The UK's new subscription rules protect consumers, not your business software
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 creates a new regime for subscription contracts. Once it is in force, a trader selling a subscription to a consumer will have to give clearer information up front, send regular reminders, make leaving much easier and offer a cooling-off period after a trial ends or a long-term contract renews. On 9 August 2026 the government announced that the new rules will come into force in January 2027.
It is easy to read the coverage and assume your software subscriptions are about to become easier to cancel. If the subscription belongs to a business, they are almost certainly not. This guide explains what the new rules give a consumer, why a business buyer sits outside them, and what a business relies on instead. It is a plain-English summary of the Act and the government's announcements as they stood in October 2026, not legal advice.
What the new rules give a consumer
The government's announcement lists the headline changes for consumers:
- Clearer information before signing up.
- Regular reminders before a subscription renews.
- A much easier way to leave a contract.
- A new 14-day cooling-off period that lets a consumer cancel after a trial ends or after a long-term contract renews.
The rules themselves are in Chapter 2 of Part 4 of the Act, sections 253 to 281. The start date is set by regulations, so check the government's announcement for the confirmed date rather than relying on this or any other summary.
Why a business buyer is not covered
The regime applies only to a "subscription contract", and section 254 of the Act defines that as a contract between a trader and a consumer. Section 280 then defines a consumer as "an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside the individual's business". Two things follow from that wording:
- A limited company is not an individual, so a subscription the company buys is outside the regime, however small the company is.
- A sole trader is an individual, but buying accounting, design or CRM software to run the business is acting for business purposes, so on the Act's wording that is not a consumer purchase either.
The test is the purpose of the purchase, not the size of the business or the name of the plan. A plan the vendor calls "Personal" or "Starter" that you bought to run the business is still a business purchase.
What a business relies on instead
A business subscription is governed by its contract: the order form, the master agreement and the terms they point to. Those set the term, whether it renews automatically, how much notice you must give and how, and what can happen to the price at renewal. If you need a refresher on how those clauses work, see SaaS notice periods explained and evergreen and rolling contracts.
Nothing in the new regime obliges a vendor to remind a business before a renewal, so whether a reminder arrives at all depends on the contract and on the vendor's habits. Some vendors may choose to run one reminder schedule and one cancellation flow for every customer rather than two. That would be their choice, not an obligation, and it would not shorten a notice period written into your contract. Plan as if no reminder is coming.
Three things to do about it
- Find the date that matters for each contract. That is the cancellation deadline: the renewal date minus the notice period, not the renewal date itself. On a contract with a 90-day notice period, the decision has to be made three months before the renewal.
- Give notice the way the contract says. If it requires written notice to a named address, a cancel button in the app or a message to your account manager may not count. Serve the notice in writing and ask for confirmation.
- Keep the evidence: the contract, the notice you sent and the vendor's confirmation, together, where the next person to own the tool can find them.
If a renewal has already gone through, the new rules will not undo it for a business either. See what to do after a missed cancellation deadline for what is still worth asking the vendor for.
Keeping your own reminders in StackTrackr
Because nobody is obliged to remind a business, the business has to remind itself. Record each subscription in StackTrackr with its renewal date and its notice period, and StackTrackr works out the cancellation deadline for you. Reminders warn you ahead of both the renewal and the cancellation deadline, and a deadline alert always fires on the deadline day itself. Starter alerts at 30 and 7 days; Team and up use a cadence you set, 90, 60, 30 and 7 days by default.
Attach the contract and a copy of the notice you sent to the tool's record, so the evidence sits next to the dates. Have a look at what it tracks, or start a free trial and add the subscription whose notice period you are least sure of first.