Your right to cancel a contractor contract, by state

The FTC Cooling-Off Rule (16 CFR Part 429, with the cancellation mechanics in 16 CFR § 429.1) is the federal floor. When it applies, the seller must give you written notice of your right to cancel, and you may cancel by midnight of the third business day. Crucially, it applies to door-to-door and other off-premises sales of consumer goods or services for $25 or more at the buyer's home (or $130 or more at certain temporary locations).

It does NOT automatically apply to every contractor contract. A bid negotiated and signed at the contractor's regular place of business, an ordinary online purchase, and emergency work the homeowner specifically requested are common situations the federal rule does not cover.

In other words, the single most important question is where and how the contract was sold. A roof, HVAC, window, or remodeling agreement signed after an in-home sales pitch can be covered even though the work is construction; the same job bid and signed at the contractor's office often is not. That is exactly why the state layer below matters.

• Act fast and in writing. Cancellation windows are short (often three business days). If a right applies, send written notice within the window and keep a dated copy.
• Check where and how you signed.Door-to-door / in-home sales are the ones the federal rule and most state home-solicitation laws cover. A contract signed at the contractor's office, or emergency work you requested, often is not covered.
• Read your contract. Many states require home-improvement contracts to state cancellation and refund terms — your contract may give you a clearer right than any statute.
• Confirm with your state. Use your state Attorney General / consumer-protection office (linked above) before you rely on a right. They are the system of record — ProFix is a directory, not a dispute service or law firm.

• General information, not legal advice. This page compiles public federal and state law as of the dates shown. Cancellation rights turn on the specific facts of your transaction. Confirm with your state AG / consumer-protection office or a licensed attorney before relying on anything here.
• The federal rule, represented precisely. The FTC Cooling-Off Rule (16 CFR Part 429) gives a 3-business-day cancellation right for door-to-door and other off-premises sales of consumer goods or services for $25 or more at the buyer's home (or $130 or more at certain temporary locations). It is not an automatic right to cancel every contractor contract, and we never present it that way.
• No invented statutes or day-counts. We classify each state only on signals reliably present in our dataset: whether it cites its own home-solicitation cancellation statute, and whether it codifies a construction-specific framework. We assign a specific window beyond 3 days only where the statute states one (Alaska and California); otherwise the window is shown as "see state law."
• "General law" is not "no rights." Where a state has no separate construction-cancellation statute, cancellation rests on the general home-solicitation right, the federal rule (if it applies), and the contract terms — we say so rather than imply a homeowner is unprotected.
• Source & license.The FTC Cooling-Off Rule plus each state's home-solicitation and home-improvement statutes, compiled by the ProFix editorial team — the same dataset that powers the per-state cancellation-rights pages. ProFix-published open data, CC-BY-4.0.
• Computed live. Every count and list is read from the committed seed at render time; nothing here is hardcoded. If the dataset is updated, this page updates with it.