How to Delete a Wix Site: Unpublish, Cancel, Trash

By Umair Ali Sadaqat · Updated November 6, 2026 · Editorial policy

How to delete a Wix site: unpublish vs. delete, why you must cancel the Premium plan first, how Trash and the 90-day restore work, and the exact steps.

Short answer: To delete a Wix site, first cancel its Premium plan (Wix won't trash a site with an active plan), then open the site's dashboard, choose More Actions, and select Move to trash. The site goes offline immediately and stays recoverable for 90 days, after which it is permanently deleted. If you only want it offline for now, unpublish it instead. That keeps the site in your account, but you still pay for the plan and domain.

Unpublish vs. delete: pick the right one

Wix gives you two different ways to take a site down, and they behave very differently.

	Unpublish	Move to trash
Site visible to visitors	No ("Page Not Found")	No
Site stays in your account	Yes, in your site list	Only in Trash, for 90 days
Can you bring it back	Yes, click Publish in the editor	Yes, Restore Site, then publish again
Cancels your Premium plan	No	No, and you must cancel it first
Cancels your domain	No	No
Best for	Pausing a site, rebuilding in private	Retiring a site for good

(Based on Wix's help center articles on unpublishing and moving a site to trash, checked November 2026.)

Two details matter here. Unpublishing applies to the whole site only, not individual pages, and Wix says it can only be done on desktop. Wix also warns that a site left unpublished for more than a few days may see its search ranking affected. If your only goal is keeping the site out of Google, you can turn off search indexing in the SEO settings and leave the site live.

Before you delete: a short checklist

Deleting a site is easy to do and tedious to undo. Run through this first:

[ ] Export what you need. Copy your text and download your images, plus any member, order, or contact data you'll need later. Permanently deleted sites can't be restored.
[ ] Check who owns the site. Only the owner can delete it. Collaborators without permission see the option grayed out.
[ ] Cancel the Premium plan (or reassign it to another site in your account).
[ ] Cancel third-party app subscriptions. An active one blocks the trash option until it has expired.
[ ] Decide about the domain. Keep it, transfer it, or turn off auto-renew.
[ ] Set up redirects or a replacement. If the site has traffic or backlinks, a deleted site returns errors to everyone who follows an old link.

How to delete a Wix site, step by step

Step 1: Cancel the Premium plan

Wix doesn't let you move a premium site to the trash. You have to cancel the plan or reassign it to another site first. Wix's article "Canceling a Wix Premium or Studio Plan" covers the current flow in your account's billing area, and the screens change from time to time, so follow the prompts you see rather than a fixed click path.

What to know about money:

Wix describes a 14-day money-back guarantee for new Premium or Studio plans. Cancel in that window and the plan is refunded.
Renewals aren't covered by that guarantee.
If you simply cancel outside the window, Wix's help pages describe the plan ending at the close of the billing period rather than a refund.

Step 2: Handle the domain separately

Canceling a site plan does not cancel your domain, business email, or app subscriptions. Wix domains don't come with the 14-day money-back guarantee. To stop a domain renewing, turn off auto-renew, and it expires at the end of the current subscription period. If you bought the domain before the plan, you can't get a retroactive voucher or refund for it.

Step 3: Move the site to trash (desktop)

Go to your Wix Sites page and open the site's dashboard.
Open the More Actions menu.
Choose Move to trash.
Confirm.

Moving a site to trash unpublishes it, so it becomes inaccessible online right away. The Wix app has a similar flow through the site list and More Actions, and only site owners in the workspace can delete a site. In Wix Studio, sites can be moved to trash or transferred to another Wix account instead, which is a better choice if a client wants to keep running the site.

Step 4: Confirm it's gone (or recoverable)

Open the Trash folder on your Sites page. Your site should appear there. After 90 days it is permanently deleted along with its site and member data.

How to restore a trashed site

Changed your mind inside the 90-day window?

Open your Sites page and go to the Trash folder.
Select Restore Site on the site you want.
Confirm.
Open the editor and publish. Restoring does not put the site back online by itself.

Note that restoring doesn't bring back a cancelled Premium plan, so you'd need to buy a plan again to reconnect a custom domain.

When "Move to trash" is grayed out

Likely cause	What to do
Active Premium plan	Cancel it or reassign it to another site
Active third-party app subscription	Cancel it and wait until it expires
You're a collaborator, not the owner	Ask the owner to delete it

Deleting a site vs. closing your whole account

If you have no other sites and want everything gone, that's a different job. Wix publishes a separate "Closing Your Wix Account" article. Trash every site, cancel plans and domains, and export your data before you start. Don't close the account just to remove a single site, since you'd lose everything else in it.

If you're leaving Wix, not just deleting a site

Many people searching for this are really moving to another builder, and the order matters: build the new site first, point the domain at it, and only then trash the old one. That keeps your domain and search visibility intact. Our Wix alternatives guide lists the options, and Wix vs. Google Sites is a quick read if you only need something simple.

If you want to compare more broadly, see the roundups of the best AI website builders and the best free AI website builders. For a site with a specific job, there are also lists for small businesses and freelancers.

We.Inc's free plan lets you publish up to three sites from ready-made templates; the AI builder that drafts a site from a prompt starts on the Starter plan at $20 a month. You can sign up here and have the replacement ready before you retire the Wix site.

Quick decision guide

"I want it offline for a few weeks." Unpublish. Expect to keep paying for the plan and domain.
"I'm done with this site." Cancel the plan, trash the site, turn off domain auto-renew if you don't need it.
"I'm handing it to a client." Transfer it to their Wix account rather than deleting it.
"I want my whole Wix presence gone." Trash every site, cancel everything, then follow Wix's account-closing article.

All steps above come from Wix's own help center, checked November 2026. Wix changes its menus occasionally, so if a button is labeled differently, follow the on-screen prompts and use the Wix help article for that screen.

Frequently asked questions

Does unpublishing a Wix site delete it?

No. Unpublishing takes the site offline so visitors see a "Page Not Found" error, but the site stays in your account and you can republish it from the editor. It also does not cancel your domain or Premium plan, so you keep paying for both until you cancel them (per Wix's help center, checked November 2026).

Why can't I move my Wix site to the trash?

Wix doesn't allow a site with an active Premium plan to be moved to the trash. Cancel the plan or reassign it to another site first. A site with an active third-party app subscription is also blocked until that subscription is cancelled and has expired. If the option is grayed out and you have no plan, you may be a collaborator without delete permission, so ask the site owner.

Can I restore a Wix site after deleting it?

Yes, for 90 days. A trashed site sits in the Trash folder on your Sites page, where you can choose Restore Site. After 90 days it is permanently deleted. A restored site is not republished automatically, so open the editor and publish it again (checked November 2026).

Will deleting my site cancel my domain?

No. Wix says canceling a site plan does not cancel any domain, business email, or app subscriptions in your account. Each has to be cancelled or have auto-renew turned off separately. Wix domains are not covered by the plan's 14-day money-back guarantee.

Can I get a refund when I cancel my Wix plan?

Wix offers a 14-day money-back guarantee on new Premium or Studio plans, and cancelling inside that window refunds the plan. Renewals are excluded, and Wix's own pages are not fully consistent about upgrades of an existing plan, so confirm with Wix support if you upgraded. Wix says refunds can take a while to process, so check the refund article for the current timing.

How do I delete my entire Wix account, not just one site?

Closing the account is a separate process from deleting a site. Wix has its own help article, "Closing Your Wix Account." Move every site to trash and cancel your plans, domains, and subscriptions before you start, and download anything you want to keep first.

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