What are the email footer legal requirements in the UK? A company's business emails must show its registered name, its registered number, its registered office address and the part of the UK it is registered in. That comes from the Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015, made under the Companies Act 2006, and it applies to email as much as to paper. This guide sets out each line, where it comes from, and how to make sure every email carries it.
The rules are in Part 6 of the 2015 Regulations. Two regulations do most of the work.
Regulation 24 says a company's registered name must appear on its business letters, notices and other official publications, on its invoices and other demands for payment, on its websites, and on "all other forms of its business correspondence and documentation".
Regulation 25 adds the particulars that must appear on business letters, order forms and websites:
The Regulations apply to documents and communications in hard copy, electronic or any other form, which is why the business email is treated in the same way as the business letter. A typical compliant footer line reads:
Example Trading Ltd. Registered in England and Wales, company number 01234567. Registered office: 1 High Street, Anytown AB1 2CD.
You do not have to mention share capital at all. If you do, regulation 25 says the figure must be the paid up share capital.
Regulation 26 catches firms that list a few senior people in the footer. If a business letter names any director other than in the body of the letter or as the person signing it, it must name every director of the company. A footer listing "Directors: A. Smith, B. Jones" on a company with five directors does not comply. Either name them all or name none.
Limited liability partnerships are covered by the same Regulations, with the equivalent duties. A charity has extra wording of its own to think about, and regulated professions such as solicitors and financial advisers have their regulators' rules on top. Those are separate questions from company law, and the place to check them is the regulator's own rulebook.
Most companies get the wording right once. Where it goes wrong is coverage:
The reliable fix is to add the disclosure where every message passes, rather than relying on each person and each device. With Footer365 the signature is added as each message leaves Microsoft 365, so it reaches mail from phones, shared mailboxes and every other mail app.
One thing to watch: a disclaimer that uses a company detail field, such as the company name, is left out of the signature for anyone who has no value for that field in Microsoft 365, rather than being sent with a gap. That is the right behaviour for decoration, but not for a legal line, which is another reason to type the registered details as fixed text. Our article on merge fields and empty fields explains the rule.
This is a summary of the Regulations, not legal advice, and your own adviser should approve the final wording. Once it is agreed, the disclaimers guide shows how to put it on every email your organisation sends.
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