What to put on a UK business website legally

This guide gives a general overview of the information UK businesses commonly need on a website, checked against gov.uk guidance in November 2026. It is not legal advice, and requirements depend on your business structure, sector and what you sell. Rules also change, so check the current position on gov.uk, which has guidance on running a business online, and on the Companies House pages if you operate as a company. Regulated professions such as solicitors, accountants, financial advisers and medical providers often have extra requirements from their own regulators.

The aim here is to give you a practical map. Use it to build a checklist, then confirm each item against the official sources, and ask a qualified adviser about anything that is particular to your trade.

A limited company is expected to show its full registered name, its company registration number, the country of registration such as England and Wales, and its registered office address. These details are held on the public register at Companies House, so you can look up exactly how your company name is spelt there and copy it, including "Ltd" or "Limited". Many companies put this in the website footer and repeat it on the contact page and on invoices and emails.

The registered office is the official address for legal documents, and it must be an address in the part of the UK where the company is registered. It can be different from where you trade. Since 2024 Companies House has required it to be an "appropriate address", meaning one where documents can be delivered and acknowledged, so a bare PO box does not qualify. Read the current guidance. If you trade under a different name from your company name, show both, so a customer can tell who they are contracting with.

If you are registered for the main UK sales tax, show your registration number where you give prices or invoice customers. We do not recommend guessing at wording, so gov.uk is the right place to check how it should appear on your site.

Customers should be able to reach you quickly and directly. The E-Commerce Regulations 2002 require businesses that provide services online to give their name, a geographic address and an email address, so a visitor can contact you quickly and directly. A contact form on its own is not enough. A phone number is helpful and sometimes required, depending on what you sell. Place them on a contact page and link it from the main menu and footer.

Use an address on your own domain, such as hello@yourbusiness.co.uk, instead of a free webmail account. It looks established and makes sure replies go to a mailbox you control. Our guide to setting up email on your domain shows how, and avoiding the spam folder keeps your replies arriving.

When you sell to consumers online, the Consumer Contracts Regulations and e-commerce rules set out what you must tell customers before they buy and how you must treat the order. In broad terms, the main information, the total price and the right to cancel should be clear before payment. Your checkout should make plain that the customer is placing an order with an obligation to pay, and you should confirm the order afterwards on a durable medium such as email.

Customers buying online from a business generally have a period of days after delivery in which they can cancel and return goods, with specific exceptions, for example for made-to-order items. The detail of the period, exceptions and refund timing is set out on gov.uk and by the Citizens Advice and Trading Standards material for traders. Write your returns policy in plain English and keep it in line with those sources.

Running a shop also means thinking about data and security. Our ecommerce hosting page explains the technical side, and the UK GDPR guide explains how to treat customer data.