Is the FTC's Click-to-Cancel Rule in Effect in 2026?

No, the FTC's Click-to-Cancel rule is not in effect in 2026. The Eighth Circuit vacated it entirely on July 8, 2025, days before its scheduled effective date, on procedural grounds rather than ruling on the substance of the rule itself.

Why It Was Struck Down

In Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC, the Eighth Circuit held the FTC violated Section 22 of the FTC Act by skipping a preliminary regulatory analysis that becomes mandatory once an administrative law judge determines a rule's annual economic impact will exceed $100 million. That's a procedural defect in how the FTC adopted the rule, not a finding that the cancellation requirements themselves were unlawful — a future version of the rule that completes the required analysis could still survive a substantive challenge.

What the Rule Would Have Required

The vacated rule would have required sellers offering negative-option or subscription plans to make cancellation at least as easy as sign-up — eliminating cancel-by-phone-only flows or a mandatory retention pitch standing between a customer and cancellation, for any business the rule covered.

The Vacatur Is Nationwide, Not Just for the Plaintiff

The Eighth Circuit specifically declined the FTC's request to limit the vacatur to the plaintiff trade group, so the rule is void for every business that would have been covered by it — not just the party that sued.

Other Negative-Option Law Still Applies

The vacatur only removed the 2024 Click-to-Cancel overhaul codified at 16 C.F.R. Part 425 — it didn't touch the FTC's original 1973 negative option rule, which remains in place for the narrower set of offers it covers (mail and telephone sales). More broadly, businesses running negative-option or subscription offers are still bound by the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA), Section 5 of the FTC Act's general prohibition on unfair or deceptive practices, and state-level automatic renewal and UDAP laws. Roughly 30 jurisdictions, including California, Colorado, and New York, have their own autorenewal requirements that function much like the vacated federal rule — California's remains fully in force and applies to any business selling to California consumers regardless of what happened federally.

What Happens Next Is Unclear

The FTC hasn't confirmed whether it will redo the missing economic analysis and reissue the rule, pursue a different rulemaking path, or drop the effort. For now, subscription and negative-option marketers are operating under the FTC's general negative-option enforcement authority rather than the specific Click-to-Cancel standard.

Bottom Line

Don't assume Click-to-Cancel's specific requirements apply federally in 2026, but check state automatic-renewal laws — especially California's — before designing a cancellation flow, since those obligations didn't go away with the federal rule.

Sources: Eighth Circuit, Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC (decided July 8, 2025); Keller and Heckman LLP, "Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Strikes Down FTC's Click-to-Cancel Rule"; Lowenstein Sandler, "FTC Click-to-Cancel Rule On Hold, But California's Automatic Renewal Law Remains Intact."