In short: The Court of Rome ruled that Netflix’s repeated price increases between 2017 and 2024 violated Italian consumer law and EU Directive 93/13/EEC with unfair contract terms. The decision annuls the relevant contractual provisions, orders current prices to return to 2015 launch levels and requires Netflix to inform millions of current and former Italian subscribers of their right to a refund of up to €500 for Premium subscribers and up to €250 for Standard subscribers. Netflix said it would appeal.
A Rome court has billed Netflix for nearly a decade of price hikes. In a judgment published on April 1, 2026, the Court of Rome found that Netflix had imposed repeated and unjustified price increases on Italian subscribers in violation of the Italian Consumer Code and EU Directive 93/13/EEC prohibiting unfair terms in standard consumer contracts. The action was initiated by Movimento Consumatori, one of Italy’s largest consumer unions. Cataloged as sentence 4993/2026, the decision applies to up to 5.4 million current Italian subscribers and a non-quantity of former subscribers who were terminated during the relevant period.
Netflix launched in Italy in 2015 with a Premium plan for €11.99 per month. It raised prices in 2017, again in 2019, again in 2021, and most recently in November 2024, raising its Premium plan by €8 per month to €19.99. The standard plan went up to €13.99 in the same period. The court found that none of the price changes were accompanied by valid reasons in the contract, and that giving subscribers 30 days’ notice, along with the option to cancel, was not a meaningful substitute for genuine consent. Under the directive, contract terms that create a significant imbalance between the business and the consumer without the consumer’s reasonable consent are void ab initio.
What did the court decide?
The decision imposes a number of specific obligations on Netflix. The price increase clauses in its standard contracts are void and unenforceable. Current subscription prices should be reduced: Premium plan to €11.99 and Standard plan to €9.99, levels applicable before the first illegal increase. Netflix must notify all current and former Italian subscribers via email, postal mail, notices placed on its website and in Italian national newspapers within 90 days of the decision, or face fines of €700 per day for non-compliance. Future contracts should specify the conditions under which prices may change. Eligible subscribers can get a refund of around €500 if they’ve been on a Premium plan since 2017, and around €250 if they’ve been on a Standard plan.
Not a single judgment
The decision of the Rome Court is not alone. In Germany, the federation of consumer organizations vzbv filed a parallel lawsuit against Netflix on the same legal grounds, and courts in Berlin and Cologne have already ruled that Netflix’s price change clauses are invalid under German contract law. In Spain, consumer association FACUA is looking for a comparable challenge. Each case is based on the EU Directive 93/13/EEC as a common legal basis, Europe’s tradition of strengthening regulation in its digital markets for years. A defeat in Germany, where the Vzbv case is ongoing, would expose Netflix to a much larger subscriber base than Italy.
The timing of the Italian ruling adds another layer of complexity. It was released on April 1, 2026, three days after Netflix announced a global price increase on March 26, 2026, which increased subscription costs in all major markets. In Italy, this announcement came in the opposite legal environment. Netflix’s revised terms of service, updated in April 2025, now include terms that indicate the basis on which prices may change, citing technical and regulatory factors as potential justifications. Whether these revised terms were timely to limit the company’s exposure or whether they were drafted in anticipation of litigation is likely to be the focus of the appeal.
Netflix’s position
Netflix said it will appeal the decision. The company has not publicly confirmed whether it will comply with its notice and price reduction obligations pending the appeal. Netflix noted that the revised terms of service, which went into effect in April 2025, already address the transparency issues identified by the court. Expectations for platforms to disclose the basis for changes to paid terms of service not limited to any jurisdiction or sector; it has become a key assumption in European and increasingly global regulatory frameworks. Movimento Consumatori’s counter-argument is that the obligation to provide justified reasons for price changes has existed in EU law since 1993, and revisions to the contract after the start of litigation do not retroactively affect provisions that applied in years of increases.
What it means for broadcasting in Europe
Italy is Netflix’s fourth largest market in Europe, with approximately 5.4 million subscribers by October 2025 and 8 million unique users recorded in 2024. Europe’s digital marketplace has long been the site of the most consistent test of how wide tech platforms are to set their own commercial terms.and the Rome judgment is one of the most direct judgments on the specific question of subscription prices. Every major streaming service operating in the EU, including Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV Plus, uses a structurally similar mechanism: notify by email, offer an opt-out option and move on. If the Rome court’s interpretation of Directive 93/13/EEC is upheld on appeal or reiterated by courts in Germany and Spain, the commercial model that has underpinned decades of flow growth will require a major overhaul across the sector.
Subscription pricing has been one of the defining revenue drivers of the past decadebuilt on the assumption that inertia, the gap between receiving a price notification email and actually canceling, works like consent in practice. European courts are now testing this assumption against the text of the consumer protection directive, which has been in force since 1993. Italy’s response in the first week of April 2026 is that the freedom to cancel and the freedom to agree are not the same thing. Scalable commercial models by 2025 More and more cases and consequences are beginning to pile up before the courts, equipped with three decades of consumer protection law.
