What Is California’s Automatic Renewal Law 17600?

The California Automatic Renewal Law, found at Business and Professions Code sections 17600 through 17606, requires any business that charges California consumers on a recurring basis to clearly disclose renewal terms before the sale, obtain the consumer’s affirmative consent, send a saveable acknowledgment with cancellation instructions, make cancellation easy, and provide annual reminders and advance notice of price changes. It applies regardless of where the business is headquartered, and it reaches everything from streaming services to subscription boxes. Violations can turn shipped products into free gifts and expose the business to civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.¹

Who the Law Applies To

The statute covers two kinds of offers: an automatic renewal, where a paid subscription renews at the end of a set term, and a continuous service, which keeps running until the consumer cancels. Both trigger the same obligations.¹

“Consumer” in the statute means an individual acquiring goods or services for personal, family, or household use. Business-to-business subscriptions fall outside the law entirely, so a company selling software licenses exclusively to other businesses isn’t subject to these requirements.¹

Several industries are fully exempt because they are already regulated elsewhere: services under the California Public Utilities Commission, FCC, or FERC; entities regulated by the California Department of Insurance; banks, bank holding companies, credit unions, and their subsidiaries and affiliates licensed under state or federal law; alarm company operators regulated under Chapter 11.6 of Division 3 of the Business and Professions Code; and service contract sellers and administrators regulated by the Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair.²

Pre-Sale Disclosure

Before a consumer completes a purchase, the business must present all renewal or continuous service terms in a “clear and conspicuous” manner. The statute defines that as text in a larger size than surrounding copy, or in a contrasting typeface or color, or set off by symbols that draw attention to it. For voice transactions, the disclosure must be loud and clear enough to be easily understood.¹

The disclosure must appear in visual proximity to the request for consent and must include:

That the subscription will continue until the consumer cancels
A description of the cancellation policy
The recurring charge amount, whether it may change, and the new amount if known
The length of the renewal term, or that the service is continuous
Any minimum purchase obligation

Burying these terms deep inside a terms-of-service document does not satisfy the standard.³

Affirmative Consent

A business cannot charge a consumer’s credit card, debit card, or third-party payment account without first obtaining the consumer’s affirmative consent to the specific renewal or continuous service terms. This applies equally to full-price offers, discounted introductory periods, and free trials.³

Consent has to be genuine and unambiguous. The contract cannot include language that interferes with, contradicts, or undermines informed consent, and consent bundled into a general terms-of-service acceptance will not hold up. The business must keep verification of consent on file for at least three years, or one year after the contract ends, whichever is longer.³

Post-Sign-Up Acknowledgment

Once the consumer agrees, the business must send an acknowledgment the consumer can keep, such as an email or downloadable document. The acknowledgment must restate the renewal terms, the cancellation policy, and instructions for how to cancel. It is a separate duty from the pre-sale disclosure, not a substitute for it.³

Free Trials and Promotional Pricing

Free trials and discounted introductory offers get extra scrutiny. If an offer includes a free gift or trial period, the business must clearly disclose the price that applies after the trial ends, or explain exactly how the pricing will change once the introductory period is over. Vague language such as “regular price applies” is not sufficient.³

The acknowledgment for a free-trial offer must also tell the consumer how to cancel and allow them to cancel before any charge occurs. Confirmation emails that announce the trial but omit cancellation instructions, or force the consumer to hunt through an account dashboard, don’t satisfy the rule.³

Easy Cancellation

Every business under the law must provide a cost-effective, timely, and easy-to-use way for the consumer to cancel. At minimum, the business must offer at least one of the following: a toll-free number, an email address, a postal address (if the business bills the consumer directly), or another mechanism that meets the cost-effective and easy-to-use standard. Whichever method the business chooses must be described in the acknowledgment.³

If the consumer signed up online, they must be able to cancel online too, immediately and without extra obstacles. Online cancellation has to take one of two forms: a prominently placed direct link or button within the consumer’s account, profile, or device settings, or a pre-formatted cancellation email the consumer can send without having to add any information. A business can require login to cancel online, but a consumer unwilling or unable to authenticate must still be able to cancel through an offline method.⁴

Businesses may present a discount, upgrade, or information about the downsides of canceling during the cancellation process, but any retention offer must appear alongside a clear and obvious cancel button or link. The cancel option cannot be hidden behind or underneath those offers.⁵

Annual Reminders

Businesses must send an annual reminder to every consumer on an automatic renewal or continuous service. The reminder goes out through the channel the consumer used to sign up or the channel they normally use to interact with the business. For subscriptions started in person or over the phone, the reminder can be sent by phone, mail, or any internet-based communication.⁵

Each annual reminder must identify the product or service, state the amount and frequency of the charge, and explain how to cancel. Skipping it is a standalone violation, separate from any defect in the original disclosure or consent.⁵

Notice of Price or Term Changes

When fees change or there is a material change to the terms of an existing subscription, the business must send the consumer a clear and conspicuous notice of the change along with cancellation instructions. For fee changes, notice must arrive no fewer than 7 days and no more than 30 days before the new price takes effect. A general disclosure at sign-up that “prices may change” does not substitute for specific advance notice when the change actually happens.⁵

What Happens If a Business Doesn’t Comply

The penalty structure has two distinct edges. First, if a business ships products under a renewal or continuous service agreement without properly obtaining affirmative consent, those products are treated as unconditional gifts. The consumer can keep them, give them away, or dispose of them, and owes nothing (including no shipping costs) to the business. There is no obligation to return anything.⁶

Second, a violation of the law is not a crime, but all civil remedies apply.¹ Because violations constitute unfair business practices, they carry civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation. Actions can be brought by the California Attorney General, district attorneys, and certain city attorneys and prosecutors, with courts weighing the seriousness of the misconduct, the number of violations, how long it continued, and whether it was intentional. Consumers can also bring their own civil actions seeking restitution of unauthorized charges.⁷

The Good Faith Defense

The law offers one meaningful shield. A business that complies in good faith is not subject to civil remedies.¹ This isn’t a blanket excuse for sloppy implementation. A business claiming good faith needs to show it had real compliance procedures and that any failure wasn’t the product of indifference or cost-cutting. The consent verification records the law already requires serve double duty: they prove the business was actually collecting and preserving consent, which is strong evidence of good faith.³

Federal Overlap With ROSCA

California businesses that sell subscriptions online must also comply with the federal Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act. ROSCA applies to any internet transaction involving a negative option feature and imposes three requirements: disclose all material terms before collecting billing information, obtain express informed consent before charging a financial account, and provide a simple mechanism for stopping recurring charges.⁸

A business that fully complies with California’s law will satisfy most of ROSCA’s requirements, since the state law is more detailed and more demanding. The main risk arises when businesses treat state and federal compliance as separate projects and miss a gap. The FTC can enforce ROSCA violations under its general authority over unfair or deceptive trade practices, though a separate proposed “click-to-cancel” rule was vacated by the Eighth Circuit in 2025 and remains under review as of early 2026.⁹

1
California Legislative Information. California Business and Professions Code – Article 9 Automatic Purchase Renewals
2
California Legislative Information. California Code Business and Professions Code 17605
3
California Legislative Information. California Code Business and Professions Code 17602
4
California Legislative Information. Bill Text – AB 390 Advertising Automatic Renewal and Continuous Service Offers
5
California Legislative Information. California Business and Professions Code 17602
6
California Legislative Information. California Code Business and Professions Code 17603
7
California Legislative Information. California Business and Professions Code 17206
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 8403 – Negative Option Marketing on the Internet
9
Federal Trade Commission. Do You Have Thoughts on Negative Option-Related Regulations? Share Them With the FTC