To cancel your SWTOR subscription, sign in to the platform that actually bills you — the Star Wars: The Old Republic website, Steam, or PayPal — and turn off the recurring charge there. The subscription runs at $14.99 for 30 days, $41.97 for 90 days, or $77.94 for 180 days, and it keeps renewing until you stop it.1Star Wars: The Old Republic. Enhance Your Experience Once you cancel, you keep full subscriber access through the end of the period you already paid for, and then your account shifts to “preferred” status rather than closing.
Find Out Where You’re Being Billed
Before you click anything, confirm which platform charges your card. If you subscribed on the SWTOR website, you cancel on the SWTOR website. If you subscribed through Steam, only Steam can stop the billing. Trying the wrong portal wastes time while the renewal date gets closer.
Search your email for past receipts from EA or from Steam — whichever name shows up is where you need to go. For a SWTOR-website subscription, you’ll sign in at the account management portal with your Display Name and password.2Star Wars: The Old Republic. Star Wars: The Old Republic
Cancel on the SWTOR Website
Log in to your account, open the Subscriptions tab, scroll to the bottom, and select “Cancel your subscription.”3Electronic Arts. STAR WARS: The Old Republic Subscription Guide You’ll get a series of confirmation prompts and, usually, an optional survey asking why you’re leaving. Click through every screen until you see a final confirmation.
Then check your account page. If it still shows as fully active with no indication of pending cancellation, the process didn’t finish. That usually happens because someone closed the browser tab a screen too early. If “Cancel your subscription” doesn’t appear at all, your plan may be a fixed-term one that expires on its own, or you may have originally subscribed through Steam and be looking in the wrong place.
For extra insurance, you can also remove your payment method from the Manage Billing page on the SWTOR account site. That link sits on the Cartel Coins page or the Subscription page while a recurring subscription is active. With no card on file, the system can’t process a renewal even if the cancellation itself hits a snag.
Cancel Through Steam
If Steam handles the billing, the SWTOR website can’t help you. Open Steam, go to Account Details, find the section for active subscriptions, locate the SWTOR entry, and select cancel. Confirm when prompted. The recurring charge stops, and your subscription stays active until the current paid period ends.4Steam Support. Recurring Subscriptions
Cancel Through PayPal or by Phone
Two other paths work when the standard ones don’t.
If you pay through PayPal, you can end the billing agreement from PayPal directly. Open Settings, then Payments, then “Automatic Payments” or “Subscriptions and saved businesses,” find the SWTOR merchant, and cancel. This cuts off the payment pipeline no matter what your SWTOR account page shows.5PayPal. What Is an Automatic Payment and How Do I Update or Cancel One
If you can’t get into your account online, U.S. players can call EA customer service at 1-(855)-345-2186. All SWTOR support now routes through EA Help, so expect some back-and-forth before you reach an agent who can actually process the cancellation.6Star Wars: The Old Republic. Customer Service
What Happens After You Cancel
Cancellation doesn’t cut you off right away. You keep full subscriber access for the rest of the billing period you already paid for. Cancel three days into a 30-day cycle and you still have about 27 days of subscriber play left. When that time runs out, your account transitions to “preferred” status automatically.3Electronic Arts. STAR WARS: The Old Republic Subscription Guide Your characters, progress, and items stay intact.
Preferred is the middle tier between free-to-play and active subscriber. You can still log in, but restrictions kick in. The ones that matter most:
- A credit cap of 1 million per character, with anything above that pushed into an escrow account you can’t easily spend from.
- 12 character slots per server instead of 24. Existing characters stay, but you’ll pick which ones remain active if you’re over the cap.
- Operations, the 8-player and 16-player endgame raids, become subscriber-only. This is the biggest content lockout.
- Two crew skills instead of three, a crafting queue of one item at a time per companion, and 5 Galactic Trade Network listings instead of 50.
- No access to the in-game customer service ticket system.
Refunds and Why You Should Never Chargeback
If a renewal hit your card and you didn’t want it, contact EA support first and ask for a refund. EA’s general policy is that subscription memberships aren’t refundable, though the company notes that in certain countries a right of withdrawal may apply within 14 days of purchase, provided you haven’t used the service in that period.7Electronic Arts. How to Get a Refund for EA Games If you explain politely that the charge was unintentional and you haven’t logged in during the new cycle, agents sometimes make an exception. No guarantee.
Do not file a chargeback with your bank or card issuer. EA treats chargebacks as a terms-of-service violation, and the standard consequence is a permanent ban on your entire account. Every character, every item, every Cartel Coin — gone. For a $14.99 charge, it’s not worth skipping the support ticket.
When You Can’t Log In to Cancel
Cancellation is simple when you have account access. It gets harder when you don’t.
Lost Security Key
If you set up a mobile security key and no longer have the device, go to the SWTOR login page and leave the security key field blank. The next screen should offer a “Lost your security key?” option that emails you a one-time password.8Electronic Arts. How to Set Up or Remove a STAR WARS: The Old Republic Security Key Some players report that link occasionally goes to a broken page. If the automated process fails, email support@swtor.com from the address tied to your account and ask them to remove the key manually. Have your character names, classes, and levels ready to prove ownership.
No Access to the Account Email
If you’ve lost access to the email on the account, password resets and one-time passwords won’t reach you. Contact customer support with your old email address, the new one you want to use, and character details for verification. Another route that sometimes works: try signing in to your EA or Origin account with your SWTOR credentials. SWTOR accounts have a linked EA account, and you may be able to update your email there directly.