Cooling-off after an energy switch: your no-penalty way out

How long is the cooling-off period — 14 days or 30?

Both figures are real, which is exactly why they confuse people. The standard cooling-off period on an Irish energy contract is 14 days: sign up online or over the phone, and for a fortnight you can walk away from the contract without giving a reason, without a penalty and without an exit fee. That covers the overwhelming majority of switches, because the overwhelming majority of switches happen on a supplier’s website.

The 30-day figure comes from the Consumer Rights Act 2022, which lengthens the cancellation window on certain contracts concluded away from the trader’s premises — the classic case being a salesperson calling unannounced to your door — and on some distance contracts connected to that kind of visit. The extension exists because doorstep sales are where pressure-selling lives: you did not go shopping, the shop came to you, so the law gives you longer to think again. The statute’s detail is laid out plainly on citizensinformation.ie.

What the 30 days is not is a general upgrade. If you compared deals yourself and signed up on a website, you are in ordinary 14-day territory, and assuming otherwise is how people miss their window by a fortnight. Treat 14 as your number unless your own paperwork says 30.

Which figure applies to my switch?

You could try to classify your own contract — was it distance, was it off-premises, was the visit solicited — but you do not have to, because the supplier already did it for you. Every energy contract comes with a welcome pack (email or post) that must set out your cancellation rights, including the length of your window and how to use it.

As a rule of thumb before the pack arrives: signed up on a website or app, or rang the supplier yourself — expect 14 days. Signed at your own front door after an unannounced call, or at a stand somewhere a contract was the last thing on your mind — the 30-day extension may well apply, and the pack will say so. Either way the practical advice is identical: find the figure in your paperwork, put the deadline in your phone, and if you are going to cancel, do it early rather than at the wire.

When does the cooling-off clock start?

From the day you conclude the contract — for an online switch, that is the day you hit confirm and the confirmation email lands. It is not the day your supply actually transfers, which comes two to four weeks later (the timeline has its own page). This matters because a typical switch completes in about a fortnight: on a 14-day window, the transfer and the deadline can land within days of each other, so “I’ll decide once I see the first bill” usually means deciding too late.

Two wrinkles work in your favour. Some suppliers state their window from when you receive the welcome pack rather than the contract date — that can only ever give you more time, never less. And if the supplier failed to tell you about your right to cancel at all, the window does not quietly lapse: under consumer law it extends well beyond the standard period until the information is properly given. If you suspect that applies to you, check the detail on citizensinformation.ie before assuming you are out of time.

When in doubt, count conservatively: day zero is the day you signed up, and your notice should reach the supplier before the window closes, not be postmarked vaguely near it.

What does the window look like, day by day?

Here is the cooling-off window laid over a typical switch. The point to absorb: the switch machinery keeps moving while you cool off, so the two clocks run side by side.

How do I cancel the switch correctly?

The single rule that trips people up: the cancellation goes to the new supplier — the one whose contract you are undoing. Ringing your old supplier and asking them to “stop the switch” does nothing, because your old supplier is not a party to the contract you are cancelling and has no button to press. The checklist:

1. Find your sign-up date and your window. Confirmation email for the date; welcome pack for the 14-or-30 figure. The figure in your own pack governs.
2. Tell the NEW supplier. Use their cancellation form or email address if the pack names one; otherwise any clear written statement that you are cancelling the contract does the job. No reason required.
3. Put it in writing and keep proof. A dated email or form receipt is your evidence you were inside the window. Cancelled by phone? Follow up in writing the same day.
4. Check whether the transfer already happened. Not yet completed: the registration is stopped and you never left. Already completed: ask the new supplier to confirm what happens next and what you will owe.
5. Watch the closing paperwork. Written confirmation of the cancellation, plus at most one small bill for units used. An exit fee should not appear anywhere — dispute it in writing if one does, and escalate via the complaints route if it is not removed.

If the reason you are cancelling is that a better deal appeared, you can sign up with the better supplier the same day — the cooling-off cancellation and the new sign-up are independent, and the new contract brings a fresh window of its own.

Do I pay for the energy I used during the window?

Yes — cooling-off waives the penalty, not the electricity. If your supply transferred to the new supplier before you cancelled, every unit that came through the meter in the meantime was supplied under the new contract, and you pay for it at the new supplier’s rates, standing charge included for those days. That is the entire cost of changing your mind: no exit fee, no cancellation charge, just the energy you genuinely used.

In most cases even that does not arise. Cancel in the first week or so — before the registration completes — and the switch simply never happens: your old supplier never stopped billing you, so there is nothing for the new supplier to charge. This is the strongest argument for cancelling the moment you are sure, rather than running the deadline down: the earlier you act, the cleaner the unwind.

One reassurance worth stating plainly: nothing about cancelling touches your supply itself. The wires and pipes are run by ESB Networks and Gas Networks Ireland whoever bills you, so there is no disconnection, no engineer and no gap — the same guarantee that applies to the switch itself applies to unwinding it.

What happens to my supply when I cancel?

It depends on where the registration had got to, and both outcomes are undramatic.

Cancelled before the transfer completed: the new supplier withdraws the change-of-supplier registration, the transfer never happens, and your old account carries on exactly as it was — same rates, same contract, same direct debit. From your side, the whole episode amounts to two emails.

Cancelled after the transfer completed: the new contract ends, but you do not automatically ping back to your old supplier — the old contract ended when the switch completed, and reinstating it is not part of the cancellation. In practice you now choose where the account lands: ring your old supplier and ask to come back (they may re-sign you, though not necessarily on the discounted deal you left — treat it as a retention conversation), or switch to a different supplier entirely, which is just an ordinary switch with a fresh cooling-off window attached. Until the new registration goes through, the supplier you cancelled remains your supplier of record and bills you for what you use — supply is never interrupted at any point.

That non-resurrection point deserves emphasis, because it is the one genuine cost of a late cancellation: if you were mid-way through a cheap year-1 deal when you switched away, cooling off the new contract does not bring the old discount back. The rate you return to is whatever your old supplier offers today — one more reason the year-1 versus year-2 maths is worth doing before you leave a deal, not after.

What if I miss the cooling-off window?

Then the contract stands, and unwinding it stops being free. Leaving after the window closes is an ordinary mid-contract exit: on a typical 12-month deal that means an exit fee — around €50 per fuel at most of the big brands, €100 per fuel at Yuno and on SSE Airtricity’s fixed-rate plans, €150 ex VAT at Pinergy, and €0 at Community Power, which has no fixed term. The full per-supplier table, and the maths on when paying a fee is still worth it, lives on the exit-fees page.

Before paying anything, though, do the boring arithmetic. If the new deal is merely underwhelming rather than painful, the cheapest move is often to stay put, set a reminder for month 11, and leave at contract end when the fee drops to zero — the same logic as any mid-contract switch. Paying €50–€150 per fuel to undo a contract you could exit free in ten months only makes sense when the gap between the deals is bigger than the fee.

And if you missed the window because the supplier never told you it existed — no cancellation rights in the welcome pack, no mention at sign-up — you may not have missed it at all, since the window extends when that information was withheld. Check citizensinformation.ie, then put the point to the supplier in writing.

Where to next?

• Energy exit fees — the per-supplier fees once the window has closed, and when paying one is still worth it.
• How to switch energy supplier — the full process, if the cancellation was step one of a better switch.
• How long a switch takes — where the transfer date falls against your cooling-off deadline.
• Best energy in Ireland — the re-shop, with year-1 and year-2 cost for all nine suppliers, or the 30-second find your energy matcher.

About the author

Conor Ryan

Energy Switching Analyst

Conor Ryan has tracked Irish gas and electricity prices, tariffs and switching since 2019. He builds matched.ie’s energy comparison tools and tests how smart meters and time-of-use plans affect household bills.

7+ years analysing Irish energy marketsCertified in Energy Efficiency (SEAI) and Electricity SupplyFocus on SSE Airtricity, Electric Ireland, Energia and Bord GáisBased in Limerick, covers domestic and small-business tariffs