There are two ways out of a contract in Germany. If you made it recently online, by phone or at your door, you can usually withdraw within 14 days without giving a reason (Widerruf). Otherwise you cancel it going forward (Kündigung), and a subscription that renewed in silence is often cancellable at short notice. Check withdrawal first: it is stronger and ignores the minimum term.
1. Withdrawal and cancellation are different things
Two mechanisms, routinely mixed up:
- Widerruf (withdrawal) — unwinding a contract shortly after making it, with no reason required. This is the strong one, and it is time-limited.
- Kündigung (cancellation) — ending a running contract going forward, subject to whatever notice and minimum term it carries.
If the contract is recent, look at withdrawal first: it is stronger, needs no justification, and does not care about the minimum term.
2. The 14-day right of withdrawal
Contracts concluded online, by phone, by post, or away from business premises — at your door, at a stand in a shopping centre, at your workplace — generally carry a 14-day right of withdrawal (§ 355 BGB). No reason needed, no penalty.
For goods, the period generally runs from when you received them, not when you ordered. For services, from conclusion of the contract. Estimate your date here.
Note what this does not cover: a contract signed in person inside a shop or a gym has no automatic withdrawal right, because you went to them.
The same goes for taking back something you bought in a shop and no longer want (Umtausch): a jacket that doesn't fit, a present nobody likes. The 14-day right in § 312g BGB covers distance and off-premises contracts, not shop purchases. Many shops still exchange or refund voluntarily, on their own terms: a time limit, the receipt, or a voucher instead of cash. Check those terms before you rely on them. A faulty item is different: the seller owes repair or replacement whatever its return policy says (see faulty goods and your 2-year rights).
3. When 14 days becomes a year
The 14 days only start once you have been properly informed of the right in the required form. Where that instruction was missing, buried or wrong, the period extends substantially — up to twelve months and 14 days (§ 356 BGB).
This is the single most useful provision in German consumer law and the one people most often assume does not apply to them. If a contract from eight months ago is causing you trouble, the withdrawal instruction is the first thing to look at — the fact that the original fortnight is long gone does not settle it.
4. You have to say so
Withdrawal requires a clear declaration to the trader. Silence is not withdrawal, and simply posting the goods back without saying anything is not sufficient.
Practically:
- state plainly that you are withdrawing, with the contract or order number;
- send it in a way you can prove — email is fine, keep the sent copy;
- send it within the period; it is the declaration that must be in time, not the return of the goods;
- you do not have to explain why, and you should not feel obliged to argue the point.
If you bought through a website or app, there is also a built-in route. Since 19 June 2026, a trader who concludes distance contracts through an online interface must offer an electronic withdrawal function there (§ 356a BGB). It is labelled Vertrag widerrufen ("withdraw from contract") or something equally clear, and has to stay easy to find for as long as the withdrawal period runs.
You give or confirm your name, the contract, and where the acknowledgement should be sent, then press a second button, Widerruf bestätigen ("confirm withdrawal"). The trader must then promptly send you an acknowledgement on a durable medium, such as an email, showing what you sent and the date and time it arrived. Keep it. A withdrawal sent this way before the period ends counts as received in time.
The function is a way to use a withdrawal right you already have. It does not create one, and the exceptions below still apply.
5. Where withdrawal does not apply
Some categories are excluded (§ 312g BGB), most commonly:
- goods made to your specification or clearly personalised;
- sealed goods unsuitable for return on hygiene grounds, once unsealed;
- perishables;
- sealed audio, video or software once unsealed;
- digital content you agreed to start receiving immediately, having acknowledged losing the right;
- accommodation, transport, car hire and leisure events tied to a specific date.
The exclusions are narrower than traders often imply, and the conditions attached to them — particularly for digital content — are frequently not met.
6. Subscriptions and the cancellation button
For continuing contracts concluded online — gyms, streaming, mobile, dating, magazine subscriptions — two rules changed the landscape and are still not widely known:
- There must be a cancellation button. A trader letting consumers sign up online must provide an equally easy way to cancel online, plainly labelled (§ 312k BGB). Where that button is missing or hidden, the consequences fall on the trader, not you.
- Automatic renewal is limited. Contracts of this kind can generally no longer lock you into another full year in silence; after the initial term they are typically cancellable at short notice on a rolling basis.
So "you missed the cancellation date so it renewed for twelve months" is a claim worth checking rather than accepting — particularly for contracts signed in the last few years.
The cancellation button is not the withdrawal function from section 4. The button, labelled Verträge hier kündigen or similar, ends a running contract going forward (§ 312k BGB). The withdrawal function, Vertrag widerrufen, is for withdrawing from a recent contract during the withdrawal period (§ 356a BGB). If the contract is recent, look at withdrawal first.
7. If payment demands are already arriving
Escalating letters, added fees, a debt-collection agency, a warning about your credit record. This is uncomfortable and it is designed to be.
Two things are worth separating:
- A demand is not a judgment. Anyone can send one. Collection fees ride on the underlying claim — if the contract does not stand, neither do they.
- A court order is different. If a Mahnbescheid arrives in a yellow envelope, that is a formal court document with a short window to object, and letting it run has real consequences. Do not file that one away.
If you are being pressed on a contract you believe you were entitled to escape, do not pay to make it stop and do not ignore it either. Get the paperwork looked at.
Keep the paperwork
Almost every one of these questions is answered by documents you already have: the confirmation email, the terms as they stood when you signed, the withdrawal instruction, the date of the order. Screenshot what is still online — traders update their pages, and the version that mattered was the one shown to you.