Minnesota now has a real automatic-renewal statute. It took effect January 1, 2025. It requires clear disclosure before you sign up, a retained confirmation after you sign up, a cancel button on the seller’s website, an annual reminder, and a ban on the retention scripts that companies use to talk you out of leaving.
What it does not contain is a remedy. There is no statutory damages figure, no fee-shifting clause, and no sentence anywhere in the eight sections saying a consumer may sue. The one section titled “Enforcement” is a safe harbor for sellers.
That is not an oversight you can shrug at, because in the same 2024 act the legislature wrote express private causes of action into other new consumer statutes — including strict liability plus attorney fees for medical debt collectors. It knew how to create a remedy. For automatic renewals it did not.
The practical answer is that the strongest rights in the statute do not need a cause of action at all. They operate on their own: goods you never consented to become a gift, offending contract terms are void, and a seller that skipped its paperwork loses the ability to dictate how you cancel. Everything else has to be routed through Minnesota’s general consumer-protection remedies.
Where is Minnesota’s automatic-renewal statute?
Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.56 through 325G.63. If you have seen the number § 325G.49 attached to this subject, discard it. Chapter 325G has no section 325G.49; the Revisor returns nothing for that citation. The chapter jumps from § 325G.47 to § 325G.50 (membership travel contracts), and the automatic-renewal sections sit at the far end of the chapter, after gift certificates (§ 325G.53) and the military-cancellation sections (§§ 325G.54–.55).
All eight sections came from a single 2024 enactment — 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 114, art. 3, §§ 55–62 — and each carries the same effective-date clause:
This section is effective January 1, 2025, and applies to contracts entered into, modified, or renewed on or after that date.
Read the last clause carefully. A subscription you started in 2019 was not grandfathered out. Every time it renews, it renews on or after January 1, 2025, and the act applies to it.
What must a seller disclose before it can start billing me every month?
Five things, and they have a statutory name. Section 325G.56, subd. 7 defines “offer terms” as the following disclosures:
(1) that the indefinite subscription agreement will continue until the consumer terminates the agreement;
(2) the description of the cancellation policy that applies to the indefinite subscription agreement;
(3) the recurring charges that will be charged to the consumer’s credit or debit card or payment account with a third party as part of the plan or arrangement and that the amount of the charge may change, if that is the case, and the amount to which the charge will change, if known;
(4) the length of the automatic renewal term or that the service is continuous, unless the length of the term is definite and chosen by the consumer; and
(5) the minimum purchase obligation, if any.
Clause (3) is the one sellers get wrong. It is not enough to disclose today’s price and add that prices may change. If the seller already knows the number the price steps up to — the introductory-rate model, where $9.99 becomes $24.99 in month four — the statute requires the seller to disclose that number up front.
Section 325G.57, subd. 1 fixes where the disclosure has to sit:
A seller making an offer for an indefinite subscription agreement must, before the consumer accepts the offer, present the offer terms in a clear and conspicuous manner to the consumer and in visual proximity, or in the case of an offer conveyed by voice, in temporal proximity, to the offer’s proposal.
“Visual proximity” is what kills the hyperlinked-terms defense. Burying the renewal terms behind a “Terms of Service” link three clicks away is not visual proximity to the Subscribe button.
And “clear and conspicuous” is defined, not left to argument. Section 325G.56, subd. 3:
“Clear and conspicuous” means in larger type than the surrounding text, or in contrasting type, font, or color to the surrounding text of the same size, or set off from the surrounding text of the same size by symbols or other marks, in a manner that calls attention to the language. In the case of an audio disclosure, “clear and conspicuous” means in a volume and cadence sufficient to be readily audible and understandable.
That is a typographic test a plaintiff can prove with a screenshot. Same-size, same-color, same-font disclosure in the middle of a paragraph fails on its face.
What has to happen after I click subscribe?
A confirmation you can keep. Section 325G.57, subd. 2 requires the seller, “in a timely manner after the consumer accepts the offer,” to provide confirmation “in a manner that is capable of being retained by the consumer,” containing the offer terms, free-trial cancellation instructions if applicable, and:
(3) options for termination of the indefinite subscription agreement, which options must be easy to use, cost-effective, and timely for all consumers
with two specific requirements layered on: a website-based seller must provide the termination election described in § 325G.60, and if the consumer signed up by any means other than a toll-free number, an email address, or a postal address, the seller must offer a cancellation option “substantially similar to, as easy to use, and as accessible as the initial means of consumer acceptance of the agreement.”
That last clause is Minnesota’s version of the symmetry principle — two clicks in, no more than two clicks out — but note how it is written. It is keyed to the manner of sign-up, not to a general reasonableness standard. If you subscribed inside an app, the app is the benchmark.
Email satisfies the delivery requirement: “A communication of the required information through email is sufficient to meet the requirements of this subdivision.”
What about free trials and the yearly reminder?
Two separate obligations, and both have hard numbers.
Free trials longer than 30 days. Section 325G.57, subd. 4 requires the seller, “no fewer than five days and no more than 30 days before the end of any such free trial,” to notify the consumer of the option to cancel before the trial ends. A 30-day trial triggers nothing. A 60-day trial does.
Continuous-service subscriptions. Section 325G.57, subd. 5 requires written notice “at least once per calendar year via mail or email,” stating the terms of the service and how to terminate or manage it. This applies to continuous service — the plan that runs until you cancel — not to a fixed-term subscription that auto-renews.
Material changes. Section 325G.57, subd. 3 requires clear and conspicuous notice before any material change takes effect, plus termination instructions, in retainable form. And then the sentence that matters:
A material change in the terms of an indefinite subscription agreement in violation of this subdivision is void and unenforceable.
No lawsuit required. A price increase imposed without the required advance notice is not a price increase.
Does the statute really guarantee I can cancel?
Yes, and in three different places.
Section 325G.60 requires the button. If a seller “has a website with profile or subscription management capabilities,” that website must carry a termination election that is clear, conspicuous, in plain language, and that “must only require a consumer to input information that is necessary to process the termination.” It must include “a checkbox, submission button, or similarly common and simple mechanism.” The section defines the term to exclude “undue complexity, confusion, or misrepresentation by the seller.”
Section 325G.59 sets the timing. For an agreement subject to automatic renewal, termination is effective at the end of the term in which the consumer gives notice. For continuous service, termination “must take effect no later than 31 days from the date of a verified consumer’s notice of termination” unless the consumer picks a later date — and subd. 2(b) makes clear the seller is not required to offer a future-dated option.
Section 325G.59, subd. 3 is the sleeper, and it is the provision to look for first:
If the seller fails to provide either the confirmation required under section 325G.57, subdivision 2, or a notice required by section 325G.57, subdivision 5, the consumer may terminate the indefinite subscription agreement by any reasonable means at any time, including but not limited to by mail, email, telephone, an online option, a termination election under section 325G.60, or the means by which the consumer entered into the agreement, at no cost to the consumer.
A seller that never sent the confirmation, or never sent the annual notice, forfeits control over the cancellation channel. It cannot insist on a phone call. It cannot insist on a retention chat. A dated email saying “cancel my subscription” ends it, and the seller’s own recordkeeping failure is what put it in that position.
Can a company run me through a retention script when I try to cancel?
Only within limits, and the limits are specific. Section 325G.58, subd. 4 says a seller that has received a cancellation or termination notice cannot:
(1) make any misrepresentation or undertake any unfair or abusive tactic to delay, unreasonably delay, or avoid the cancellation or termination of the agreement; or
(2) make or provide additional benefits, contract modifications, gifts, or similar offers to the consumer until the seller has obtained permission from the consumer, granted by the consumer after notice of cancellation or termination was given to the seller, for the seller to engage in any such activity.
And the seller gets one ask: “A seller can only seek a consumer’s permission under this paragraph once per cancellation or termination attempt,” and permission is limited to that attempt.
Subdivision 5 preserves four things the seller may still do without permission: ask why you are canceling (but not condition cancellation on an answer), tell you the consequences of canceling, verify your identity, and describe options to downgrade, pause, or suspend.
Two more prohibitions live in the same section. Subdivision 2 bars charging a card or third-party payment account “before the agreement has been duly authorized by the seller and consumer and made effective.” Subdivision 3 bars right-of-first-refusal clauses — a term requiring the consumer to let the seller match any competing offer — and declares any such provision “void and unenforceable.”
Note that § 325G.58 and § 325G.60 each define “agreement” to include both an indefinite subscription agreement under § 325G.56 and a health-club, buying-club, or dating-service “contract” under § 325G.23. Those two sections reach farther than the rest of the act.
So what happens if a seller violates it?
This is where the statute stops helping. The section captioned “Enforcement,” § 325G.63, reads in full:
A seller is not subject to civil penalties if the seller has made a good faith effort to comply with each applicable provision of sections 325G.56 to 325G.61.
That is a defense, not a remedy. Nothing in §§ 325G.56–.63 creates a private cause of action, sets statutory damages, or shifts fees.
The contrast inside the same enactment is stark. Two sections of chapter 325G that predate the act route expressly to the attorney general: § 325G.51 says a violator of the membership-travel provisions “is subject to the penalties and remedies provided in section 8.31,” and § 325G.28, subd. 2 gives health-club members an express private action for damages, costs, and reasonable attorney fees. And in art. 3, § 81 of the very same 2024 act, the legislature created Minn. Stat. § 332C.05, which gives the attorney general § 8.31 authority and makes a violating medical-debt collector “strictly liable to the debtor” for actual damages, up to $1,000 in additional damages, costs and fees, and treble damages for willful and malicious violations. Twenty sections later, in art. 3, § 62, it wrote a one-sentence safe harbor and stopped.
Three routes remain.
First, the safe harbor implies the penalty. Section 325G.63 excuses a good-faith seller from “civil penalties.” The civil-penalty mechanism in Minnesota consumer law is § 8.31, subd. 3, which authorizes the attorney general to recover “a civil penalty, in an amount to be determined by the court, not in excess of $25,000.” A safe harbor against civil penalties makes sense only if civil penalties were on the table. And § 8.31, subd. 1 directs the attorney general to investigate violations “respecting unfair, discriminatory, and other unlawful practices in business, commerce, or trade, and specifically, but not exclusively,” a list of enumerated acts. The list is non-exclusive by its own words, which is the doorway.
Second, § 8.31, subd. 3a — with the public-benefit gate. Subdivision 3a lets “any person injured by a violation of any of the laws referred to in subdivision 1” sue for damages, costs of investigation, and reasonable attorney fees. But the Minnesota Supreme Court read a limit into it in Ly v. Nystrom, 615 N.W.2d 302 (Minn. 2000): “we hold that the Private AG Statute applies only to those claimants who demonstrate that their cause of action benefits the public.” Id. at 314. A single-subscriber dispute over one $14.99 charge is the Ly problem in miniature. A systemic dark-pattern cancellation flow imposed on every Minnesota subscriber is not. We cover the mechanics in Minnesota’s private attorney general statute.
Third, and usually best, the Consumer Fraud Act. A subscription flow that hides renewal terms is a “misleading statement or deceptive practice” in connection with the sale of merchandise under § 325F.69, subd. 1, and “merchandise” is defined in § 325F.68, subd. 2 to include “services.” Since 2023 the CFA has carried its own private-enforcement subdivision, § 325F.70, subd. 3, which gives an injured consumer damages, costs of investigation, and attorney fees — and ends with the sentence “An action brought under this section benefits the public.” That clause, added by 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 52, art. 19, § 15, effective August 1, 2023 for causes of action commenced on or after that date, removes the Ly gate for consumer CFA claims. The full comparison is in whether Minnesota’s consumer protection statutes pay you.
The upshot: plead the automatic-renewal sections as the standard of conduct, and the CFA as the vehicle.
What can I do without filing anything at all?
Four things, because four provisions operate by their own force.
- Unsolicited goods are yours. Section 325G.61: any good sent under an indefinite subscription agreement without the seller first obtaining affirmative consent under § 325G.57 “is an unconditional gift to the consumer,” who “may use or dispose of the good in any manner without any obligation to the seller, including but not limited to any obligation relating to shipping of the good.” You do not have to ship it back and you do not have to pay for the shipping.
- An unnoticed material change is void. Section 325G.57, subd. 3.
- A right-of-first-refusal clause is void. Section 325G.58, subd. 3.
- Missing paperwork frees the cancellation channel. Section 325G.59, subd. 3 — cancel by any reasonable means, at no cost.
None of those require a lawsuit. Three of them are dispositive answers to a collection demand or a chargeback dispute.
Who is exempt?
Section 325G.62 lists five categories, and they are broader than they look:
- “contracts governed by another state or federal statute or regulation specifically intended to regulate automatic renewal or continuous service”;
- an insurance-related licensee under § 60A.985, subd. 8, and its affiliates under § 60D.15, subd. 2;
- a technology system contractor or power limited technician licensed by the Department of Labor and Industry under § 326B.31;
- “any service provided by a business or its affiliate where either the business or its affiliate is licensed or regulated by the Public Utilities Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission”; and
- anyone registered or licensed with FINRA, the SEC, or under the Minnesota Securities Act.
Clause (4) is doing quiet work. It exempts not just the regulated entity but “any service provided by a business or its affiliate” where either is FCC- or PUC- or FERC-regulated. A streaming service owned by a company that also holds FCC licenses has a colorable argument that the whole service is outside the act.
Clause (1) is the live question. Congress enacted the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, and 15 U.S.C. § 8403 is unquestionably “specifically intended to regulate” negative-option billing on the internet. If clause (1) is read literally, it could pull most online subscriptions out of the Minnesota act. The counterargument is that ROSCA sets a floor and does not “govern” the contract in the sense clause (1) contemplates, and that the legislature would not have enacted an internet-facing statute in 2024 meaning to exempt the internet. There is no Minnesota decision resolving it. Anyone relying on the statute against an online seller should expect the argument.
What is the federal rule right now?
Statute: yes. Regulation: back to 1973.
ROSCA is in force. 15 U.S.C. § 8403 makes it unlawful to charge a consumer for goods or services “sold in a transaction effected on the Internet through a negative option feature” unless the seller (1) “provides text that clearly and conspicuously discloses all material terms of the transaction before obtaining the consumer’s billing information”; (2) “obtains a consumer’s express informed consent before charging . . . .”; and (3) “provides simple mechanisms for a consumer to stop recurring charges . . . .”
The FTC’s 2024 “click-to-cancel” rule is not. The Commission amended 16 C.F.R. part 425 in November 2024 to add misrepresentation, disclosure, consent, and simple-cancellation requirements. Petitions for review were consolidated in the Eighth Circuit — the circuit Minnesota sits in — and on July 8, 2025 the court granted the petitions and vacated the rule in its entirety, holding that the Commission’s failure to issue a preliminary regulatory analysis under 15 U.S.C. § 57b-3(b)(1) was a prejudicial procedural error: “the procedural deficiencies of the Commission’s rulemaking process are fatal here.” Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC, Nos. 24-3137, 24-3388, 24-3415 (8th Cir. July 8, 2025), slip op. at 23. The court noted the rule’s severability clause and vacated anyway, because “[g]iven the breadth of the Rule’s coverage, the party-specific vacatur requested by the Commission is not feasible.” Slip op. at 23.
The FTC then put the old rule back. On February 12, 2026 the Commission published a final rule recodifying part 425 in the form it had before the 2024 amendments, including restoring the original title, “Use of Prenotification Negative Option Plans.” 91 Fed. Reg. 6507 (Feb. 12, 2026). What sits in the CFR today is the 1973 book-and-record-club rule: announcements, forms, return dates, mailing dates. It has almost nothing to say about a modern app subscription.
And the FTC has started over. On March 13, 2026 the Commission published a proposed rule seeking comment on amendments to the restored Negative Option Rule “to help consumers avoid recurring payments for products and services they did not intend to order and to allow them to cancel such payments without unwarranted obstacles.” 91 Fed. Reg. 12318 (Mar. 13, 2026); comments closed April 13, 2026. No final rule has issued.
For a Minnesota consumer in 2026, that means the operative regulatory standard for online subscriptions is the statute — ROSCA and §§ 325G.56–.63 — not a federal rule.
Which body of law applies to my subscription?
| If the subscription is… | Governing provisions | Express private remedy? |
|---|---|---|
| A general consumer subscription or continuous service with a Minnesota consumer | Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.56–.63 | No express action; self-executing remedies in §§ 325G.57, subd. 3, 325G.58, subd. 3, 325G.59, subd. 3, 325G.61; damages via CFA § 325F.70, subd. 3 or § 8.31, subd. 3a |
| A health club, buying club, or social referral club membership | Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.23–.28, plus §§ 325G.58 and 325G.60 by their own definitions of “agreement” | Yes — § 325G.28, subd. 2 (damages, costs, reasonable attorney fees) |
| A membership travel contract | Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.50–.505 | Yes, by cross-reference — § 325G.51 routes to § 8.31 |
| Sold over the internet with a negative option feature | 15 U.S.C. § 8403 (ROSCA); Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.56–.63 subject to the § 325G.62(1) argument | ROSCA is enforced by the FTC; no private ROSCA action |
| Sold by an FCC-, PUC-, or FERC-regulated business or its affiliate | Exempt from §§ 325G.56–.61 under § 325G.62(4) | Consumer Fraud Act still available |
What changed for gyms specifically?
Health clubs sit on their own track, and it moved twice.
The 2024 act rewrote § 325G.24 to add a right of “unilateral termination” at any time, in the member’s “exclusive discretion,” with no termination fee “or any other liability,” and required clubs to accept notice verbally, in writing, by email or website message, through a § 325G.60 termination election, or by any medium the member used to join that is “no more burdensome to the member than was the initial acceptance.” Section 325G.24, subd. 4 makes those rights unwaivable.
Then the 2025 Legislature loosened one number. As enacted in 2024, an at-will membership terminated “immediately.” Effective July 1, 2025, § 325G.24, subd. 2(d) reads that an at-will termination is effective “no later than 30 days after the date of a verified consumer’s notice of termination.” 2025 Minn. Laws 1st Spec. Sess. ch. 4, art. 7, § 31, applicable to contracts entered into, modified, or renewed on or after that date.
Here is the wrinkle. The 2025 amendment changed § 325G.24 but not § 325G.25, and § 325G.25, subd. 1 dictates the exact boldface text a club must print in every membership contract — including the sentence “If your membership is at-will without a defined membership term, then your membership will terminate immediately, unless you indicate a future effective date of termination.” A club that prints the statutorily required script is now promising its members something better than § 325G.24 requires. Clubs are stuck with the script: § 325G.25, subd. 2 provides that a contract without the specified notice “may be canceled by the member at any time by giving notice of cancellation by any means.” And unlike the automatic-renewal sections, a violation of §§ 325G.23–.28 carries an express private action for damages and attorney fees under § 325G.28, subd. 2.
What to keep
If you are trying to get out of a subscription that will not let you go, the three documents that decide the case are the sign-up screen, the confirmation email, and the annual notice.
The sign-up screen shows whether the offer terms were in visual proximity and whether they met the typographic definition of “clear and conspicuous.” The confirmation email shows whether the seller complied with § 325G.57, subd. 2 — and if it never arrived, § 325G.59, subd. 3 lets you cancel by any reasonable means at no cost. The annual notice does the same work for a continuous-service plan. Screenshot the cancellation flow before you complete it; § 325G.60 is written in terms of what the website presents, and the website will change.
Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota consumer-protection matters, including deceptive billing practices, unauthorized recurring charges, subscription and membership cancellation disputes, and claims under the Minnesota Consumer Fraud Act and the private attorney general statute. If a company is billing you for something you cancelled, or will not let you cancel at all, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Related reading: the Consumer Fraud Act and who it actually pays · suing as a private attorney general under § 8.31 · Minnesota’s gift card law · cancelling a home solicitation sale
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 325G.56, subd. 1 (scope of definitions), subd. 3 (definition of “clear and conspicuous”), subd. 4 (definition of “consumer”), subd. 5 (definition of “continuous service”), subd. 6 (definition of “indefinite subscription agreement”), subd. 7 (definition of “offer terms”), subd. 8 (definition of “seller”); § 325G.57, subd. 1 (offer-term disclosure, visual and temporal proximity), subd. 2 (retainable confirmation, free-trial cancellation information, termination options), subd. 3 (material changes; void and unenforceable), subd. 4 (free trials longer than 30 days; five-to-30-day notice window), subd. 5 (annual notice for continuous service); § 325G.58, subd. 1 (definition of “agreement”), subd. 2 (no charges before the agreement is effective), subd. 3 (right of first refusal void), subd. 4 (prohibited retention tactics; one permission request), subd. 5 (four preserved seller practices); § 325G.59, subd. 1 (termination of automatic-renewal agreement), subd. 2 (termination of continuous service; 31 days), subd. 3 (termination by any reasonable means at no cost when confirmation or annual notice is missing); § 325G.60, subd. 1 (definition of “agreement”), subd. 2 (website termination election); § 325G.61 (unconditional gift); § 325G.62 (five exemptions); § 325G.63 (good-faith safe harbor from civil penalties); § 325G.23, subds. 2–7 (club definitions); § 325G.24, subd. 1 (three-business-day cancellation), subd. 2 (unilateral termination; 30-day effectiveness for at-will memberships), subd. 3 (accepted notice methods), subd. 4 (no waiver); § 325G.25, subd. 1 (required contract notice text), subd. 2 (effect of a contract lacking the notice); § 325G.28, subd. 1 (attorney general enforcement), subd. 2 (private remedies for §§ 325G.23–.28); § 325G.50, subd. 1 (membership travel definitions); § 325G.51 (penalties and remedies via § 8.31); § 325F.68, subd. 2 (definition of “merchandise”); § 325F.69, subd. 1 (unlawful practices); § 325F.70, subd. 3 (private enforcement; “An action brought under this section benefits the public”); § 8.31, subd. 1 (attorney general duties; “specifically, but not exclusively”), subd. 3 (injunctive relief and civil penalty not in excess of $25,000), subd. 3a (private remedies), all as published by the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov. 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 114, art. 3, §§ 55–62 (enactment of §§ 325G.56–.63 and the January 1, 2025 effective-date clauses), § 53 (amendment of § 325G.24), § 54 (amendment of § 325G.25), § 81 (enactment of § 332C.05); 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 52, art. 19, § 15 (enactment of § 325F.70, subd. 3, effective August 1, 2023); 2025 Minn. Laws 1st Spec. Sess. ch. 4, art. 7, § 31 (amendment of § 325G.24, subd. 2, effective July 1, 2025). Minn. Stat. § 332C.05, paras. (a)–(c) (contrasting express enforcement and strict liability). Ly v. Nystrom, 615 N.W.2d 302, 314 (Minn. 2000) (public-benefit requirement under § 8.31, subd. 3a), read from the Caselaw Access Project archive. 15 U.S.C. § 8403 (ROSCA negative-option requirements), uscode.house.gov. 16 C.F.R. pt. 425, “Use of Prenotification Negative Option Plans,” as currently in effect, eCFR. Custom Communications, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, Nos. 24-3137, 24-3388, 24-3415 (8th Cir. July 8, 2025), slip op. at 5–6, 23 (vacatur of the 2024 Negative Option Rule for failure to issue a preliminary regulatory analysis), read from the Eighth Circuit’s published opinion PDF. 91 Fed. Reg. 6507 (Feb. 12, 2026) (FTC final rule recodifying part 425 in its pre-2024 form); 91 Fed. Reg. 12318 (Mar. 13, 2026) (FTC proposed rule; comments closed April 13, 2026). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.