How to cancel a gym membership

Before you do anything else, find your membership agreement and read the cancellation section. Gym contracts are typically either month-to-month or a fixed term of 12 or 24 months, and the terms you agreed to control how you get out. The contract almost always specifies exactly how cancellation has to be delivered and how much advance notice the club requires.

Look for four things in particular: the cancellation method the gym will accept (in person, certified mail, or an online form), the notice period (commonly 30 days before your next billing date), any early-termination fee on a fixed-term contract, and any auto-renewal clause that rolls your plan into month-to-month billing when the term ends. Note your billing date as well, so you can send notice in time to avoid one more charge.

Even when a gym says you can cancel in person or over the phone, put your request in writing so you have dated proof. Certified mail with a return receipt is the most reliable method for a contract cancellation, because it gives you a record that the club received your notice and when. Send it to the address named in your contract, which is often a corporate office rather than your local branch. Our step-by-step walkthrough is at /guides/certified-mail-cancellation-guide.

Your letter should include your full name, member or account number, address, phone number, the membership you are cancelling, and a clear statement that you are terminating the agreement, along with the date you want it to end. Keep a copy of everything you send. A ready-to-adapt letter is at /guides/subscription-cancellation-letter-template.

If you cancel in person, ask for written confirmation or a receipt and note the name of the employee who processed it. If the gym uses an online cancellation portal, take a screenshot of the confirmation screen and save any confirmation email. A verbal cancellation with no paper trail is one of the most common reasons members keep getting billed.

The club that signed you up is usually the one that has to process the cancellation, and every chain below has a dedicated step-by-step guide verified against the chain's own documentation. Here is the short version for each.

Planet Fitness accepts cancellation by written notice mailed to your home club, in person at the front desk, or through the online member portal. Give notice before your monthly billing date — Planet Fitness says changes can take up to seven business days — and note that memberships with a minimum term that end early require a $58 buyout fee per its FAQ. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/planet-fitness.

LA Fitness memberships are mostly month-to-month and can be cancelled through your online account, in person at a club, or by mailing the cancellation form printed from your account to its Irvine, CA member services address — certified mail recommended. Postmark notice at least five business days before your billing date to avoid one more charge. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/la-fitness.

24 Hour Fitness lets Monthly Payment members cancel online at 24hourfitness.com/members/cancel after declining a retention discount. Limited-term and prepaid memberships cannot be cancelled online — go to your home club or use the Contact Us route. No public notice period is documented, so check your agreement. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/24-hour-fitness.

Crunch Fitness cancellation runs through your home club, not corporate. Some clubs offer online cancellation in the Member Portal under Manage Membership; otherwise you submit written notice in person, by email, or by certified mail, and Crunch's own agreements commonly require ten days' notice before your next bill date. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/crunch-fitness.

Equinox lists four routes: your online account at equinox.com, email to Cancellations@Equinox.com, in club with a manager, or mail as described in your Membership Agreement. Notice periods vary by state and live in your individual agreement rather than on the public site, and New York's attorney general fined Equinox in 2025 over hard-to-cancel memberships. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/equinox.

Gold's Gym handles cancellation club by club. Start at goldsgym.com/cancellation-request, pick your home gym, and follow the form or club-specific link it gives you. Month-to-month plans documented at Gold's clubs need 30 days' notice, often including one final billing; installment contracts usually cannot end early without a documented move or medical exception plus a termination fee. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/golds-gym.

Anytime Fitness has no central or online cancellation — every club is independently owned, so you cancel through the home club that holds your agreement, usually by written notice delivered in person or by mail. Your signed agreement sets the notice period, term length, and any termination fee. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/anytime-fitness.

Orangetheory Fitness hosts an online cancellation form, but submitting it only opens a request — your home studio must verify it, and the standard 30-day notice means at least one more charge goes through. Each studio is independently owned, so your signed agreement controls the final terms. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/orangetheory-fitness.

Life Time memberships are month-to-month but require advance written notice — 30 days under the terms Life Time publishes. Submit notice online at my.lifetime.life, in the app, by email to Account Services, by phone, or in person; dues that fall inside the notice period are still charged. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/life-time.

YMCA memberships are sold by independently operated local associations, so rules differ by branch. Nearly all require written notice — commonly 14, 15, or 30 days before your next draft date — submitted by webform, email, phone, or in person, and missing the window usually means one more payment. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/ymca.

ClassPass is the easy one: cancel self-serve on the website under Account > Settings or in the app under Profile > Settings > Billing, ideally 48 hours before your renewal date. There is no cancellation fee, but unused credits expire when the account closes. Full guide: /subscriptions/cancel/classpass.

Almost every gym contract requires advance notice, and the clock runs from the day the gym receives your notice, not the day you decide to quit. Thirty days is the most common figure — Life Time, Orangetheory, and many Gold's Gym clubs document it — but the range is wide: some YMCAs accept 14 or 15 days, Crunch agreements commonly ask for ten, and LA Fitness wants your mailed form postmarked five business days ahead.

That notice period is why a final charge after you cancel is usually legitimate rather than a billing error. If your billing date falls inside the window, the gym drafts you one more time and your membership stays active through the paid period. Time your notice right after a billing date rather than right before one, and you avoid paying for a month you barely use.

Charges after your confirmed end date are a different story — those are errors you can dispute. Get the effective end date in writing when you cancel so there is no ambiguity about which side of the line a charge falls on.

Many states regulate health-club contracts and give members cancellation rights that exist on top of whatever the contract says. These rules vary by state, so check your state attorney general or consumer-protection office for the specifics that apply to you. Where a state right conflicts with a contract term, the state right generally wins. Our state-by-state overview of cooling-off windows is at /guides/gym-membership-cooling-off-rights, and the broader auto-renewal picture is at /guides/state-auto-renewal-laws-overview.

Common statutory protections include a short cooling-off period after you sign, during which you can cancel for any reason and receive a refund. California, for example, gives members at least five days to cancel a new health-studio contract. Many states also let you cancel penalty-free, or for a limited fee, if you move a set distance from the club, if a physician certifies a medical condition that prevents you from using the facilities, or in the event of the member's death. In California, a move of more than 25 miles allows cancellation, with any cancellation fee capped at $100.

State automatic-renewal laws add a separate layer: California's, for instance, requires companies that sign you up online to let you cancel online. No federal rule currently forces gyms to offer online cancellation — the FTC's 'click-to-cancel' rule was vacated by a federal appeals court in July 2025 before it took effect — so state law is where these rights live.

Gyms train front-desk and phone staff to save the membership before processing a cancellation, so expect a script and have your own. The most common offer is a freeze or pause: billing drops for a few months, then quietly resumes. If you actually want out, a freeze only delays the same cancellation work. A clean decline: 'No thanks — I'm not looking to pause. Please process the cancellation today and give me written confirmation with the end date.'

The second offer is a discounted rate. If a cheaper rate would genuinely keep you, take it — that is a fair trade. Otherwise: 'I've made my decision. I'm not interested in a lower rate. Please confirm the cancellation in writing.' Repeat it once, politely, and staff will nearly always move on; the script depends on your hesitation.

The third tactic is deferral — 'the manager who handles cancellations isn't in today' or 'you'll need to come back with your contract.' Do not leave empty-handed. Ask for the club's documented cancellation procedure in writing, note the employee's name and the date, and if the runaround continues, switch channels: send certified mail with a return receipt so your notice date no longer depends on who is behind the desk.

Cancelling the contract and stopping the money are two separate steps, and the order matters. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau advises that to end an ongoing contract like a gym, you should cancel your contract with the company and tell it to stop taking automatic payments. Do the contract cancellation first.

You have the right to revoke a company's authorization to debit your account. Tell the gym in writing to stop, and tell your bank or credit union that you have revoked authorization. If charges keep coming, you can ask your bank to place a stop-payment order on the gym's charges; banks generally charge a fee for this, and it is best placed before the next scheduled payment. If the membership is billed to a debit or credit card, contact your card issuer to block or dispute recurring charges that continue after you cancel. The full playbook for bank drafts is at /guides/how-to-stop-ach-recurring-payments.

One important caution: simply stopping payment without validly cancelling the contract does not make the debt disappear. You can still owe the balance, and the gym may send the account to collections, which can damage your credit — gym contracts are the main exception to the rule that cancelling subscriptions never touches your credit score (more at /answers/will-canceling-a-subscription-hurt-my-credit). Use stop-payment orders for charges that appear after you have cancelled, or for debits you never authorized, not as a shortcut around the cancellation process itself.

Get written confirmation of the cancellation and its effective date, and hold on to your contract, letters, certified-mail receipts, and any emails. This paper trail is what protects you if the gym bills you again or disputes that you cancelled.

Check your bank or card statements for the next one or two billing cycles. Gyms sometimes process one final charge during the notice period, which may be legitimate, but charges after your confirmed end date are not. If you are billed after cancelling, contact the gym with your proof, dispute the charge with your bank or card issuer, and, if the problem is not resolved, file a complaint with your state attorney general and report the business to the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov.