Definition
Effective end date
The date a contract actually ends once notice has been given, as opposed to the renewal date it would otherwise roll past.
The effective end date is the date a contract genuinely stops, once you have given notice not to renew. For an auto-renewing contract that you cancel in time, it is usually the end of the current paid term.
Distinguishing it from the renewal date matters for budgeting and offboarding: you keep access, and keep paying, up to the effective end date, not the day you send the cancellation.
Related terms
- Subscription (term licence)A licence that grants access to software only for as long as you keep paying, billed on a recurring monthly or annual term.
- Multi-year contractA software agreement that commits you for longer than a year, usually in exchange for a lower price than an equivalent annual deal would carry.
- Co-terminationAligning several contracts with the same vendor onto one shared end date, so they renew together and are negotiated once rather than piecemeal through the year.