How to cancel subscriptions on iPhone

Open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, tap the subscription, then tap Cancel Subscription. That list only covers subscriptions Apple bills you for. A gym or an insurance policy billed straight to your card never appears on it.

By the Subby team·Last updated September 2, 2026

The 30-second version

1. Open Settings and tap your name at the top of the screen.
2. Tap Subscriptions.
3. Tap the subscription you want to end.
4. Tap Cancel Subscription. You might need to scroll down to find it. Some services show Cancel All Services instead.

If there's no Cancel button, or you see an expiration message in red text, Apple says that subscription is already cancelled. What's left on the screen is the time you already paid for.

Active and expired live in the same list

This is the screen people mean when they ask how to check all the subscriptions on an iPhone. It holds two kinds of entry, and Apple's iPhone guide spells out what each one does:

• Active subscription. Tap it to cancel it, or to pick a different tier or billing period.
• Expired subscription. Tap it and the button reads Renew instead of Cancel. These are old subscriptions Apple keeps on file. Seeing one here doesn't mean you're being charged.

Two switches sit on the screen too. Share with Family passes every eligible subscription to your Family Sharing group without asking you each time, and Renewal Receipt Emails sends you an email whenever one renews. Turn the second one on before you leave the screen, unless you'd rather check by hand.

Purchase history finds the charge you can't place

Settings shows subscriptions and stops there. It won't list a one-off in-app purchase, and it won't tell you what an unfamiliar charge was for. Purchase history will, in four steps:

1. Open the App Store app.
2. Tap your picture at the top right, then tap Apps & Purchase History.
3. Tap Purchase History. You may be asked to authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode.
4. Search by name, price or order ID. Tap the “Last 90 Days, Paid” filter to change the date range, the cost, the type, or (if you're the Family Sharing organiser) the family member.

That list holds apps, in-app purchases, subscriptions, music, books and AppleCare+. It is the full record of what Apple has charged your Apple Account for, and the 30-minute subscription audit has you open it before you start if you'd rather clear the lot in one sitting.

Family Sharing: you can't cancel for someone else

When a charge traces back to a family member's Apple Account, your own phone is a dead end. Apple is explicit that you can't cancel a family member's subscription, so they have to run these Settings steps on their own device. The receipt tells you whose account it is.

What Apple's list will never show you

People clear that screen, feel done, and get charged anyway. The Subscriptions list covers subscriptions billed by Apple and nothing else, meaning Apple's own services plus anything bought inside an App Store app. That leaves the subscriptions that never show in iPhone Settings:

• Anything you signed up for on a company's own website with your card: most gym memberships, insurance, meal boxes, news sites, storage plans and web-first software.
• Subscriptions you received through your wireless carrier or another provider. Apple's advice for those is to contact the carrier or provider directly.
• Subscriptions sitting on a second Apple Account you also use.
• Anything a family member bought on their own Apple Account.

Apple documents the way out. Search your email for the words “receipt from Apple” or “invoice from Apple”, then check which Apple Account is on the receipt. A family member's account means asking them to cancel it, and an old account of your own means signing in there and doing it yourself. When no Apple receipt turns up, you probably bought the subscription from another company, so read your bank or credit card statement to see who's billing you, then cancel with them. Who takes the money is the first question in how to cancel Spotify Premium too.

That last case is the one that costs money, because no list on your iPhone holds it. The list has to be yours, and it has to survive the month you stop thinking about it. Adding them once in Subby is one way to do that, with a warning before each renewal. The charge nobody wrote down is the one that keeps renewing.

Cancel iPhone subscriptions from a Mac or the web

On a Mac, open the App Store app and click your name in the sidebar (or Sign In). Then Account Settings, Subscriptions, the subscription itself, and finally Cancel Subscription. Apple keeps the same list in any browser at account.apple.com under Subscriptions, which helps when the phone with the subscription isn't the phone in your hand. Android bills through a different store, so the steps to cancel subscriptions on Google Play sit on their own page.

Apple also notes that cancellation works slightly differently in some countries and regions, and it names Germany, Israel, South Africa and Türkiye. In those four, follow the localised instructions on Apple's page rather than the generic steps.

After you cancel

Go back to Settings → your name → Subscriptions and confirm the entry now shows an expiry date instead of a renewal date. Write that date down somewhere you'll see it. A charge that lands after it gives you a clean case to take to Apple Support. And if you turned on Renewal Receipt Emails earlier, keep them. Each one is dated proof of what renewed and when.