What changed
Starlink’s Residential order pages began showing $0 upfront for hardware and a $10-a-month kit fee, replacing the one-time purchase for most new Residential customers. Ars Technica reported it on Jun 10, 2026 (summarised by the Benton Institute), as did 9to5Google and Techloy the same day.
Per those reports: rentals apply only to Residential plans in select countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, France, Australia and Mexico; customers who rent can’t pause service; and the Starlink Mini stayed on sale for $199 for mobile users. 9to5Google notes that the dish had been $499, often cut to $0 with a 12-month commitment.
When
Reported Jun 10, 2026; Starlink didn’t announce a date. About a month later the fee was reported dropped in select US areas (see our July post). This post is more than 90 days old and is kept as background.
Who is affected
New US Residential customers. Existing owners keep the hardware they bought.
What it means for you
The referral reward was never a hardware discount, so renting doesn’t reduce it. The new customer still gets one month of service credit on the second bill; the $10 kit fee is a separate line.
Two referral rules interact with rentals. The order must be placed on starlink.com with the link, which a rental requires anyway. And the new customer must stay on a high-speed plan for two full billing cycles; with a rental they can’t pause service, and Standby wouldn’t count toward those cycles anyway.
What to do now
When a friend asks “what does the referral take off the kit?”, the answer is nothing; it gives a free month of service. Have them check the kit line at their address on starlink.com before ordering.
What stays the same
The reward, the free month, the two-billing-cycle stay and the rule that store, reseller and transferred kits don’t qualify.
What we don’t know yet
Whether an outright purchase will come back in the US, and how the rental is treated if a referred customer cancels inside the return window. We haven’t seen Starlink text on that second point.
How to check it yourself
The order summary on starlink.com shows whether a kit is rented, the monthly kit fee and any upfront cost for the address entered. Starlink’s help center covers kit returns. For the referral, open the link first, then build the order on the same device, and check the summary before paying.