Gym Cancellation Laws: California and New York (2026)

What are the gym cancellation laws in California and New York?

In California, a gym member can cancel a health studio contract until midnight of the 5th business day, contracts may not run longer than 3 years, and since 1 July 2025 an automatically renewing membership that could be bought online must be cancellable online. In New York, members have 3 business days to cancel without penalty and the refund is due within 10 business days. At federal level, the FTC's 2024 click-to-cancel rule was struck down on 8 July 2025, and no federal rule is in force as of October 2026.

That leaves state law in charge. This post sets out the California and New York rules side by side, the FTC status, and a checklist of what a gym owner should change in contracts and processes.

This is general information, not legal advice. Have a lawyer in your state review your membership contract and cancellation process.

California vs New York gym contract rules at a glance

Both states give a short cooling-off window and allow later cancellation for death, disability or a move of more than 25 miles, but the details differ.

This post covers only California and New York. If you run a gym in another state, search your state attorney general or consumer affairs site for "health club", "health studio" or "health spa" contract rules, and check whether the state also has an automatic renewal law like California's. The checklist further down still works as a starting list for that review.

California Health Studio Services Contract Law

California's health studio law gives members 5 business days to cancel, caps contracts at 3 years and lets members leave early for death, disability or a move of more than 25 miles.

The rules come from Civil Code sections 1812.80 to 1812.98, summarized in the California Department of Consumer Affairs Legal Guide W-10 (April 2012, an older guide, so check the current code text too):

• The buyer may cancel until midnight of the 5th business day after signing.
• The contract term may not exceed 3 years, and payments may not extend beyond the term.
• The member may cancel at any time on death, disability or relocation of more than 25 miles.

Practitioner guides add that the contract must give the gym's email address for cancellation notices, and that an email from the address on file counts as written notice (for example terms.law, a legal secondary source). If your contract lists only a postal address, that is the first line to fix.

California Automatic Renewal Law (AB 2863): online cancellation from July 2025

Since 1 July 2025, a California consumer who signed up online for an automatically renewing membership must be able to cancel exclusively online, at will, without calling or visiting.

The Health Studio law applies to gym contracts in general. The Automatic Renewal Law adds duties on top of it when a membership renews or continues by itself until the member cancels, which is how most monthly memberships work.

According to a Cooley summary of the amendments (a law firm source), AB 2863 requires:

• Online cancellation through a prominently located direct link or button, or an immediately accessible termination email.
• Express consent to the automatic renewal.
• Annual reminders for automatically renewing contracts.

It applies to contracts entered, amended or extended from 1 July 2025. A gym that sells memberships on its website and still says "cancellations in person at the front desk only" is the classic case this change targets.

New York health club law (GBL §624)

New York gives members 3 business days to cancel without penalty and requires the refund within 10 business days.

Under General Business Law §624:

• The buyer may cancel within 3 business days of signing, without penalty.
• The gym must refund within 10 business days of the cancellation.
• Later cancellation is allowed on death, disability lasting more than 3 months, relocation of more than 25 miles, or when the promised service is no longer available.
• After a renewal, annual memberships have 15 business days and monthly memberships 3 business days to cancel.

The New York maximum contract length and any price cap were not confirmed in the text checked for this post, so read the full Article 30 or ask your lawyer before relying on a number.

FTC click-to-cancel rule: what happened and where it stands in 2026

There is no federal click-to-cancel rule in force as of October 2026: the 2024 rule was vacated in July 2025 and the FTC only restarted rulemaking in 2026.

Sources: National Law Review on the vacatur and Jones Day (May 2026) on the new rulemaking, both law firm analyses.

The short version for gym owners: the FTC's 2024 click-to-cancel rule was struck down in July 2025, the FTC began a new rulemaking in 2026, and state laws such as California's apply in the meantime.

Checklist: what US gym owners should change

Most of the work is in the contract, the website and the front-desk script, not in software.

1. Read your contract against your state law. Cooling-off wording, maximum term, early-exit reasons and refund timing should match.
2. Print the cooling-off right clearly. 5 business days in California, 3 in New York.
3. In California, list a cancellation email address and accept email from the address on file.
4. If members can join online, let them cancel online. In California it is required for auto-renewing contracts from 1 July 2025; elsewhere it is still the cleanest way to avoid disputes.
5. For auto-renewing memberships in California, collect express consent and send the annual reminder.
6. In New York, diary the 10-business-day refund deadline and the post-renewal windows (15 business days annual, 3 monthly).
7. Write a process for death, disability and relocation requests: what proof you ask for and who decides.
8. Log every cancellation request with a date. Most disputes are about when a request arrived.
9. Train the front desk. A save offer is fine; refusing to process a cancellation is not.

A clear exit and good retention work are separate jobs: keep members by giving them reasons to stay, not by making cancellation hard. For the retention side, see how to reduce gym member churn and the renewal reminder automation playbook. If you also run gyms in Europe, compare with the German gym contract cancellation rules.

Where Trainera fits

Trainera runs memberships, check-ins and online package sales, but it is not a cancellation tool, and your cancellation process stays on your own website and contract.

• Packages in US dollars, sold by card through your own Stripe account, with a 0% Trainera platform fee. Stripe bills its processing fee to the gym.
• Each online package purchase is a one-off card payment, not an automatically renewing card subscription. Trainera does not auto-charge members monthly.
• Members cannot cancel a gym membership in the app, and Trainera has no cancellation or withdrawal button feature. If you run auto-renewing memberships through another processor, the online cancel path that California requires is yours to build there.
• Gym Core includes the web dashboard, membership packages, digital member card with QR check-in, a Leads CRM with a 7-stage pipeline, a class planner, a website builder and the TRAI assistant for gym data (200 requests a month). On trainera.fit/pricing for the US, Core is from $119 a month, White Label $219 and Studio $259, with 3 trainers included.

Your contract review list for California and New York

Before your next renewal season, check four things: the cooling-off wording (5 business days CA, 3 NY), the maximum term and early-exit reasons, a working online cancel path for anyone who signed up online, and a dated log of every request. Then have a lawyer confirm the final wording. If you also sell personal training, the sibling post on whether personal training is taxable by state covers the sales tax side.

Manage packages, check-ins and online card sales through your own Stripe account: see Trainera for gyms.