CRTC 2026-43: Activation and Cancellation Fee Ban Explained

Some of the most familiar line items on a Canadian phone or internet bill became illegal this summer — though fewer of them than the coverage suggested. If you're here because you searched “2026-43” — this is the decision that did it, what it actually covers, what it left standing, and what to do when a dead fee shows up on your bill anyway.

On March 12, 2026, the CRTC issued Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-43, prohibiting the fees providers charge for starting and changing a phone or internet plan, and the fees they charge for leaving a cellphone plan that has no subsidized device on it. The ban has been enforced since June 12, 2026. On the wireless side it applies to every wireless provider in the country — the national carriers, the regional players, the flanker brands, the discount MVNOs — and to individual and small business customers alike. On the internet side it is narrower, reaching only individual customers of internet providers that are subject to the Internet Code.

What Exactly Is Banned

Activation fees — charges for turning a plan on. Signing up for service is not a service the provider gets to bill you for.
Change fees — charges for modifying an existing plan, including changes made through a customer service agent.
Cellphone cancellation fees — charges for leaving a wireless plan that does not include a subsidized device. Before June 12 the Wireless Code capped that fee at the lesser of $50 or 10% of your remaining monthly charges; now it is zero. This one is narrower than it looks.

The statutory hook is section 27.04 of the Telecommunications Act, added in 2024 and in force since October 30, 2025: a provider “must not charge a fee to a subscriber that is related to the activation or modification of a telecommunications service plan, or any other fee whose main purpose is, in the opinion of the Commission, to discourage subscribers from modifying their service plan or cancelling their contract for telecommunications services.” Parliament left it to the CRTC to say which fees those are, and 2026-43 is the answer. The mechanism is an amendment to the Wireless Code and the Internet Code — the rulebooks that govern wireless and internet contracts. The new definition of an “activation or modification fee” went into both Codes. The early cancellation change went into the Wireless Code only. The Commission gave providers until June 12, 2026 to update their billing systems, noting that in the meantime the fees could simply be waived manually at the point of sale.

The Carve-Outs Worth Understanding

Updated September 17, 2026. An earlier version of this post said the only charge that survived the ban was the balance on a subsidized phone. That was wrong. The early cancellation change is in the Wireless Code only, and this section now sets out what actually survived.

There are four of them, and the second is the one that gets misreported.

The balance on a subsidized or financed device. The cancellation-fee ban applies when no subsidized device is involved. The Code says “subsidized”; on most bills today that means a phone you are financing through your monthly plan, and the CCTS treats the unpaid balance on a financed device the same way. If your contract included one, the provider can still collect what is still owing on the device when you leave early, and on a financed phone that remaining balance comes due when you go. That is a device balance, not an exit penalty.

Early cancellation fees on fixed-term internet contracts. The Commission amended section G.3.i of the Wireless Code so that a provider “must not charge an early cancellation fee” when a subsidized device is not provided as part of the contract. It did not make the equivalent change to the Internet Code. Under that Code, a provider can still charge an early cancellation fee on a fixed-term contract if the contract sets one out, for the lesser of 24 months or the contract term, declining to zero across that period. On a month-to-month internet plan there is no such fee — but that was already true before 2026-43.

And the Internet Code does not bind the whole industry. It applies to ten companies and their brands and affiliates: Bell (including Bell MTS, NorthernTel and Télébec), Cogeco, Eastlink, Northwestel, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw, TELUS, Videotron and Xplornet, now Xplore. If your internet provider is not on that list, or owned by one that is, neither the Code nor 2026-43 reaches your exit fee. What you owe is whatever your contract says, subject to your province's consumer law.

Physical installation. A reasonable fee for physically installing service at your premises sits expressly outside the ban. The Commission reasoned that installation is an actual and sometimes significant cost, and that prohibiting it could work against broadband rollout. The CCTS, which administers both Codes, reads that as a technician coming to your home: its own explainer lists an installation fee as banned “if no technician is required to visit your home”, and says the same of a change fee. On that reading, a self-install kit in the mail is not a physical installation.

Optional products and services you explicitly chose to buy. The Commission's own examples were Wi-Fi configuration at your premises and extra equipment not required to deliver the service.

One more thing sits outside the decision altogether, because it never mentions it: a charge for equipment you fail to return. That one is untouched.

The distinction matters when you're reading a final bill. On a cellphone account, a remaining device balance is legitimate, and a “deactivation charge” or an “early cancellation fee” on a bring-your-own-device plan is what 2026-43 killed. On a fixed-term internet account an exit fee may simply be lawful — there the question is whether it matches the contract and was reduced for the months you had already served.

One thing the Commission explicitly did not settle: device rental plans. It said early cancellation as it applies to those is better dealt with in the proceeding to merge the consumer codes, and encouraged people to take part in it. That proceeding is under way, with a public hearing set for November 30, 2026, and an individual subscriber has an intervention on its record.

Why the CRTC Did It

The Commission's reasoning is about competition, not courtesy: a fee at the exit is a barrier to switching, and a market where leaving costs money is a market where providers compete less on price and service. Policy 2026-43 was the first in a series of decisions under the CRTC's Consumer Protections Action Plan. So far it has been followed by the customer notification rules of Policy 2026-67, the self-service cancellation mandate of Policy 2026-78, and the internet shopping rules of Policy 2026-238 (September 10, 2026) — together, a framework built on the idea that you should be able to enter, change, and exit a telecom service without friction.

The Ban Is Already Being Tested

Within weeks of June 12, all three national carriers had fees on their books that the ban supposedly did not cover — setup fees, shipping fees, SIM fees, a device-handling fee. The CRTC has ordered Bell, TELUS, and Rogers to show causewhy those charges don't violate the new rules, with penalties of up to $10 million on the table. We covered that proceeding here. Public comments closed on August 31, 2026, the carriers filed their replies on September 10, and the record is closed. A decision is pending. If you paid one of these fees after June 12, keep the bill. The CCTS's own fee explainer lists these particular charges as still under consideration by the CRTC. Whether the people who paid get their money back is one of the open questions in that proceeding — and it is the one an individual subscriber asked the Commission to answer.

What to Do If a Banned Fee Shows Up on Your Bill

If you are here with a charge already on your bill rather than an interest in the decision, our step-by-step guide to getting a cancellation fee removed has the wording to send and what to do when they say no.

Keep the bill. A charge dated after June 12, 2026 for activation, a plan change, or cancelling a cellphone plan with no subsidized or financed device on it is the whole case.
Ask the provider to remove it, citing Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-43. Get a reference number for the call.
Escalate if they refuse — Bell, Rogers and TELUS all have management-team escalation forms.
Take it to the CCTS if it stays on your bill. The Wireless and Internet Codes are exactly what the CCTS enforces in individual disputes, the service is free, and our CCTS complaint guide walks through the process.

The Asterisk, as Always

Policy 2026-43 is a telecom decision. It covers your cellphone and internet plans. It does not cover television or broadcasting distribution services, which live under a separate statutory framework — one that has no equivalent fee ban and no self-service exit mandate. The gap between how the CRTC now treats a telecom subscriber and how it treats a TV subscriber is the running theme of this site, and it got wider on June 12.

The Fees That Died on June 12