BC’s New Consumer Protection Rules: What Businesses Need to Fix Now

Disclosure Requirements for Consumer Contracts

Before these amendments, disclosure obligations varied depending on how a contract was formed and what type of consumer product or service was involved. The new rules replace that patchwork with a single, consistent standard. Key terms such as renewal, cancellation, refund, return, and exchange policies must now be disclosed clearly and upfront, not buried several pages into a terms of service document that most consumers never read. Businesses also need to present those terms consistently across every channel they sell through, whether that is a website, an app, or an in-person point of sale.

Subscription and Auto-Renewal Requirements

The changes are particularly significant for subscriptions and auto-renewing services, including SaaS products, memberships, media subscriptions, and other recurring-revenue models. Businesses must now give consumers advance notice of an upcoming renewal, together with a clear explanation of their cancellation rights. The notice period and mechanics differ depending on the length of the renewal term, so a business running a short monthly renewal cycle and one running an annual renewal cycle should expect different obligations to apply.

Restrictions on Contract Amendments

A supplier can no longer amend a subscription contract in its own favour without telling the consumer. Where a change negatively affects the consumer, whether that is a price increase, a reduction in service, or a tightening of the cancellation process, the consumer must be notified in advance and given a right to cancel. Businesses that rely on a standing right to “update these terms at any time” without a corresponding notice and cancellation mechanism should treat that language as outdated.

Application to Existing Contracts

One of the most important, and most overlooked, aspects of these amendments is that they apply to contracts already in effect, not just new sign-ups. A checkout flow, consent screen, or renewal email sequence that has not been touched since before August 1, 2026, is now a live compliance exposure, even for subscribers who signed up years ago.

What This Means for Your Business

If your business sells subscriptions or auto-renewals to consumers in BC, the changes will potentially affect your terms of service, checkout and consent flow, renewal notices, cancellation path, and internal customer service scripts. Non-compliance under the BPCPA can expose a business to regulatory action and to consumer claims, including the risk that a contract or a particular term is found unenforceable.

Segev LLP can run a focused review of your consumer-facing terms, sign-up and cancellation flows, and renewal notices against the new requirements, and deliver a short list of the changes you need to make, plus updated template language.

If you sell subscriptions or auto-renewals to consumers in BC, reach out to David McHugh at d.mchugh@segevllp.com. Feel free to reach out to us at 1-800-604-1312 or https://segevllp.com/contact-us/.