Cancellation helper

Withdrawal and termination are not the same thing

This is the most important point on the page, and it is the one most often muddled. Withdrawal (peruuttaminen) means stepping out of a contract you have just concluded, within fourteen days. Termination (irtisanominen) means ending a contract already in force, going forward. These are different rights, they have different conditions, and you invoke them with different words.

The confusion grew out of the obligation that took effect on 19 June 2026. It is generally described as a "cancel button", and many read that as a promise that any subscription can now be severed with one click. It cannot. The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority, the KKV, defines the function precisely: it is a functionality through which a consumer can exercise their statutory right of withdrawal. It concerns those fourteen days, not a subscription that began six months ago.

The obligation covers every contract concluded through an online interface — on a website or in an app, for goods and for services alike — and not financial services only, as the directive’s original title might suggest. A dating subscription falls inside the scope.

Termination has a rule of its own, and it is no weaker. Consumer Ombudsman decision KKV/981/14.08.01.05/2025 states that terminating should be possible through several channels and, as a starting point, at least through the same channels in which contracts are concluded. For a service operating online, an electronic termination channel is, in the decision’s own words, not only natural but also necessary. A telephone alone is not enough, because queuing, opening hours and the cost of the call make it difficult for some people.

The practical difference is this. If less than a fortnight has passed since you subscribed, invoke the right of withdrawal — it is the stronger one, because money comes back. If longer has passed, invoke termination and the notice period. The wrong word in the wrong situation lets the service answer formally correctly and substantively no.

The right of withdrawal from a service lasts longer than people think

The common belief is that the right of withdrawal disappears the moment you start using a service. In a service contract that is not so.

The KKV’s guidance for online retailers sets three conditions that must all be met at once: the service ordered was, at the consumer’s request, performed in full during the withdrawal period; the consumer was told in advance that the right would be lost; and the consumer consented to that. One condition missing is enough for the right to stand.

The word "in full" decides it. A monthly or six-month subscription is not performed in full within fourteen days — by definition it is unfinished. So the right of withdrawal from a fresh dating subscription is typically live, even where the service has already been used.

It does not become free of charge, though. If performance has begun and you withdraw within fourteen days, you pay reasonable compensation for the costs the seller has already incurred before your notice of withdrawal. In practice that means the days used, not the whole period. It is worth saying so yourself: it removes the service’s easiest counter-argument.

Note how digital content differs. For downloadable content there are two conditions rather than three, and no "in full" requirement — there the right genuinely is lost once delivery starts, provided consent and notice were in order. A subscription service is not downloadable content.

Why the message is better sent by email

The button in your account is the quickest route, but it leaves you holding nothing. If a charge arrives a month later, the burden of proof is in practice yours, and the only evidence is a memory of a click.

The KKV’s guidance on terminating a contract is unambiguous here: a contract can be terminated with a freely worded notice of termination, and it should be done in writing, because writing documents it. The notice can be sent to the email address the company gives as its contact. No separate fee may be charged for terminating.

The best approach is to do both: press the button if there is one, and send the message as well. The button settles the matter quickly; the message makes it verifiable. The message the tool assembles is in Finnish, because that is the language a service directing its business at Finland is obliged to deal in.

Note the date you send it. The notice period runs from it, the fourteen days run from it, and so does the reasonable time after which silence is itself grounds to take the matter further.

The notice period and automatic renewal

In an open-ended contract the notice period may not be unreasonably long. The KKV gives two weeks as an example and names one month as the maximum.

This is not a recommendation but a supervised rule. In 2024 the Market Court, in decision MAO:667/2024, imposed a penalty of a hundred thousand euros for precisely a three-month period and found the term unfair to consumers. If your terms say three months, it is the term that is wrong, not you.

In a fixed-term contract the logic differs: it ends when the period ends, with no separate termination. The problem arises where the terms turn the fixed period into a rolling one automatically. In that case ask for express confirmation that the subscription will not renew — a bare statement that you do not wish to continue is not always recorded in the system.

Check, too, which subscription is at issue. Some services run a one-off period and a continuous subscription side by side, and the continuous one charges by itself. Your receipt tells you this more reliably than the subscription page. The actual period prices are collected on the page what dating sites cost in Finland.

If a charge arrives anyway

A charge after termination is a payment without basis, and it is dealt with along two lines at once.

First, a written complaint to the service: give the date of termination, the date of the charge and the amount, and ask for a refund and the date of that refund. At the same time, a complaint to your own bank. One does not replace the other: the bank has its own deadlines, and they run while you wait for the service to answer.

Keep a screenshot of the subscription page, the price and the terms before you change anything. Once the account is closed those pages are often no longer reachable, and they are exactly where the notice period you are invoking is written down.

If no answer comes within a reasonable time, the next step is kuluttajaneuvonta, the consumer advice service, on 09 5110 1200. You go there after writing, not instead of writing: the first thing they ask is what you have already done and when.

Last comes kuluttajariitalautakunta, the Consumer Disputes Board, which issues a recommended resolution. It is slow but free, and you need no lawyer to apply.

What the tool does not do

It is not legal advice. It assembles what a consumer can invoke in Finland and names the source for each point. It does not know the terms of your particular contract.

It does not send the message for you and does not ask for your email address. Everything happens in your browser, nothing goes to a server, and there is no sign-up on the site.

It does not show which menu hides the button in which service. Interfaces change, and a stale click-by-click instruction is worse than none: it sends a person hunting for an item that does not exist and leaves them concluding that termination is impossible.

And it promises no outcome. It states what the obligation is and the order in which it is invoked. After that, what decides the matter is whether you sent the message and noted the date.

What to invoke in which situation

The table applies to services directing their business at Finland, whatever country the company is registered in.

Frequently asked

Sources

• KKV: online shops must provide a withdrawal function — definition of the function and its scope
• KKV: terminating a contract and the notice of termination — freely worded notice, one month at most
• Consumer Ombudsman: arranging termination channels — KKV/981/14.08.01.05/2025
• KKV: right of withdrawal and the withdrawal period — when the right is lost in a service
• KKV: penalty for an unfair notice-period clause — MAO:667/2024
• Directive (EU) 2023/2673, Article 11a — withdrawal function from 19.6.2026