How to find and cancel subscriptions you forgot

Subscriptions are easy to start and easy to forget: a free trial that rolled into a paid plan, a streaming service you stopped watching, an app that renews once a year. This guide shows you how to find every recurring charge, cancel through the right channel and what to do if a company makes leaving hard.

Step 1: Find every recurring charge

Start with your money, not your memory.

• Go back 12 months. A month of statements catches monthly charges but misses annual renewals. Look at every checking account, credit card and debit card you use.
• Look for repeats. The same merchant and a similar amount on the same date each month (or year) is almost always a subscription.
• Watch for small amounts. Low-cost charges are easy to overlook, and several of them add up.
• Search your email. Try "receipt," "renewal," "your trial," "subscription" and "membership."
• Check app store accounts. Apple and Google each keep a list of subscriptions billed through them.

Write each one down with the amount, how often it bills, the next charge date and how you signed up. How you signed up usually tells you where you have to cancel.

Step 2: Cancel through the right channel

Subscriptions billed by Apple

If you subscribed inside an app on an iPhone or iPad, Apple bills you, so you cancel through Apple. On an iPhone or iPad, open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, choose the subscription and tap Cancel Subscription. On a Mac, you do it from your account in the App Store.

If you can't find a subscription there, Apple suggests searching your email for "receipt from Apple" or "invoice from Apple" to see which Apple Account was used. If there's no Apple receipt, the subscription may be billed by another company, and you'd cancel with that company.

Subscriptions billed by Google Play

On Android, open your subscriptions page in Google Play, select the subscription and tap Cancel subscription. Google is explicit that uninstalling the app won't cancel your subscription. After you cancel, you keep access until the end of the period you've already paid for.

Subscriptions billed directly by the company

For everything else, sign in to your account on the company's website. Look under account, billing, membership or plan settings. The FTC advises that if the company has instructions on how to cancel, follow those, keep a record of your request and any conversations, and check your statements afterward to make sure the charges stopped.

Save the cancellation confirmation email or take a screenshot of the confirmation page. If you cancel by phone, note the date, time, the representative's name and any confirmation number.

If a company won't let you cancel

Card payments

The FTC's guidance is that if you can't cancel, you can call your credit card company and ask them to stop the payments. If you're charged after you told the company to cancel, you can dispute the charge with your card issuer, which is sometimes called a chargeback.

For credit cards, the Fair Credit Billing Act gives you a formal dispute right for billing errors, including charges for things you didn't accept or that weren't delivered as agreed. Your letter has to reach the issuer within 60 days after the first bill with the error was sent to you, at the address for billing inquiries, not the payment address.

Automatic bank debits

If a company pulls money straight from your bank account, federal rules let you stop it. Under Regulation E, you can stop a preauthorized electronic payment by notifying your bank or credit union orally or in writing at least three business days before the scheduled transfer. If you call, the bank may require written confirmation within 14 days.

Report it

You can report a business that won't let you cancel to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or to your state attorney general, as the FTC's subscription guide suggests.

What US law says, as of November 2026

The federal baseline: ROSCA

The Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (2010) covers online sales with a negative option feature, meaning you're charged unless you act to stop it. Sellers must clearly disclose all material terms before taking your billing information, get your express informed consent before charging you, and provide simple mechanisms to stop recurring charges.

What happened to "click to cancel"

In late 2024 the FTC finalized amendments to its Negative Option Rule, announced as the "click-to-cancel" rule, which added requirements on disclosures, consent and simple cancellation.

In 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated the 2024 rule in Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC, finding the FTC's process procedurally insufficient because it skipped a required preliminary regulatory analysis. On February 12, 2026, the FTC published a notice restoring the rule to the form it had before the 2024 amendments. That older rule covers only "prenotification" negative option plans, a narrow category, rather than subscriptions in general.

On March 11, 2026, the FTC asked for public comment on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, the earliest stage of a new rulemaking. It asked whether to keep the current rule, adopt provisions of the vacated 2024 rule or other provisions, or rely on non-regulatory steps such as education. As of early November 2026, the FTC's Negative Option Rule page lists that March 2026 notice as the latest step. No new click-to-cancel rule is in effect.

State automatic renewal laws

Some states have their own rules. California's Automatic Renewal Law was amended, with changes effective July 1, 2025. According to the California Attorney General, businesses selling to Californians must:

• Get your express consent to auto-renewal terms before charging you
• Let you cancel through the same channel you used to sign up, and let you cancel online at any time if you signed up online
• Send an annual reminder that identifies the product, how often and how much you're charged, and how to cancel
• Notify you before certain renewals, trial conversions and price increases

Other states' rules differ. Your state attorney general's website is the place to check what applies where you live.

Keep it from happening again

• Set a reminder when you start a free trial, a few days before it converts to paid.
• Check how to cancel before you sign up. If you can't find it, take that as a warning.
• Review recurring charges every few months, and again after any price increase notice.
• Pay subscriptions with one card, so they're easier to spot on a single statement.

How SpendySaver helps

SpendySaver's Recurring view finds subscriptions and bills in your linked accounts or imported transactions and shows each one's next charge date. It can alert you to price increases and remind you before a free trial converts, and it gives step-by-step help to cancel. SpendySaver connects read-only and never moves money, so the cancellation itself always happens with the company, Apple or Google.