Start a subscription for a future date

DocsCurrentLast updated: October 6th 2021, @ 7:10:14 pm


You can let your customers start their subscriptions on a future date. This is useful when customers want to start a new subscription after a current subscription ends, or when they wish to take advantage of a current promotion but activate their subscription on a later date.

If you start a subscription on a future date, any setup or one-time fee associated with the subscription is charged immediately upon sign-up, but regular payments towards the subscription will start on the selected date.

You can update the subscription’s start date as long as it's in the future.

Sample request

API endpoint used: Create subscription

curl -v -X POST https://api-m.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/billing/subscriptions
-H "PayPal-Auth-Assertion: AUTH-ASSERTION" /
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-H "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS-TOKEN"
-d '{
  "plan_id": "P-5ML4271244454362WXNWU5NQ",  
  "start_time": "2021-11-01T00:00:00Z"
}'

Modify code

  • ACCESS-TOKEN - Your access token.
  • plan_id - the ID of the plan associated with this subscription.
  • start_time - the desired subscription start time and date, in UTC format. This field can be updated as long as the new value is set in the future.