SiriusXM's Cancellation Policy and the 2024 New York ROSCA Ruling, Explained

SiriusXM's official Help center says subscribers who are billed directly by SiriusXM can cancel three ways: through the Subscriptions tab in the Online Account Center, through online chat with an agent, or by phone at 1-866-635-8641. You cancel as the account holder by signing in and following the account-management steps for your plan.

Two rules commonly catch people off guard. First, uninstalling the SiriusXM app does not cancel a subscription; the billing continues until you actually cancel the plan. Second, if you cancel less than 24 hours before a renewal date, the subscription may still renew for the next period, so it is worth acting a few days early.

If you did not sign up directly with SiriusXM, the steps differ. Subscriptions purchased through Apple, Google Play, Roku, or a mobile carrier such as T-Mobile generally must be canceled through whichever company bills you, using that provider's own account settings rather than SiriusXM's website.

SiriusXM has updated the refund policy for its audio plans, and eligibility now turns on short grace periods measured from the initial purchase and from each renewal charge. According to SiriusXM's Help center, monthly plans carry a seven-day grace period, while longer plans such as quarterly, semi-annual, or annual carry a thirty-day grace period.

If you cancel within the applicable grace period, SiriusXM says the subscription terminates immediately and the prepaid fees for that period are eligible for a pro-rata refund on request. Cancel after the grace period and you generally will not receive a refund or credit; instead, service continues until the end of the term you already paid for.

Subscriptions billed through an app store or other third party follow that provider's refund rules, not SiriusXM's. Apple and Google, for example, typically keep access active through the end of the current billing cycle rather than issuing a mid-cycle refund.

On December 20, 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued SiriusXM Radio Inc., alleging the company trapped subscribers in unwanted plans by making cancellation deliberately difficult. The case was filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County (index No. 453325/2023).

The Attorney General's office said its investigation found SiriusXM required customers to reach a live agent by phone or chat to cancel, then ran them through a scripted conversation of roughly six parts that pitched as many as five retention or 'save' offers. The office said agents were trained not to take 'no' for an answer.

The complaint cited timing figures from the investigation: phone cancellations took an average of about 11.5 minutes, and online-chat cancellations averaged around 30 minutes, with some interactions stretching considerably longer. The state argued this failed the legal requirement to provide a cancellation method that is simple, timely, and easy to use.

On November 22, 2024, the Attorney General announced that Justice Lyle Frank of the New York Supreme Court, New York County, had ruled SiriusXM violated the federal Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA), codified at 15 U.S.C. section 8403. That provision makes it unlawful to charge consumers through an online negative-option (auto-renewing) plan without providing 'simple mechanisms' for the consumer to stop the recurring charges.

The court found that SiriusXM's cancellation process was significantly more complicated than its sign-up process and that the repeated retention offers built into each call amounted to an unreasonable delay. As a remedy, the decision directs SiriusXM to give New York customers a simple way to cancel that does not require speaking or chatting with a live agent, and it contemplates monetary relief for affected subscribers.

The ruling was not a complete win for the state. The court dismissed the deceptive- and misleading-practices claims brought under New York General Business Law sections 349 and 350, and SiriusXM said the court had rejected 'almost all' of the charges. SiriusXM has said it plans to appeal, so some aspects of the outcome may still change.

ROSCA is enforced primarily by the Federal Trade Commission, but state attorneys general and courts apply it too, as the SiriusXM case shows. The underlying principle is consistent across these authorities: canceling an online subscription should be roughly as easy as signing up for it was.

The FTC had adopted a broader 'Click-to-Cancel' Negative Option Rule to spell out those obligations in detail, but on July 8, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated that rule on procedural grounds. As of 2026, the FTC has moved to restart rulemaking on negative-option plans, while ROSCA itself and various state automatic-renewal laws remain in force.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Cancellation terms, refund windows, and the status of SiriusXM's appeal can change over time, so check SiriusXM's current Help center and the New York Attorney General's filings for the latest details, or consult a licensed attorney about your specific situation.

The New York decision governs SiriusXM's conduct toward New York customers, so the ordered simple, agent-free cancellation method applies in that state. SiriusXM had also said publicly that it would follow the FTC's click-to-cancel standard more broadly, although, as noted above, that federal rule was later vacated.

In practice, SiriusXM already offers online and chat cancellation to direct-billed subscribers nationwide, in addition to phone. Consumers in other states who feel a cancellation process is being unreasonably obstructed can still point to ROSCA and to their own state's automatic-renewal laws; California, for instance, maintains its own automatic-renewal statute with cancellation requirements.