Consumer · Right to Cancel
Right to Cancel a Purchase: Cooling-Off Periods by State
How many days you have to back out of a door-to-door purchase in each state, the longer windows for timeshares and other categories, and why there is no general three-day right to return a car. Each cited to the statute.
Read this first: there is no 3-day right to return a car
The one cooling-off right that is nearly uniform is for a door-to-door, or home-solicitation, sale: all six states give three business days to cancel, sitting on the federal FTC floor. Some add longer windows for specific categories, California five days for seniors, Florida ten days for timeshares, New York seven days for medical-alert services.
The biggest myth to bust: there is no general three-day right to return a car. The federal rule explicitly excludes vehicles sold at a dealership, and none of these states give an automatic cooling-off window for a completed car purchase. The same logic means an in-store purchase has no cooling-off right either. The rule protects you from a salesperson at your door, not from buyer’s remorse at a counter. Every figure links to the statute, and pages still pending verification say so.
Pick your state
The door-to-door window, any longer category window, and the statute on each card.
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What these pages are, and what they aren't
Each state page is a reference for the cooling-off right and the neutral steps to use it. They are deliberately not advice for your purchase: the category, the notice, and the deadline can all matter, so each page links to the statute and a consumer-complaint route. This is legal information, not legal advice.