remove.bg, one of the best-known one-click background removal tools, is closing as a standalone service. According to its FAQ, the website will no longer be available from 1 December 2026 at 9:00am CET. remove.bg has been part of Canva since 2021: its background removal is moving into the Canva platform, and API access is moving to Leonardo.Ai, another Canva company.

What stops on December 1

Website and accounts. Account data stays accessible until the cutoff, then neither the site nor accounts can be reached. remove.bg asks users to export credit usage reports and invoices before then.
Credits. Unused pay-as-you-go credits expire on December 1. The updated terms add that all credits, including monthly rollover credits, can be used only until that date and are non-refundable.
Subscriptions. Plans work until the cutoff and then end automatically. Annual subscribers get an automatic pro-rata refund for unused time; for monthly plans, any final renewal on or after November 1 is free.
Self-service API. It stops accepting requests. Enterprise API contracts continue as normal.
Plugins. The Photoshop plugin and the other integrations are discontinued.

Where the features go

For single images and batches, remove.bg points to the Background Remover in Canva, which it says uses the same technology. Canva handles bulk removal in its web and desktop apps; its feature page says unlimited usage requires Canva Pro.

For developers, background removal is now part of the Leonardo.Ai API. Leonardo's migration guide lists a price of $0.1047 per image and several breaking changes: a new endpoint, Bearer-token authentication, JSON-only requests and responses, and results saved to your Leonardo library by default unless you set the "ephemeral" option. ZIP output and some remove.bg options are not supported yet.

For Photoshop users, remove.bg suggests Affinity, Canva's free editor; its built-in background removal needs a Canva Pro subscription.

What this means if you use remove.bg

If you remove backgrounds now and then, use up your credits before December 1 and download any results you want to keep. Canva covers the same task: see remove.bg vs Canva AI.

If remove.bg is wired into your shop, CMS or scripts, plan the API migration now, not in late November. Test Leonardo's endpoint on a sample of your own images, check the storage default, and compare the per-image price with what you paid on remove.bg.

If you have an Enterprise API contract, nothing changes for now, but ask your account contact what happens at renewal.