EnterraHost
Your renewal date is an anniversary, not a countdown. It is set from the day the service was first ordered, and every renewal after that keeps the same day of the month or the same date of the year.
That single fact answers most of the questions people have about it. An invoice paid late does not move it. A month with a failed payment does not shift it forward by a month. The date stays where it started unless something explicitly changes the term.
Where the renewal date comes from
When a service is ordered, the system records the order date and the term you bought. The first renewal date is one term later. Order monthly on the 17th and the next renewal is the 17th of the following month. Order annually on 12 September and the next renewal is the following September.
Every renewal after the first continues from there, which is why the date holds still while invoices come and go around it. You can see both halves of that on My Services. The next renewal date is printed on the row, and the smaller line beside it reads since followed by the day the service started. On an annual service those two dates are about a year apart, and that relationship is the whole mechanism.
Monthly and annual
Those are the two terms in general use, and the difference is only the length of the step.
Monthly takes the same day each month. In the ordinary case that is the whole rule, and a service ordered on the 17th renews on the 17th every month afterwards.
Annual takes the same date each year, and it is the better deal of the two on almost everything because the term is longer and the yearly figure is lower than twelve separate monthly payments.
The toolbox handles a few other terms where a product offers them, quarterly, semi-annually, biennially and triennially. The label on the My Services row says which one you are on, and the arithmetic is the same in every case. One term after the order date.
What actually happens on the date
Nothing is charged silently and nothing changes state on its own. An invoice is raised for the next term shortly before the renewal date, and it is the invoice that matters from that point, not the date itself.
Paying it rolls the renewal date forward by one more term, which is why the date you see is the one you have paid up to rather than the one you last paid on. Leaving it unpaid starts the sequence described in how the reminders and suspension work.
If a card is stored on your account, that invoice can be charged automatically on its due date, which is the arrangement most people want for an annual renewal they would otherwise have to remember.
When the renewal date is not what you expect
There are three ordinary reasons the date drifts away from a strict anniversary.
Some services can be paid for more than one term at a time. Two months settled together on a monthly service pushes the next invoice two months out, so the gap looks wrong if you are expecting a step of one month.
Moving from monthly to annual re-prices the service and puts the next renewal a year from the change rather than a year from the original order. The row notes the move while it is in flight.
An upgrade takes effect immediately and the renewal date follows the new term. A downgrade lands at the next renewal instead, so the date you already had is the date you keep.
Domains are counted differently
A domain renewal is not driven by your order date in the same way, because the registry holds the expiry and it is the expiry that governs. The date on a domain row is the one the registry will act on.
Two things follow from that. A domain renewal is normally prepared a couple of days before the expiry itself, so the two dates on the row are deliberately not the same. And transferring a domain in does not always add a year to it, so a transfer is the one case where the renewal date can arrive sooner than you budgeted for. The transfer guide covers what carries across and what does not.
Where to change it
The renewal date itself is not editable, because it is a consequence of the order date and the term rather than a setting. What you can change is the term. Upgrading or downgrading a plan re-prices the service, and moving to a longer term is offered on the service where the product supports it.
If you want a service to stop renewing rather than to renew differently, that is a cancellation, and the row carries the control for it. Cancelling leaves the service running until the renewal date you have already paid for, which is why a cancellation does not refund or remove anything immediately.