Can You Cancel a Security Camera Contract When You PCS or Deploy? SCRA Rules in 2026

Yes. Since January 2023, federal law has let service members — and the dependents who move with them — cancel a home security contract without an early termination fee when they receive Permanent Change of Station (PCS) orders or deploy for more than 90 days. The rule is an amendment to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), and with Veterans Day falling on November 11, 2026, it's a good moment for military households to know it exists.

What does the law actually say?

The change came through the Veterans Auto and Education Improvement Act of 2022, signed into law on January 5, 2023 as Public Law 117-333. It amended Section 305A of the SCRA (50 U.S.C. § 3956) to add "home security services" — alongside gym memberships and fitness programs — to the short list of consumer contracts a servicemember can legally terminate early. Before this amendment, that section only covered cell phone, home internet, and cable or satellite TV contracts, according to the Air Force's own summary of the change, published by Air Force Materiel Command in 2023.

Two eligibility rules matter most:

• You must have orders for a PCS move, or for a deployment of more than 90 days.
• Those orders must have been issued after you signed the security contract — you can't sign up knowing you're about to leave and then invoke the law.

The protection also now extends to dependents who move with the servicemember, even if the spouse or family member — not the servicemember — is the one named on the contract. That's new too: previously, a dependent could only get SCRA protection if they were a co-signer or account holder.

How do you actually cancel?

Per the statute and the Air Force's guidance, termination has to be in writing — hand-delivered, mailed, emailed, or submitted however the contract's own cancellation clause specifies — and it must include a copy of the military orders that trigger the right to cancel. Once that notice is delivered, the provider cannot charge an early termination fee, and the contract ends on a timeline set by the statute rather than whatever the fine print originally said. This summary covers the general rule; because exact documentation requirements can vary by situation, it's worth a quick check with your installation's free legal assistance office before you send the notice.

Why this matters more now

This isn't a rare edge case. The Department of Defense arranges the worldwide movement of roughly 300,000 personal-property shipments for service members and their families each year, at a cost of about $2 billion, according to a 2025 Government Accountability Office report on DoD relocation oversight. Even as the Pentagon works to reduce how often troops move, hundreds of thousands of households are still packing up annually — each one a candidate for this exact situation.

And moving is already expensive before you add a canceled contract to the pile. More than 60% of active-duty families who moved in the prior two years paid over $1,000 out of pocket beyond what the government reimbursed, up from 45% in a comparable 2023 survey, according to the Military Family Advisory Network's 2025 Military Family 360 Report, based on more than 10,000 respondents. An early termination fee on top of that is real money a family didn't need to lose.

A 2023 federal law lets military families cancel security contracts penalty-free when PCS or deployment orders land.

What about the camera hardware itself?

The SCRA amendment gets you out of the contract — it doesn't solve what happens to a professionally installed camera system bolted to a house you no longer live in. Wired panels, door sensors, and cloud-locked hubs typically stay behind or become useless once the account closes, which is part of why this law exists in the first place: canceling shouldn't also mean eating a fee for gear you can't take with you.

This is one reason some military families skip the long-term contract entirely and use a phone they already own — a prior-generation iPhone or Android device sitting in a drawer — as the camera instead. iCameraPlus turns that old phone into a continuously recording security camera for your own property, with a private cloud archive you can browse from a web panel, live view, remote start and stop, and audio and video, on both iOS and Android. Because there's no fixed installation or multi-year agreement, there's nothing to cancel the next time orders come in — you just set the phone up again at the next duty station. If you're weighing a full installed system against something simpler, this related look at whether you need a full security system or just a camera in 2026 is a useful next read, as is this breakdown of what to actually do with an old phone this season before it ends up in a drawer for good.

Does this apply to Guard and Reserve members too?

SCRA protections generally reach National Guard and Reserve members once they're activated to federal active duty for a long enough period, but the specific cutoffs and documentation requirements can vary by situation. If you're Guard or Reserve and weighing whether your orders qualify, your installation's legal assistance office — free to all service members — is the right place to confirm it before you sign anything or send a cancellation notice.

Quick checklist before you sign (or cancel)

• Orders dated after the contract
• Written cancellation notice, not a phone call
• Copy of orders attached
• No early termination fee owed

Quick answers

Does this law cover a rental lease too, or just security contracts? The SCRA has a separate, longer-standing provision for breaking a housing lease on qualifying military orders — it's not the same section as the 2023 home-security amendment, so check the lease-specific rules separately with your legal assistance office.

Can my spouse cancel the contract if it's only in my name? Yes — the 2023 amendment specifically extended this protection to dependents who relocate with the servicemember, even when they aren't the account holder.

What if my provider still tries to charge a termination fee? The statute prohibits it once valid notice and orders are provided; your installation's legal assistance office or the Judge Advocate General's SCRA resources can help you push back in writing.

Sources

• Public Law 117-333, Veterans Auto and Education Improvement Act of 2022 (govinfo.gov, signed Jan. 5, 2023)
• Air Force Materiel Command: "Servicemember Civil Relief Act amended" (2023)
• Military.com: "How to Cancel a Home Security Contract When You PCS: New Law"
• U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-25-107771: "Military Moves: DOD Needs Better Information to Effectively Oversee Relocation Program Reforms" (2025)
• Military Family Advisory Network: 2025 Military Family 360 Report