What remove.bg announced
This is not a rumor. remove.bg published the date on its own site. Per its FAQ:
- 2021Canva acquires remove.bg.
- September 2026remove.bg announces the standalone website is closing and background removal is moving into Canva.
- December 1, 2026 — 9:00 a.m. CETThe standalone remove.bg website stops being available. Unused pay-as-you-go credits expire the same day. Self-serve API requests stop; the migration notes point API users to Leonardo.Ai. Existing Enterprise API contracts are not affected.
The product isn’t dying — it’s being absorbed. But the workflow millions of people used — open a page, drop a photo, download a cutout, no account — is dying with the standalone site.
What this means for you
If you used the website casually
Your path is Canva’s editor. That means a Canva account becomes mandatory — no more quick one-off cutouts without signing in — and Canva’s background remover has historically been a Pro feature.
If you used the API in code
You have a hard deadline: December 1, 2026. The migration notes redirect self-serve traffic to Leonardo.Ai — a different vendor with its own auth, pricing and rate limits. Any script, Shopify app or automation calling the remove.bg API needs a new integration, tested and shipped, before that date.
If you cared about privacy or cost
Every hosted remover uploads your photo to someone else’s server. And the free tier had already tightened over the years — previews free, full-resolution downloads moved behind credits. The shutdown is a good moment to switch to a model with neither problem.
Honest comparison: where to go next
| remove.bg (until Dec 1, 2026) | Canva BG Remover (after Dec 1) | EzySize Background Remover | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free tier tightened over the years; full-res moved behind credits | Historically a Pro feature | Free — no paid tier |
| Signup | Account needed | Canva account mandatory | None |
| Your photo | Uploaded to their servers | Uploaded to Canva | Never leaves your device |
| Usage limits | Credit-based | Plan-based | None |
| Watermark | No | No | No |
| Full-res download | Behind credits on free tier | Per plan | Yes — transparent PNG |
| Works on Dec 2, 2026 | No — site closes | Yes | Yes — no server to close |
Fair note: Canva is the right call if you already live inside Canva and want the remover inside your designs. The table above is for everyone who wants the old standalone workflow back.
Try the free alternative right now
Same 5-second job as remove.bg: drop a photo, get a transparent PNG. No signup, no credits, no watermark — and your photo never leaves your device.
Remove a background freeSwitch your workflow in 5 minutes
- Open the alternative. Go to EzySize’s background remover — no account to create, nothing to install.
- Drop your first photo. The AI model (~40MB) downloads once and your browser caches it. From the second photo on, it starts instantly.
- Check the edges. The cutout previews on a transparency checkerboard — zoom into hair and edges before downloading, the same QC you’d do anywhere.
- Download the transparent PNG. Full resolution, true alpha channel, drops straight into Photoshop, Canva, Figma or your listing tool.
- Delete the remove.bg bookmark. Update any team docs or SOPs that point at remove.bg — and if you had API calls in code, start that migration now: December 1 is a hard date with no grace period announced.
Where this alternative is honestly weaker
No tool wins everywhere, so here are the trade-offs, stated plainly:
- First run needs a ~40MB download. The AI model has to live in your browser to run on-device. It’s a one-time, cached download — but the very first photo takes longer than remove.bg’s instant first impression.
- Photos are capped at ~12 megapixels for processing (larger ones are resized down first) so the model doesn’t run out of memory on your device.
- Hard edges are hard everywhere. Wispy backlit hair, translucent glass and fur against similar colors are genuinely difficult segmentation problems — results are good, but inspect the edges before publishing, the same as you would with any automatic remover.
- No API. If you need programmatic background removal in a backend pipeline, you need a hosted API (Leonardo.Ai is remove.bg’s official redirect). This page is the replacement for the website workflow, not the API.
Frequently asked questions
Is remove.bg really shutting down?
Yes. remove.bg’s own FAQ states that the standalone website will no longer be available from December 1, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. CET. Background removal is moving into Canva, which acquired remove.bg.
What happens to my unused remove.bg credits?
Unused pay-as-you-go credits expire on December 1, 2026 — the same day the standalone site closes. Use them before then or lose them.
Where does background removal go after December 1, 2026?
For everyday users, background removal moves inside Canva’s editor. For developers on the self-serve API, remove.bg’s migration notes point to Leonardo.Ai. Existing Enterprise API contracts are not affected.
Will I need a Canva account to remove backgrounds after the shutdown?
If you follow remove.bg’s official path into Canva, yes — the standalone one-off workflow disappears, and Canva’s background remover has historically been a Pro feature.
What is the best free remove.bg alternative?
It depends on your workflow. If you already live in Canva, its built-in remover is the path of least resistance. If you want the old remove.bg experience — open a page, drop a photo, download a cutout, no account — EzySize’s background remover does exactly that, free, with no signup, no limits and no watermark, and the AI runs 100% on your device.
Is EzySize’s background remover really free with no limits?
Yes. No account, no credit system, no watermarks, no per-month caps. The AI model (~40MB) downloads to your browser once and is cached; after that every photo is processed locally on your device and the download is a clean full-resolution transparent PNG.
Do my photos get uploaded to a server?
No. Unlike hosted removers, the AI comes to your photo instead of your photo going to an AI. After the one-time model download, processing happens entirely in your browser tab — nothing is uploaded, transmitted or stored. You can verify this in your browser’s network tab.
Could this alternative shut down too?
That is the core difference of an on-device tool: there is no server doing the work, so there is no server to switch off. The AI runs in your browser from a cached model file. As long as you have the page and a browser, you have a background remover — no migration, no expiring credits, no pricing page that can change.
Will my remove.bg API key keep working?
No. The self-service API stops accepting requests on December 1, 2026, and remove.bg's own migration notes point API users to Leonardo.Ai — a separate service with its own auth, rate limits and pricing. If your code POSTs to api.remove.bg, migrate it before the deadline.
Do I need to export anything from my remove.bg account before it closes?
Download any invoices or usage reports you need for your records before December 1, 2026, while the site is still up. Your processed images were never stored long-term anyway — but your billing history lives behind the login that disappears with the standalone site.