How to Cancel Xero Accounting in 2026

Updated February 2026 • Difficulty: Medium • $29-62/month

Before You Cancel: Export Everything

⚠️ Xero keeps your data for 12 months after cancellation, then deletes it permanently. Export all financial reports, bank transactions, invoices, and contacts BEFORE cancelling.

What to export:

Accounting → Reports → export each report as PDF and CSV
Bank accounts → export transaction history
Contacts → export as CSV
Invoices → export as PDF (batch export available)
Fixed assets register
Payroll reports (if applicable)

How to Cancel

Log in at go.xero.com
Go to Settings → Billing & Subscription
Click Cancel Subscription
Select a reason and confirm

Important: Only the subscriber (the person who originally set up billing) can cancel. If you're an admin or advisor but not the subscriber, you cannot cancel — you'll need to contact the account owner.

Consider Downgrading First

If you still need occasional access to your books but don't need full features:

Xero Starter: $29/month — limited to 20 invoices and 5 bills per month
Xero Standard: $46/month — unlimited invoices and bills
Xero Premium: $62/month — adds multi-currency

Downgrading to Starter saves $17-33/month while keeping access to your data and basic bookkeeping.

Tax Season Warning

🚨 Don't cancel before tax season. If your accountant needs access to your Xero data for tax filing, wait until after taxes are filed and you have all reports exported. Resubscribing just to get data back is expensive and stressful.

Cheaper Alternatives

Wave — completely free accounting software for small businesses (ad-supported)
QuickBooks Simple Start — $30/month but frequently discounted to $15/month for first 3 months
FreshBooks — $17/month (Lite), better for freelancers and service businesses
Zoho Books — free for businesses under $50K revenue, then $15/month
Spreadsheets — for very small operations, a well-structured Google Sheets template costs $0

💡 Savings: Switching from Xero Standard ($46/month) to Wave (free) or Zoho Books (free/$15) saves $372-552/year. For solo freelancers and microbusinesses, free options handle invoicing, expense tracking, and basic reporting just as well.