$10 Residential rental fee removed for new orders in select US areas

What changed

On July 20, 2026, satelliteinternet.com reported that Starlink “seems to have reversed its recent decision to charge a $10-per-month fee to rent its hardware.” The article said that “after a little more than a month of adding the fee, it’s now been removed from new purchases of residential Starlink.”

Item	Before (from ~Jun 9, 2026)	After (Jul 2026)	Change per month	Change per year
Rented Standard kit, new Residential order, select areas	$10	$0	−$10	−$120

The same article said rental is “only available in designated regions with excess capacity,” and that ordering from outside those areas, “the rental option isn’t available.”

Who it affected

• New Residential customers in areas where rental is offered.
• Customers who rented between June 9 and the reversal: the source does not say whether their $10 fee was dropped. We have no information.
• Addresses without the rental option were not affected, because they can only buy the kit.

What it did to the cost

For a new renter in an eligible area, removing the fee takes $120 off a year and $360 off three years. At the May 2026 list price, Residential 100 Mbps with a rented kit is back to the plan price alone: $55 a month, $660 a year, before shipping and tax.

It also undoes the rent-vs-buy shift from June. With no monthly rental fee, renting stays cheaper than buying a $349 kit for as long as you keep the service, provided you return the kit when you cancel. The catch is the other way round: an unreturned rental is billed at the kit’s full retail price. See rent vs buy.

What stayed the same

• satelliteinternet.com said customers in select areas “still need to pay a $20 shipping fee to receive a Standard Starlink kit.”
• The kit purchase price, listed in the same article at $349.
• Monthly plan prices.

What to check yourself

• Whether rental is offered at your address at all; the article says it is limited to areas with spare capacity.
• The checkout total for your address: look for any monthly kit line and the shipping line.
• The equipment cost guide lists one-time costs, and the calculator compares rent and buy over 12 or 36 months.

What we don’t know

• The exact date the fee stopped; the article gives no date.
• Which areas count as “select.”
• We could not open a July 2026 checkout capture ourselves; this is as reported.