How to Stop Recurring ACH and Bank Account Payments

Recurring ACH payments are automatic debits a company pulls from your checking or savings account through the Automated Clearing House network — gym dues, streaming plans, insurance premiums, loan installments, and more. Because you once gave the company standing permission, the debits keep coming until you take that permission away or block them at the bank.

Federal law gives you two distinct tools, and using both is the most reliable approach. The first is revoking your authorization: telling the company directly that it no longer has permission to draft your account. The second is a stop-payment order: instructing your own bank or credit union to refuse the debit.

Both rights come from the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and its Regulation E, which govern preauthorized (recurring) electronic transfers. The CFPB recommends doing both, because revoking authorization addresses the source while a stop-payment order gives you a backstop if the company ignores you. Keep in mind throughout that stopping the money is separate from ending the contract behind it.

Start with the business that is drafting your account. Call them and state clearly that you are taking away your permission for automatic payments, then follow up in writing so you have a dated record. The CFPB publishes sample letters you can adapt — one to the company revoking authorization, and one to your bank.

Your revocation letter can be three sentences: "As of [date], I revoke my authorization for [company name] to initiate automatic debits from my account ending in [last four digits]. Please stop all future debits under this authorization. Confirm this revocation in writing." Include your name, address, and any account or member number the company uses for you. A fuller template, with the certified-mail variant, is at /guides/subscription-cancellation-letter-template.

Send your revocation by a method you can prove — an email you save a copy of, or mail with tracking. Ask the company to confirm in writing that the authorization is canceled, and note the name of anyone you speak with along with the date and time of the call.

If the debit is tied to a subscription or membership, cancel that service through its normal process at the same time, because revoking payment permission does not by itself close your account with the merchant. Keep every confirmation number and screenshot. This paper trail matters if a payment slips through and you later need to prove the company had no permission to take it.

Next, contact your bank or credit union. Tell them you have revoked authorization for the company and that you want to stop the recurring debit. Under Regulation E, you can order the institution to stop payment of a preauthorized electronic fund transfer by notifying it "orally or in writing at least three business days before the scheduled date of the transfer."

You can give the order orally or in writing, but the bank may require written confirmation within 14 days of an oral request — and if you do not provide it, the oral order stops being binding after 14 days. For that reason, always follow up in writing even when you call.

Give the bank the details it needs to catch the debit: the company's name, the amount, and the expected date. Importantly, ask the bank to stop the entire series of recurring payments, not just the next single debit, so the same company cannot draft you again the following month. Banks and credit unions generally charge a fee for a stop-payment order, so ask what it costs and how long the order stays in effect — some expire after a set period and may need to be renewed.

It depends on timing. The three-business-day rule is what obligates the bank to honor a stop-payment order; a debit scheduled sooner than that, or one already in flight, may be too late to intercept. Ask the bank anyway — the regulation sets a floor for when the bank must act, not a ban on it acting faster — but do not count on catching a debit that lands tomorrow.

If the debit posts, you are not out of options. A payment taken after you revoked authorization — or one you never authorized at all — is an unauthorized electronic fund transfer, and the error-resolution process below gets the money back. The practical takeaway: a pending debit is a race you may lose, but a posted unauthorized debit is a dispute you should win.

Sometimes a company keeps pulling money after you have revoked permission. Once you have taken away authorization, those debits are unauthorized, and you have the right to dispute them and get your money back. Watch your account closely after you send your notices, and report any payment you did not allow to your bank right away.

Timing protects your refund rights: under the error-resolution rules, you generally must notify your bank within 60 days after it sends the statement showing the unauthorized transfer. Once you report it, the bank generally has 10 business days to investigate; if it needs longer (up to 45 days in most cases), it generally must give you provisional credit for the disputed amount while it works. Reporting quickly also limits how much you can be held responsible for.

Put the dispute in writing, reference your revocation letter and stop-payment order, and keep copies of everything. If the company continues to draft your account despite a valid stop-payment order, raise that failure with the bank as well. The general dispute walkthrough is at /guides/how-to-dispute-a-subscription-charge.

Cutting off the payment is not the same as canceling what you owe. The CFPB is explicit that canceling an automatic payment does not cancel the underlying debt or contract. If you stop autopay on a loan, you still owe the installments and must pay another way; if you block a subscription draft without canceling the service, the merchant may treat the balance as unpaid and send it to collections.

So treat the two tasks separately: stop the money to protect your account, and cancel or settle the agreement with the company to protect your credit standing. Avoid relying on closing your bank account or switching account numbers as a shortcut — it is disruptive to your other payments, and it does not resolve what you still owe.

Finish by confirming, over the next billing cycle, that no further debits appear. Reconcile your statement against the payments you expect, and keep your written revocation, stop-payment confirmation, and any dispute records until you are certain the recurring draft has fully stopped.

This page covers debits pulled from a bank account over the ACH network. If the recurring charge hits a credit card — or a debit card charge routed over the card network — the tools differ: there is no three-day stop-payment right, and the sequence is cancel with the merchant, then have the issuer block the charge. That playbook is at /guides/how-to-stop-recurring-credit-card-payments.

If the biller is PayPal, the debit usually traces back to a PayPal automatic-payment agreement, which you cancel inside PayPal itself — steps at /guides/cancel-recurring-paypal-payments. And if you are wondering whether your bank can simply block a subscription without all this paperwork, the honest answer is at /answers/can-my-bank-block-a-subscription-charge.