Notice of Cancellation Form: FTC Cooling-Off Rule

To cancel a qualifying sale under the FTC Cooling-Off Rule, sign and date the Notice of Cancellation the seller gave you at the time of the sale and either mail it (postmarked by midnight of the third business day after the sale) or hand-deliver it to the seller’s business address. If the seller never provided the form, a signed and dated letter identifying the transaction and stating that you are canceling works just as well, so long as it goes out within the same three-business-day window.¹

What the Notice Should Look Like

At the time of sale, the seller was required to give you two copies of a cancellation form captioned either “Notice of Right to Cancel” or “Notice of Cancellation,” printed in at least ten-point bold type and in the same language used during the sales pitch. Before handing the form over, the seller had to fill in four items: the business name, the business address, the date of the transaction, and the last date you can cancel (no earlier than the third business day after the sale).² One copy is yours to keep. The other is what you sign, date, and send back if you decide to cancel.

If none of that happened, write your own notice. It needs to identify the transaction, state that you are canceling, and carry your signature and the date. Send it to the seller’s business address.¹

How to Count the Three Business Days

Under the rule, a business day is every calendar day except Sundays and federal holidays. Saturday counts. So if a door-to-door salesperson wrote up the sale on Wednesday, your deadline is midnight Saturday.³

How to Send It

You can mail the signed, dated notice or hand-deliver it to the seller’s business address.⁴ If you mail it, the envelope must be postmarked by midnight of the third business day. Certified mail with a return receipt is the safest route because it documents both the mailing date and delivery; the FTC’s own guidance recommends it.¹ If you hand-deliver, keep a copy and ask the seller to sign an acknowledgment of receipt.

The rule does not authorize email, text, or any other electronic delivery. Even if the salesperson invites you to “just email,” an emailed cancellation is not what the regulation contemplates. Use paper.

Which Sales the Notice Actually Cancels

The Cooling-Off Rule applies when a salesperson personally pitches you and you agree to buy somewhere other than the seller’s permanent place of business: your home, your workplace, a dorm lounge, or any short-term rented facility such as a hotel room, convention center, fairground, or restaurant. It applies even if you invited the salesperson.⁵ The price has to be at least $25 for a sale at your home, or at least $130 for a sale at a temporary location.⁶

Several common situations sit outside the rule, so a cancellation notice will not help:

Sales negotiated at the seller’s permanent retail location, even if the paperwork was signed elsewhere.⁵
Sales made entirely by phone, mail, or online.⁵
Real estate, insurance, and securities or commodities sold by a registered broker-dealer.⁵
Motor vehicles sold at tent sales or auctions by a dealer that also has a permanent business location, and arts or crafts sold at fairs.⁷
Emergency repairs you initiated, but only when you also gave the seller a separate handwritten, signed, and dated statement describing the emergency and waiving the three-day right. Without that written waiver, the standard cancellation right still applies.⁶

What Has to Happen After the Seller Receives Your Notice

Once a valid cancellation notice reaches the seller, a ten-business-day clock starts. In that window, the seller must refund everything you paid, return any trade-in you handed over (in substantially the same condition), and cancel any promissory notes, checks, or other negotiable instruments you signed. If the seller took a security interest in your property, they must take the steps needed to terminate it.²

If goods have already been delivered, you have a duty to keep them in substantially the same condition and make them available for pickup at your home. The seller has ten business days from receiving your notice to tell you whether they will pick the goods up or abandon them.⁶ If the seller asks you to ship the goods back, it has to be at the seller’s expense and risk. If twenty days pass from the date of your cancellation and no one has retrieved the goods, you may keep or dispose of them without further obligation.²

There is a flip side worth knowing before you send the notice. If you refuse to make the goods available, or you agree to return them and then don’t, you remain liable for everything the original contract required.²

If the Seller Ignores Your Notice

The Cooling-Off Rule does not give you a private right to sue the seller under federal law. The FTC classifies a refusal to honor a valid cancellation as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, but enforcement runs through agencies, not you.² If ten business days pass and no refund arrives, the FTC recommends three moves:

Report the seller to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Contact your state attorney general’s office, which may have its own authority over deceptive sales practices.
Reach out to your local consumer protection agency, which can sometimes mediate directly.¹

If you paid by credit card, disputing the charge with your card issuer is often the fastest way to recover the money. Federal credit billing protections run on their own track, separate from the Cooling-Off Rule.

State Law May Give You More Time

The three-business-day federal window is a floor. Many states have their own cooling-off statutes covering additional contracts (timeshares, home improvement work, health club memberships) or granting longer cancellation periods, and some count calendar days rather than business days. Before assuming the federal rule is your only option, check your state attorney general’s website; the state protection may reach farther.¹

1
Federal Trade Commission. Buyer’s Remorse: The FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule May Help
2
eCFR. 16 CFR 429.1 – The Rule
3
eCFR. 16 CFR 429.0 – Definitions
4
eCFR. 16 CFR 429.1 – The Rule
5
eCFR. 16 CFR 429.0 – Definitions
6
eCFR. 16 CFR Part 429 – Rule Concerning Cooling-off Period for Sales Made at Homes or at Certain Other Locations
7
eCFR. 16 CFR Part 429 – Rule Concerning Cooling-off Period for Sales Made at Homes or at Certain Other Locations – Section: 429.3 Exemptions