It depends which route the migration takes. If your mandates move through the Bacs Direct Debit Bulk Change Process, your customers sign nothing again, because the authorisation they gave you carries over. If new mandates are created instead of transferred, every customer signs. No Bacs rule decides which of those you get, and GoCardless publishes a contractual commitment to help you either way.
The short version
- GoCardless's own page on the bulk change: "Customers don't need to opt-in or set up new mandates, as their original authorisation to you as the merchant is sufficient". Under the alternative route, new instructions are created at your customers' banks and each customer signs a fresh mandate.
- No scheme document sets a minimum number of mandates for a bulk change, and neither does GoCardless, Stripe, London & Zurich or Access PaySuite. Any minimum you're quoted belongs to the provider quoting it.
- Clause 7.1 of the GoCardless Bank Debit Terms commits them to "entering into a bulk change deed" and providing "a machine-readable list of each of your Customers and their Payment Scheme Mandate details via a secure transfer mechanism".
- There's no single minimum notice to your customers, because the advance notice period is registered against the service user number you collect under. The Bacs default is "10 working days plus postal time", Stripe publishes 2 working days and GoCardless publishes 3 days for its own collections, and the wording has to be pre-approved by a sponsor bank.
Which route your migration takes
The Bacs Direct Debit Bulk Change Process amends instructions that already sit at your customers' banks: the rules for "applying bulk amendments to Direct Debit Instructions (DDIs), already held with paying PSP's", covering a change of name, legal status, service user number or service user reference, in the Bacs glossary. Leaving GoCardless changes the service user number your collections run under, so it qualifies. Your customers get a letter, and they don't act.
The alternative is new mandates. Your incoming provider collects a fresh authorisation from each customer, with no deed and no sponsor-bank co-ordination, so you can collect as soon as people sign. The cost is the signing: some customers take weeks and some never get round to it. Your incoming provider decides which route you're offered, so ask early, because it changes what you tell your customers and when.
Why there's no mandate threshold to point at
You'll see numbers quoted for this online. Not one of them comes from the scheme.
We checked the Bacs glossary definition, the Bacs switching guide of November 2018, Direct Debit Facilities Management v5.0 of February 2025, the bulk change deed and both Payment Systems Regulator papers on facilities-management switching. None states a minimum number of instructions, or conditions re-signing on how many mandates you hold. GoCardless's four published pages on transferring and bulk changing away don't either, and neither do Stripe, London & Zurich or Access PaySuite.
You can't settle it yourself either, because the rulebook isn't public: the Bulk Change Process document and the Service User's Guide and Rules both redirect to a Bacs login.
A provider can still set its own minimum, and plenty do. A bulk change needs two sponsor banks, a wet-signed deed, a notification of change form and several weeks, and below some number of mandates that's more work than asking your customers to sign. Ask your incoming provider what their line is, and treat the answer as commercial policy.
What GoCardless publishes about leaving
Their exit terms are the best published in this market, so anyone telling you leaving GoCardless is contractually difficult is wrong on the documents.
The General Terms set no minimum period and let you close the account from the Dashboard, with any transactions already taken "processed in full". The pricing page calls Standard, Advanced and Pro "monthly rolling contracts", and no exit fee appears in the terms or in the bulk-change-away article. Clause 7.1 of the Bank Debit Terms then commits GoCardless to "commercially reasonable endeavours to assist you in promptly moving to another bank debit supplier", including signing a bulk change deed and handing over a machine-readable list of your customers and their mandate details. Of eleven providers we looked at, three publish a data-export clause at all.
Operationally, you submit a bulk change away form and receive a pre-filled deed by email. The Bacs side takes "between 3-5 weeks due to the response time of the involved sponsor banks", you're advised to "stop collecting payments 5-7 days prior to the bulk change date", and "Any payments that are submitted at the time the cancellation is issued will still be collected unless they are failed by the customer's bank".
Two qualifiers from the same documents: the customer list arrives only "once GoCardless has received confirmation from its sponsor bank that the bulk change transfer has been approved", and under clause 11.2 you "will not be automatically entitled to be paid" funds GoCardless holds when the agreement ends, until it's satisfied what you owe has been settled.
One piece of history cuts in their favour: the scheme rule that stops an outgoing provider blocking a bulk change exists partly because GoCardless complained about the old position, where, in their words, "the outgoing FM provider was under no obligation to meet that request".
How much notice your customers need
There's no single minimum, for a structural reason: the advance notice period is registered against the service user number you collect under, and your sponsor bank approves it. So your number depends on whose service user number your collections currently run through.
| Source | What it publishes |
|---|---|
| Bacs glossary | Advance notice default of "10 working days plus postal time" |
| GoCardless | "With GoCardless advance notice is 3 days" for its own collections |
| Stripe | Mandate forms must show "the advance notice period, which is 2 working days" |
On the migration letter, both companies disagree with themselves. GoCardless's transferring timeline puts payer notification at "0-3 weeks before" the change, while an earlier GoCardless post says "at least four weeks prior". Stripe's export page says "at least 3 business days before the bulk change date", while its import page says to send it "in accordance with the Advance Notice Period in your current SUN". All four are on their own live pages, and we won't resolve them on their behalf.
Everyone agrees the letter goes out before the change date in wording pre-approved by a sponsor bank, and both companies supply a template. Ask your current provider what period is registered against your service user number, then work back.
Put the statement name in that letter too. A bulk change allows "the merchant name, reference and SUN on a mandate to be changed", GoCardless says, and it charges £50 a month for "Your name on bank statements", so if you collect under a shared service user number before and after the move, the unfamiliar name on your customer's statement changes from one provider's to another's.
Common questions
Do customers have to re-sign if we leave GoCardless? Not if the mandates move through the Bacs bulk change, where GoCardless says customers "don't need to opt-in or set up new mandates". If new mandates are created instead of transferred, each customer signs one.
Is there a Bacs minimum number of mandates for a bulk change? No scheme document publishes one. The Bacs glossary, the November 2018 switching guide, Direct Debit FM v5.0, the deed and both PSR papers are silent, and so are the migration pages of GoCardless, Stripe, London & Zurich and Access PaySuite.
Can GoCardless refuse to release our mandates? Clause 7.1 of their Bank Debit Terms commits them to help you move, including signing a bulk change deed and providing a machine-readable list of your customers and their mandate details. Scheme rules have also required an outgoing facilities-management provider to co-operate with a bulk change since 1 January 2018.
Does leaving GoCardless cost anything? Nothing is published. There's no minimum term, no notice period and no exit fee in the terms, and no fee in their bulk-change-away article. Note clause 11.2, which delays payment of funds GoCardless holds until it's satisfied what you owe has been settled.
How much notice do our customers need? It depends on the advance notice period registered against the service user number you collect under. The Bacs default is "10 working days plus postal time", reducible with sponsor-bank agreement, and published provider figures run from 2 working days to four weeks.
Will collections carry on during the move? Yes, with a quiet window around the change date. GoCardless advises stopping collections 5 to 7 days beforehand, says payments already submitted will still be collected, and gives 3 to 5 weeks for the Bacs side of a move away.
Sources
- Bacs — resources (accurate as of August 2026)
- Bacs — glossary (accurate as of August 2026)
- GoCardless — Bank Debit Terms (accurate as of August 2026)
- GoCardless — Bulk changing away from GoCardless (accurate as of August 2026)
- GoCardless — General Terms (accurate as of August 2026)
- GoCardless — transferring your Direct Debits (accurate as of August 2026)
This article describes what Bacs, the Payment Systems Regulator and named providers publish about re-signing after a change of direct debit provider and is not legal or financial advice. The documents containing the Bacs bulk change rules are behind a Bacs login, so process detail not quoted from a public scheme page is described as what a provider publishes. Contract terms change, so check the current document. Last updated August 2026.
