remove.bg, the site many people used to cut the background out of a photo, is closing. Its website stops on 1 December 2026 at 9:00 CET. If you use it for work, you have until then to use up what you paid for and move somewhere else. Here is what is changing, what it means for you, and a short checklist.
What remove.bg announced
remove.bg was bought by Canva in 2021. It is now being folded in completely:
- The website closes on 1 December 2026. After 9:00 CET that morning the upload page is gone.
- Background removal moves into Canva. The same kind of tool lives on inside Canva’s editor, so you would use it through a Canva account.
- The API goes to Leonardo.Ai. remove.bg is pointing developers who call its API to Leonardo.Ai, another Canva company. Existing enterprise contracts keep their own terms.
- Unused pay-as-you-go credits expire when the site closes.
remove.bg’s own FAQ has the details for each kind of account. Read it before you cancel a plan or buy more credits.
What it means for you
You used the website now and then
Nothing is lost, but the bookmark stops working. Any free background remover will do the same job. Pick one, try it on a few of your usual photos, and swap the bookmark now so you are not hunting for one on a deadline.
You bought credits
Spend them before 1 December. Credits you have not used expire that morning. If you have a large batch of images waiting, run it now rather than in the last week.
You pay for a subscription
Check in your remove.bg account what happens to your plan and when it stops renewing. Then decide whether you want the tool inside Canva, or a standalone background remover you open in a browser.
You call the API from your own code or a plugin
This is the group with the most work to do. Scripts, shop integrations and design plugins that use a remove.bg API key need a new home before the date. Your choices are an API that accepts the same requests, such as the Erase BG API included with Pro, to follow remove.bg to Leonardo.Ai, to self-host an open-source background removal model, or to move the work to a person using a web tool. If a plugin you use asks for a remove.bg key, ask its maker what they plan to support next.
A checklist before 1 December
- Download anything you still need from your remove.bg account.
- Use up your credits on the images you would have processed anyway.
- Find the automations. List every script, store app and plugin that sends images to remove.bg, and decide where each one moves.
- Test a replacement on real photos. Use your hardest images: hair, fur, glass, thin product edges. A tool that handles those will handle the rest.
- Update bookmarks and team docs so nobody lands on a closed page in December.
Where to go instead
Canva makes sense if your team already designs in it: background removal will sit next to the rest of your work.
A standalone web tool suits you if you just want to add a photo and get a PNG back, without an editor around it. That is what Erase BG does. It is free with no sign-up, free downloads are up to 800 px with no watermark, and Pro gives full-resolution cut-outs up to 4000 px for one flat monthly price instead of credits. Pro also includes a background removal API that takes the same requests as remove.bg’s, so code can move by changing the address and the key.
Leonardo.Ai or self-hosting are the paths for developers who need background removal inside their own software.
Quick answers
Is remove.bg really closing? Yes. The website closes on 1 December 2026, and background removal continues inside Canva.
Will my old links to remove.bg results work? Do not count on it. Download anything you want to keep before the date.
Is Erase BG part of remove.bg? No. It is an independent site and is not affiliated with remove.bg or Canva.
