The Impressum is the least glamorous page on a website and at the same time the one that gets checked most often — by competitors, by trade associations, and occasionally by customers who want to see who they are dealing with before they transfer money. It is also the page that goes stale fastest, because nobody touches it again after launch.
The requirements do not sit in a single statute. The core is now in the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (DDG) — the rule many people still know as § 5 TMG. Editorial content adds the Medienstaatsvertrag on top, and individual professions have their own professional-law rules. So “what goes in an Impressum” is not a question with one answer, but one with several layers.
Who needs an Impressum — and who genuinely does not
The most common misunderstanding: that only people selling something online need one. The test is not selling, it is whether the site is run in a business-like way — set up to last, and serving a purpose beyond the purely private. Whether money changes hands is not what decides it.
In practice that reaches considerably further than most people assume. The cases where it regularly comes up:
- A pure business-card website with no shop, no prices and no form
- The site of a freelance professional, a medical practice or a law firm
- Association and club pages, as soon as they represent the association outwardly
- A blog that runs ads, uses affiliate links, or promotes an offering of its own
- A page marked “under construction” that already names services and contact details
What is genuinely exempt is essentially the private page with no business-like purpose — holiday photos for the family. As soon as an offering sits alongside them, the boundary gets blurry fast, and this is exactly the point where a short opinion from a lawyer is worth more than any checklist on the internet.
The obligation also attaches to the offering, not to the file format: company presences on platforms and social networks are discussed under the same heading. How you solve it there depends on the platform — the usual route is a profile field holding a link that points at your Impressum.
The mandatory details, field by field
Name and legal form
What is stated is the operator’s full name, and for companies the registered name including the legal-form suffix, exactly as it appears in the register. A brand or invented name on its own is not enough: someone reading only “Studio Nordlicht” does not know who they would be contracting with. Nothing speaks against the brand — it simply does not replace the name behind it.
An address where documents can actually be served
Serviceable means an address where post can genuinely be delivered and where a court document could be served. A PO box does not satisfy that, nor does a parcel locker, and “address on request” certainly does not. For self-employed people without business premises this is a real conflict, because it makes the home address public. Which alternatives are permissible in an individual case belongs in a consultation, not in a blog post.
Contact that reaches a human quickly
What is required is information enabling fast electronic contact and direct communication. The email address is a given and has to be readable — not as an image, not only as a form. What suffices alongside it is the most contested line in the whole document: a phone number is the uncontroversial route, and for other solutions it depends on the circumstances. If you would rather not publish a number, have it checked rather than hoping.
Authorised representatives, register and registration number
For companies and legal entities, the authorised representatives belong in the Impressum — for a GmbH that means the managing directors, all of them, not only the person who signed off the text. Register and registration number come with it wherever an entry exists: Handelsregister, Vereinsregister, Partnerschaftsregister, each with the responsible registry court. A sole trader with no entry simply has nothing to state here — and must not invent anything to make the page look fuller.
VAT identification number — only if you have one
The USt-IdNr is stated when one exists. Two mistakes happen here regularly, and they run in opposite directions: those who have one leave it out. Those who do not have one enter their tax number instead — which does not belong there and has no business being on a public page at all. Whether you hold a USt-IdNr or get by without one as a small-business taxpayer depends on your tax situation; your tax adviser settles that, not the template.
Supervisory authority, chamber and professional title in regulated professions
Anyone practising a licensed or chamber-bound profession — healthcare, law, tax advice, architecture, licensed trades, insurance and financial intermediation — additionally names the competent chamber or supervisory authority, the statutory professional title, the state in which it was awarded, and the applicable professional rules together with where they can be read. This is precisely the block that gets copied half-way across from someone else’s template: professional title yes, source reference no.
Responsibility for the content
As soon as a website offers editorial content — a blog, a magazine, regular posts — a person responsible for that content has to be named, with full name and address. That is a separate requirement from the Medienstaatsvertrag and not the same thing as the operator details, even if in a small business the same person stands behind both. The usual form is a dedicated line giving that person’s name and address.
The overview below does not replace an assessment of your own case. It only sorts out which detail is in scope for whom, and which mistake happens most often with it.
| Detail | Applies to | Typical mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Name and legal form | Everyone | Only the brand or domain name, without the operator’s full name |
| Serviceable postal address | Everyone | PO box, parcel locker or just the city instead of a deliverable address |
| Email address | Everyone | Only a contact form, or an address embedded as an image |
| A second, fast contact route | Everyone | No phone number, without an equally fast alternative being offered |
| Authorised representatives | Companies and legal entities | Only one person named where there are several managing directors |
| Register and registration number | Anyone with a register entry | Registry court missing, or the number predates a change of company name |
| VAT identification number | Anyone who has one | Tax number instead of the USt-IdNr — or an existing USt-IdNr left out entirely |
| Chamber, supervisory authority, professional title, professional rules | Regulated professions | Professional title given, but the awarding state and the source of the rules are missing |
| Person responsible for the content | Editorial offerings, e.g. with a blog | Name without address — or the detail missing although the site publishes regularly |
Mistakes that break an Impressum whose content is correct
A large share of complaints are not about the text but about how reachable it is. The law requires the details to be easily recognisable, directly accessible and permanently available. Those three words are the actual test — and websites whose Impressum text is entirely correct fail them regularly.
Buried too deep, or labelled wrongly
The rule of thumb that has settled in practice is that the Impressum should be reachable from any page in no more than two clicks. The label matters just as much: “Impressum” is the word people look for. “Contact”, “About us”, “Legal” or a bare icon hide the link even though it is there. The most unobtrusive safe place is the footer — on every page, as a text link, not as a graphic.
The Impressum only exists as a PDF
A PDF is a file that has to be downloaded and opened, and on a phone that is a real barrier. The text belongs on an HTML page at its own permanent address. The same goes for an Impressum that appears only as an image or only inside a pop-up: something you cannot link to, select and copy is hard to defend as directly accessible.
Hidden behind the contact form
A common setup: the footer links to the contact page, and the mandatory details sit somewhere below the form — or only appear once someone has submitted it. That makes a statutory disclosure depend on an action by the visitor. The Impressum gets its own page; the contact page may link to it as well, but it does not replace it. The same logic applies to cookie banners: the page has to be reachable without agreeing to anything first.
A VAT ID that does not exist — or one that is missing
Both variants come from the same source: an adopted template. Small-business taxpayers fill in the field because it is there, and enter some number. Companies that do hold a USt-IdNr delete the field because it was empty in the template. Check this one line against your own paperwork, not against the template.
Last updated: two moves ago
The most frequent defect in practice is mundane — the details are no longer true. A move, a new phone number, a change of legal form, a managing director who has left, a chamber that was renamed. Whole text blocks age too: the reference to the European online dispute resolution platform was in almost every Impressum for years, and anyone adopting an old template today should have it checked whether that block still applies. An Impressum is not a document you write once.
A five-minute self-check
Use your phone for this, not your computer — some of the problems only show up in the mobile view. Work through the points in this order:
- Open any sub-page, not the home page. From there, find a link labelled “Impressum” and count the clicks to the page. More than two is a finding.
- Check that the page has its own address you can copy and send to someone — and that it can be reached without dismissing a cookie banner first.
- Read the name: does it give the operator’s full name with the legal-form suffix, or only the brand or domain name?
- Read the address out loud and ask yourself whether a registered letter would arrive there. A PO box, a parcel locker or just a town name fail this one.
- Send a short test message to the email address given and call the number given. Both end up nowhere more often than you would think — especially after a change of mailbox or provider.
- Go through the remaining lines against your own paperwork: registration number, authorised representatives, USt-IdNr, chamber. Any line you cannot back with a document needs clarifying.
- Put a recurring reminder in the calendar, once a year, to run through exactly this list again.
If points stay open — particularly around legal form, profession or address — that is the moment for a legal review. Five minutes of self-checking finds the obvious gaps. It does not tell you whether your Impressum is complete.
How we handle this in projects
We build websites, we do not write legal texts. What we take on is the technical part where most Impressum pages actually fail: a dedicated permanent address for the page, a text link in the footer of every single page labelled “Impressum”, reachable without agreeing to cookies, without a PDF, without a pop-up. The content comes from you or your legal adviser. And because you own the website and hold every login after the project, you can correct a changed address or phone number yourself straight away instead of waiting for a slot with us.
When we relaunched our own website in August 2026, this was one of the few decisions nobody argued about: the address of the Impressum page stayed exactly as it was, rather than being fitted to the new structure. Old links to legal pages should keep working — especially the ones you do not know about, from a directory or an old quote.
Common questions about mandatory Impressum details
Always: the operator’s full name including legal form, a serviceable postal address, and contact details that reach you quickly. Depending on the case, authorised representatives, register and registration number, the VAT identification number, chamber and professional-title details, and a person responsible for the content are added. Which of those fields apply to you depends on legal form and profession, and that is a lawyer’s assessment.
As a rule, yes. What matters is not whether you sell anything through the site, but whether it is run in a business-like way — set up to last and serving a purpose beyond the private. A plain business-card site normally falls under that; a private photo page with no offering at all does not.
What is required is a route to direct communication, and a phone number is the uncontroversial one. Whether another solution suffices is contested and depends on the circumstances. If you would rather not publish a number, have it checked in advance instead of risking a dispute over it.
It is stated if you have one. If you do not, the line simply stays out — and it is not replaced by your tax number, which has no place on a public page. Whether you need a USt-IdNr at all is a tax question for your tax adviser.
It has to be easily recognisable, directly accessible and permanently available. In practice that means a text link reading “Impressum” in the footer of every page, leading to its own HTML page — not to a PDF, not into a pop-up, and not behind a contact form. The rule of thumb: no more than two clicks from any page.
A generator is a usable starting point for the structure and the field names. It does not know your legal form, your register entry or your professional rules, so it can deliver neither completeness nor accuracy. Treat the output as a draft for someone who knows your case to read through.
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