Online Shopping: Your Legal Rights Explained

The Regulations treat a distance contract as one concluded under an organised distance sales or service-provision scheme, without the simultaneous physical presence of the trader and the consumer, with the exclusive use of one or more means of distance communication. GOV.UK calls sales of this kind distance selling.

When the cancellation period ends

If the trader does not give you the information on the right to cancel required by Schedule 2, the cancellation period ends 12 months after the day on which it would otherwise have ended. If the trader gives you the information within those 12 months, it ends 14 days after you receive it.

How to cancel and send the goods back:

• To cancel, you must inform the trader of your decision, either by using the model cancellation form or by making any other clear statement setting out the decision to cancel.
• A communication sent before the end of the period counts as cancelling in time, and in a dispute it is for you to show the contract was cancelled in the cancellation period.
• You must send the goods back or hand them over without undue delay and not later than 14 days after you inform the trader.
• If the trader has offered to collect the goods, it is the trader's responsibility to collect them.
• You must bear the direct cost of returning the goods unless the trader agreed to bear it or failed to give you the required information.

What the trader must do once you cancel:

• The trader must reimburse all payments, including the cost of the least expensive common kind of delivery, without undue delay.
• The refund must come within 14 days of the trader receiving the goods back, or of your evidence that you sent them back if that is earlier, where the trader has not offered to collect them.
• The trader must use the same means of payment you used, unless you expressly agree otherwise, and must not charge a fee for the refund.
• The trader may recover any amount by which the value of the goods is diminished by your handling of them beyond what is necessary to establish their nature, characteristics and functioning, up to the contract price.
• Handling goes beyond what is necessary if it goes beyond the sort of handling that might reasonably be allowed in a shop.
• The trader cannot recover that amount if it failed to give you the information on the right to cancel required by Schedule 2.

No right to cancel, or the right is lost:

• ✗No: Goods made to your specifications or clearly personalised.
• ✗No: Goods liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly.
• ✗No: Newspapers, periodicals and magazines, other than subscription contracts for them.
• ✗No: Sealed goods not suitable for return due to health protection or hygiene reasons, once they become unsealed after delivery.
• ✗No: Sealed audio or video recordings or sealed computer software, once they become unsealed after delivery.
• ✗No: Goods that become mixed inseparably with other items after delivery.
• ✗No: Digital content not supplied on a tangible medium, once supply has begun after you gave express consent and acknowledged that the right would be lost.

The trader must give or make available this information in a clear and comprehensible manner:

• The main characteristics of the goods, services or digital content.
• The identity of the trader and the geographical address at which it is established, with a telephone number, fax number and email address where available.
• The total price inclusive of taxes, or the manner in which the price is to be calculated.
• All additional delivery charges and any other costs.
• The arrangements for payment and delivery, and the time by which the trader undertakes to deliver the goods.
• Where a right to cancel exists, the conditions, time limit and procedures for exercising it, with a cancellation form.
• That you will have to bear the cost of returning the goods in case of cancellation.
• A reminder that the trader is under a legal duty to supply goods that are in conformity with the contract.
• Where the trader is acting on behalf of another trader, the geographical address and identity of that other trader.

If the trader did not give you the information about additional delivery charges and other costs, the total costs per billing period, or the cost of returning the goods, you are not to bear those charges or costs.

When you order online and the contract places you under an obligation to pay, the trader must make you aware, in a clear and prominent manner and directly before you place the order, of the main characteristics of the goods, the total price inclusive of taxes, all additional delivery charges and any other costs, the total costs per billing period, the duration of the contract and the minimum duration of your obligations. You must explicitly acknowledge, when you place the order, that the order implies an obligation to pay. If placing the order means pressing a button, the button must be labelled only with the words "order with obligation to pay" or a corresponding unambiguous formulation.

• Unless you and the trader agreed a time or period for delivery, the trader must deliver the goods without undue delay and in any event not more than 30 days after the day the contract was entered into.
• You may treat the contract as at an end if the trader has refused to deliver the goods, if delivery at the agreed time or within the agreed period was essential taking into account all the relevant circumstances when the contract was made, or if you told the trader before the contract was made that delivery at that time was essential.
• In any other circumstances you may specify an appropriate period and require the trader to deliver before it ends, and if the goods are not delivered within it you may treat the contract as at an end.
• If you treat the contract as at an end, the trader must without undue delay reimburse all payments made under the contract.
• The goods remain at the trader's risk until they come into your physical possession or that of a person you identified to take possession of them.
• The exception is a carrier you commissioned who is not a carrier the trader named as an option for you: the goods are then at your risk on and after delivery to that carrier.

If the goods arrive faulty instead, see our faulty goods guide, and our refunds and returns guide for change of mind returns.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 defines digital content as data which are produced and supplied in digital form, and its Explanatory Notes say this includes software, music, computer games and applications or apps. The digital content rules apply to a contract for a trader to supply digital content to a consumer if it is supplied or to be supplied for a price paid by the consumer.

Every contract to supply digital content is treated as including these terms:

• ✓Yes: Its quality is satisfactory.
• ✓Yes: It is reasonably fit for any particular purpose you made known to the trader before the contract.
• ✓Yes: It will match any description of it given by the trader.

If digital content does not conform to the contract:

• Your rights are the right to repair or replacement and the right to a price reduction.
• If you require repair or replacement, the trader must do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you, and bear any necessary costs, including the cost of labour, materials or postage.
• You cannot require repair or replacement if that remedy is impossible or is disproportionate compared to the other.
• You can exercise the right to a price reduction only if you can require neither repair nor replacement, or if you required the trader to repair or replace and the trader is in breach of the requirement to do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you.
• It is not open to you to treat the contract as at an end for breach of these terms, but you may seek other remedies, such as claiming damages.
• Digital content which does not conform to the contract at any time within the period of six months beginning with the day on which it was supplied must be taken not to have conformed when it was supplied, unless it is established that it did conform or the presumption is incompatible with the nature of the digital content or with how it fails to conform.

If digital content causes damage to your device or other digital content, and the damage is of a kind that would not have occurred if the trader had exercised reasonable care and skill, the trader must either repair the damage or compensate you with an appropriate payment. A compensation payment must be made without undue delay, and in any event within 14 days beginning with the day on which the trader agrees you are entitled to it.

For digital content not supplied on a tangible medium, the cancellation period ends at the end of 14 days after the day the contract is entered into. You lose the right to cancel if supply began before the end of that period after you gave express consent and acknowledged that the right would be lost.

For more on faulty downloads, apps and streaming, see our digital products guide.

For a contract containing a subscription, the information the trader must give you before you are bound includes the total costs per billing period, and for a contract that is to be extended automatically it includes the conditions for terminating it. When you order online, the trader must also make you aware, directly before you place the order, of the duration of the contract and the minimum duration of your obligations.

GOV.UK says the new subscription rules, which include reminders before free or discounted trials end and straightforward cancellations including online exits for online sign ups, are expected to come into force in Spring 2027. They will bring a new 14-day cooling off period after a free or discounted trial ends or when a contract renews for 12 months or longer.

Our subscription traps guide covers cancelling a subscription and stopping payments.

If you were tricked into paying by bank transfer, see our guide to bank transfer scam refunds.