Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described, including techniques for utilizing implicit or explicit signaling to indicate a cancellation of demodulation reference signal (DMRS) bundling. A first user equipment (UE) may perform DMRS bundling across physical sidelink channels transmitted to a second UE to enable the second UE to perform joint channel estimation. In some examples, based on a detected change, either at the first UE or the second UE, the first UE may signal to the second UE that the DMRS bundling is canceled. In some examples, the detected change may be a resource allocation change, a physical channel configuration change, a change in a quasi-colocation (QCL) relationship at the first UE, or a change in a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state at the first UE. Additionally or alternatively, the first UE or the second UE may request the cancellation based on detected changes.