The legal catalog behind every Checkbox verdict — federal and state automatic-renewal requirements with citations, effective dates and the conditions under which they apply.

A requirement is one obligation from one law: "disclose the recurring price before the consumer pays", "send a reminder 3 to 21 days before a free trial longer than 31 days converts". Each has an id (US-CA.17602.a.1), a jurisdiction (US-FED, US-CA, US-NY…), a citation and source URL, an effective date, a lifecycle stage, a severity, the conditions under which it applies, a notice window where timing matters, and the checks that verify it.

The catalog currently holds 196 requirements in 29 jurisdictions (catalog version 2026.10.31.1, last verified against primary sources on 2026-10-29; rules version 1.3.0).

#How applicability works

For each evaluation Checkbox selects the requirements that apply:

1. Jurisdiction. The site's jurisdictions (empty means all; US-FED always applies). Preflight checks take a jurisdictions parameter ("all", or state codes such as ["US-CA", "US-NY"]).
2. In force. Effective on the evaluation date (as_of) and not superseded. Laws enacted with a future effective date are already in the catalog and start applying on that date automatically.
3. Facts. appliesWhen conditions against the business facts: free trial and its length, term length (for example annual reminders for terms of a year or more), online sign-up, payment methods (Regulation E covers recurring debits from a bank account or debit card).

Each check then runs once, and its finding lists every applicable requirement that references it, with the strictest severity. You see one finding per check with all the jurisdictions it matters for.

#Laws in the catalog

"Not cataloged" laws were researched and deliberately not turned into requirements; the summary on each says why. The per-state requirements are on State automatic-renewal laws.

#Keeping up with changes

The catalog is versioned (catalog_version on every result) and hashed (catalog_hash), so a verdict can always be traced to the law it applied. When a law changes, Checkbox publishes a law update (GET /v1/law_updates), re-evaluates affected sites and sends the law.changed webhook.

Checkbox is compliance software, not a law firm; nothing in these docs is legal advice (details). For AI agents: every page is available as Markdown at the same URL plus .md; the index is /llms.txt.