishable and bespoke goods attracted the most contentious debate during the consultation process. The government had initially proposed using a 'dispatch date' as the cut-off point - the moment after which a consumer who cancels would forfeit the cost of the goods. Businesses objected on the grounds that dispatch dates were often not known when a contract was entered, making it impossible to include this information in pre-contract disclosures. The government accepted this argument and will instead use 'supply' - an established concept in consumer law that is verifiable by the consumer - as the operative moment.

According to the government response, the practical effect is as follows: if a consumer cancels before perishable or bespoke goods are supplied, they receive a full refund including delivery costs. If they cancel after supply, the trader may reduce the refund by the value of those goods and delivery. An additional restriction applies specifically to these categories: the initial cooling-off right for perishable or bespoke goods can only be exercised within 14 days of the contract being entered, not 14 days after the goods are received - the standard window for other types. This shortens the cancellation window to protect traders from wasted procurement and production costs.

For sealed goods - items sealed for health or hygiene reasons, sealed audio or video recordings, computer software, and goods that become inseparably mixed with others after delivery - the refund rules follow the CCRs approach. If the seal is intact at cancellation, returnable goods rules apply. If the seal has been broken or the goods have been mixed, the trader may deduct the contract price of those goods from any refund.

Services: proportionate refunds and the gym problem

For service contracts, the government will legislate for proportionate refunds when a consumer cancels during a period in which supply has already begun. This means a consumer pays only for what has been provided under the contract. A consumer who takes out an annual gym membership at £365 and cancels on day 4 would owe £4, reflecting four days of contracted supply. A consumer with a £50 monthly membership entitling them to ten gym visits who cancels after two visits would owe £10.

Businesses pushed back hard on this model during the consultation period. Many argued that it effectively created an extended free trial, allowing consumers to use a service intensively for a few days and then cancel for almost a full refund. The government's response acknowledges these concerns but does not accept them as a basis for change.

According to the government response, diverging from the CCRs approach to refund calculation would create complexity - one set of rules for non-subscription contracts and another for subscriptions under the DMCCA. The government's position is that the proportionate refund model balances consumer rights with ensuring traders are compensated for services delivered. Cultural and heritage charities, which were particularly exercised by the prospect of visitors attending sold-out exhibitions in the first two weeks of membership and then cancelling, secured a distinct outcome: the government will legislate to exclude charitable cultural and heritage memberships from the DMCCA entirely.

According to the government response, this exclusion broadly covers contracts between a charity and a consumer that allow consumers to attend performances, see collections, or visit places - including museums, galleries, historical properties, landscapes, wildlife sites, and performing arts venues - where the access is related to the charity's charitable purpose. Charities falling under the exclusion will not be required to comply with subscription regime requirements for pre-contract information, reminder notices, renewal cooling-off periods, or online exit.

Digital content: the 'binge and cancel' dispute

The most contested section of the consultation concerned digital content - streaming services, gaming, software and similar products. The government consulted on three options. Option 1 would have treated digital content identically to services, with proportionate refunds available in both the initial and renewal cooling-off periods. Option 2 retains the existing CCRs waiver for the initial cooling-off period, under which a consumer who expressly consents to immediate supply and acknowledges that their cooling-off right will not apply loses that right once supply begins - while introducing proportionate refunds for the renewal period. Option 3 would have replicated the initial waiver mechanism at the renewal stage, requiring traders to seek active consent from consumers at each auto-renewal before supply continues.

The streaming and gaming industries objected to all three. Their central argument was that without an initial waiver, consumers could sign up, consume large quantities of content across a few days, and then cancel for a near-full refund. This behaviour - referred to repeatedly in the consultation documents as 'binge and cancel' - was, they argued, a structural threat to their business model. They proposed an alternative: a 'tacit consent' mechanism for the renewal period, under which a consumer who consumed content after auto-renewal would be deemed to have waived their cooling-off right, provided the trader had given adequate advance warning.

The government rejected this alternative. According to the government response, it does not consider there is sufficient evidence that 'binge and cancel' poses a substantial risk following a trial or a 12-month-plus contract auto-renewal. The overriding policy priority, it says, is ensuring consumers can recover payment when they do not want a contract to continue. The government has chosen Option 2: the initial cooling-off waiver is retained, consistent with the CCRs, and proportionate refunds apply during the renewal cooling-off period. Only 3 out of 38 respondents who answered that specific question supported Option 1, while 15 supported Option 2 and 11 supported Option 3.

For marketing professionals, the implications are significant. Subscription-based media and software products will need to build systems to calculate proportionate refunds on renewal cancellations - something many currently do not do. According to the government response, 7 of the 75 respondents who addressed implementation costs did not quantify them but identified areas including IT, legal, administrative, and consumer service costs.

Easy exit: what 'straightforward' means in practice

The DMCCA requires traders to make it straightforward for consumers to exit subscription contracts, and mandates that online sign-up must be matched by an online exit option. The government will not legislate in further detail on this point but will provide guidance clarifying its expectations.

According to the government response, online exit generally means the consumer can cancel through the same medium used to sign up - typically the trader's website or app. The guidance will make clear that providing an email address is unlikely to suffice, as it risks creating a protracted exchange rather than a clean cancellation. Cancelling a Direct Debit with a bank is explicitly described as not constituting an online exit, because the consumer has stopped payment but has not brought the contract itself to an end.

The guidance will also address offers and feedback requests during the exit process. Traders may present offers - retention attempts - and seek feedback, but these must not be compulsory and must not unreasonably prolong the exit. There is no specified number of permissible offers, but the principle is that the process must allow the consumer to conclude exit within a short period and without contacting the trader more than once.

Breach remedies and the implied terms list

Where a trader breaches certain duties - for example, failing to send a required reminder notice before auto-renewal - the DMCCA gives the consumer a right to cancel and claim a refund. The government's implementation will include a specific list of acts or omissions that automatically constitute breaches of implied terms, for which the consumer will not need to prove financial loss to access a refund. A confirmed breach from the list entitles the consumer to a refund of at least one renewal payment.

According to the government response, the list is expected to include failure to provide key pre-contract information before the contract is entered, failure to send a required reminder notice or including incomplete information in it, and setting an unreasonable period in the pre-contract information for when reminder notices will be sent.

Where a breach of implied terms entitles a consumer to a refund, the general presumption is that the consumer is not liable for payments from when the breach became operative until cancellation. The trader can rebut this presumption by showing the consumer unreasonably delayed in exercising their cancellation right. A 12-month limitation period applies.

Reminder and cooling-off notices: format requirements

The DMCCA requires traders to send reminder notices before auto-renewal and cooling-off notices at the start of each renewal cooling-off period. The government will legislate to require that reminder notices are given in writing on a durable medium, and that the purpose of the notice is immediately apparent. The same requirements will apply to cooling-off notices, which must additionally include information about the cost of returning goods.

According to the government response, a 'durable medium' under section 280 of the DMCCA means paper, email, or any medium that allows information to be addressed personally to the consumer, stored and accessed for future reference, and reproduced without alteration. This means a letter, email, SMS or WhatsApp message would qualify. An in-app notification that appears briefly and cannot be retained would not.

The government will not legislate to require that prescribed information in reminder notices appears as the first content the consumer sees - it considers the existing DMCCA requirement for prominence achieves the same effect. For end of contract notices, the government similarly will not legislate on upfront placement but will require that the notice's purpose is immediately apparent and that prescribed information is more prominent than any other information given at the same time.

The publisher and media industry angle

Eilidh Wilson, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the PPA (Publishers Association), raised specific concerns in a LinkedIn post about the refund right during cooling-off periods for digital services. According to the post, subscriptions represent "one of the fastest-growing revenue streams" for publishers and "remain the only dominant model that enables publishers to build a direct relationship with their audiences, without reliance on platforms or intermediaries."

Wilson's concern was that the mandated refund right during the initial cooling-off period risks undermining this model. According to her post, "a consumer could access and download several months' worth of content, only to then claim a refund on most of the cost." She argued the approach "risks weakening the sustainability of subscription-based content and could ultimately reduce investment in the very content consumers value."

Giles Tongue, a marketing executive specialising in subscription bundling, offered a counterpoint in the same thread. He described subscribing to an HBO Max account with the intention of cancelling after consuming a back catalogue, only to find himself staying because the depth of content exceeded his expectations. His conclusion: "If your subscription product only has two weeks of value, maybe it should not be a subscription, and probably shouldn't have a very long trial period. These new laws are designed to stop subscribers from being mistreated, they are not there to dismantle business models."

The exchange reflects the core tension the government is navigating. The rules are structured to protect consumers from unwanted charges, not to eliminate the subscriber relationship that publishers increasingly depend on.

Why this matters for marketers and ad tech

For the digital advertising and marketing industry, the new subscription regime carries direct operational implications. Media owners operating subscription models - news publishers, streaming platforms, software companies, fitness apps - will need to audit their sign-up flows, cancellation journeys, and renewal communication processes against the new requirements.

The CMA's November 2025 enforcement actions under the DMCCA's consumer protection powers already demonstrated how rapidly the regulator is moving to deploy these tools. The investigations targeted subscription-adjacent practices including default opt-ins and membership fee presentation. The subscription regime, when it commences in spring 2027, will add a further layer of specific obligations.

The parallel in the United States is instructive. The FTC's 'click to cancel' rule, finalised in October 2024, established requirements for cancellation mechanisms to be at least as simple as sign-up processes, and three industry groups - the NCTA, the Electronic Security Association, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau - challenged it in court within days. The UK government is pursuing a similar destination through legislative rather than regulatory means, which makes it harder to challenge and, once the secondary legislation is laid, more durable.

For publishers that have invested in direct subscription relationships as an alternative to platform dependency, the next 12 months represent a window to adapt systems before the spring 2027 commencement date. The government has committed to providing a transition period and will publish guidance to support implementation. The consultation drew 75 substantive responses across 27 questions, from businesses, trade associations, cultural and heritage charities, consumer advocacy organisations, law firms, and individual consumers. According to Annex A of the government response, the consultation ran from 18 November 2024 to 10 February 2025.

Timeline

Summary

Who: The UK Department for Business and Trade, acting under powers granted by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, with responses from 75 stakeholders including businesses, trade associations, consumer groups, charities, and law firms.

What: A finalised government response confirming how secondary legislation will implement a new subscription contracts regime, covering cooling-off refund rights, easy exit requirements, cancellation remedies, information notices, and an exclusion for cultural and heritage charitable memberships.

When: The government response was published on 2 April 2026. The consultation ran from 18 November 2024 to 10 February 2025. The regime is expected to commence in spring 2027.

Where: The regime applies to subscription contracts between traders and consumers across the United Kingdom. The consultation process was run by the Department for Business and Trade, whose Consumer Protection and Enforcement team led the response.

Why: The government estimates that 9.7 million unwanted subscription contracts are currently active in the UK, costing consumers approximately £1.6 billion per year. The new regime is designed to give consumers clearer information, stronger cancellation rights, and enforceable remedies, with projected annual consumer benefit of £400 million and a saving of £14 per month for each unwanted subscription exited earlier.

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