Cancellation Button Checklist: Making Your Site § 312k BGB Compliant for Germany
If German consumers can sign up for a subscription or other recurring contract on your website, German law requires that they can also cancel it there — via a permanently visible cancellation button meeting the requirements of Section 312k of the German Civil Code (BGB). The provision is prescriptive about labeling, placement and the confirmation flow, which makes compliance checkable — by you, and by the consumer associations that actively test subscription sites.
For international teams, the pitfalls are practical: the button gets buried in the account area, requires login, or funnels users into a retention chat — all non-compliant. Getting it right protects your minimum contract terms, because a missing button lets consumers terminate at any time. The checklist below covers the flow end to end.
Your checklist
- 1Confirm applicability: check whether your site lets consumers in Germany conclude continuing-obligation contracts electronically — if yes, § 312k BGB applies to you.
- 2Place the button prominently: make it continuously available and easy to find on the pages where German consumers manage or learn about their contracts, without requiring login.
- 3Label it unambiguously: use wording equivalent to 'Verträge hier kündigen' ('cancel contracts here') in clear, legible form — no euphemisms like 'manage subscription'.
- 4Build the confirmation page: after the click, take the user directly to a page collecting the details needed to identify the contract (name, contract reference or email, cancellation type and date).
- 5Add the confirm control: finish with a clearly labeled confirmation button equivalent to 'jetzt kündigen' ('cancel now') that submits the termination.
- 6Send immediate text-form confirmation: deliver receipt and content of the cancellation (including its effective date) to the customer in text form, e.g. by email, without delay.
- 7Log every step: store timestamps and submitted data so you can prove a working cancellation path existed — the burden in disputes is on you.
- 8Keep it friction-free: remove login walls, mandatory phone calls, chats or surveys from the cancellation path; retention offers must not obstruct the flow.
- 9Test after every release: include the German cancellation flow in QA, since redesigns and A/B tests are how compliant buttons quietly disappear.
Matching tool
Integrate the legally compliant cancellation button.
2-Click Cancellation → Check now for freeFrequently asked questions
Which contracts need the cancellation button?
Continuing-obligation contracts with consumers concluded through electronic commerce — typically subscriptions, memberships, telecom-style services and other recurring paid relationships. One-off purchases are not covered. If the contract can be concluded on the website, the cancellation button duty attaches to it.
Does the button have to be in German?
The button must be unambiguous for the consumers the site addresses. If you serve German consumers through a German-language storefront, the labeling should be in German, following the statutory model wording. On an English-language interface targeting Germany, an equally unambiguous English label is generally considered defensible, but the German model wording is the safe harbor.
What should we log to prove compliance?
Log that the button and confirmation page were live and reachable (deployment and monitoring records), plus per-cancellation timestamps, the data submitted and the confirmation dispatched. In a dispute over an 'invalid' cancellation, you must show the statutory path worked — logs are how you do that.