Impressum for Bloggers in Germany: Rules, Template, Address
Short answer: If you blog from Germany and the site is public and not purely personal, you almost certainly need an Impressum. Ads or one affiliate link usually trigger it. It must show your full name, a postal address for service, an email address and a second quick contact route; journalistic blogs also name a responsible person.
Most English-speaking bloggers have never heard of an Impressum until they move to Germany, or until a German reader points out that their site is missing one. It is a legal notice that identifies who runs a website, and Germany takes it more seriously than almost anywhere else. The rule has existed for decades, and it has a new legal home: since 14 May 2024 it sits in the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (Digital Services Act, DDG), which replaced the old Telemediengesetz.
Two questions matter for you. Do you need one? And does your home address really have to be on it?
Who needs an Impressum
Two provisions apply. Section 5 DDG covers providers of “commercial digital services usually offered for remuneration”, which in practice includes most sites that carry ads, affiliate links or sponsored content. Section 18(1) of the Interstate Media Treaty (Medienstaatsvertrag) goes further. Any online offering that is “not exclusively for personal or family purposes” must at least state a name and address.
Courts draw the personal line tightly. Public blogs that publish regularly for a general audience are usually no longer purely personal, even without income. Put up one banner ad or a single affiliate link and you are firmly in commercial territory.
So the practical rule is simple. If strangers are meant to read your blog and you live in Germany, assume you need an Impressum.
What about bloggers outside Germany? EU-based providers generally follow the rules of their own member state, under the country-of-origin principle. Writers based outside the EU who target German readers are in a greyer zone; if that is you and the blog earns money, get advice.
| Criterion | Password-protected family blog | Public hobby blog, no income | Blog with ads or affiliates | Journalistic blog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Impressum required | yes, § 18(1) MStV | yes, § 5 DDG | yes, § 5 DDG | |
| Name and address | ||||
| Email plus second contact route | recommended | |||
| Responsible person (§ 18(2) MStV) |
Simplified. Courts draw the line between hobby and commercial narrowly; when in doubt, publish a full Impressum.
What goes in it
For an individual blogger without a company, the list is short. Under § 5(1) DDG:
- your full legal name, not only a pen name
- a postal address where documents can be served: street, number, postcode, town
- an email address plus a second route for fast contact
- your VAT ID or business ID number, if you have one
On the second contact route, the Court of Justice of the EU held in 2008 that email alone is not enough, but the extra channel does not have to be a phone. Contact forms work.
If you run the blog through a GmbH or UG, add the legal form, the managing directors and the commercial register entry. Members of regulated professions, such as doctors or lawyers, owe extra details about their chamber and professional rules.
Here is a template that works for an English-language blog run by an individual. The heading uses both terms so nobody misses it:
Impressum / Legal notice Information pursuant to § 5 DDG Jane Example Musterstraße 12 10115 Berlin, Germany Email: [email protected] Contact form: exampleblog.com/contact
Responsible for content pursuant to § 18(2) MStV: Jane Example, address as above
You need the last two lines only if your blog counts as journalistic. Details follow below.
Where it must appear
The law says the information must be “easily recognisable and directly accessible”. Practically, that means a footer link on every page labelled “Impressum”, or “Impressum / Legal notice”. Hiding it behind “About” does not work. Germany’s Federal Court of Justice held in 2006 that a notice reachable in two clicks can still count as directly accessible.
Check your phone too. Some themes hide the footer on mobile or tuck it into a menu.
The home-address problem
This is where most people hesitate. If you blog from your flat, the law expects that address. It contains no privacy exception. There are workarounds, each with limits:
- A business address: an office or a coworking space that accepts post for you works, as long as you are genuinely reachable there.
- An Impressum address service: companies provide an address and forward your post. Whether that counts as a serviceable address is disputed. A bare mailbox likely fails; a service that reliably forwards documents has better odds.
- A block in the residents’ register (Auskunftssperre): this stops the registration office giving out your address, but it does not remove the Impressum duty.
PO boxes are out. Leaving the address off is not a solution either; it invites a warning letter.
The responsible person for journalistic blogs
Blogs with “journalistic-editorial” content must also name a person responsible for it. Think of sites that work like a medium: regular posts on current affairs, opinion, reporting. Recipe blogs probably do not qualify. Weekly commentary on city politics probably does.
The Media Treaty requires that person to be permanently resident in Germany, to have full legal capacity and to be fully prosecutable. Expats who live here usually meet that without trouble.
What getting it wrong costs
Missing or incomplete details are an administrative offence under § 33 DDG, with fines of up to €50,000. Fines against small blogs are rare. Warning letters (Abmahnungen) from competitors under unfair competition law are the more common risk once your blog is commercial.
Don’t forget the privacy policy
The Impressum is only half of it. Your host logs IP addresses, so you process personal data and must inform readers under Article 13 GDPR: what you collect, why, on what legal basis and for how long.
Third-party embeds are the tricky part. Back in January 2022, the Munich Regional Court ordered a website operator to pay €100 in damages because the site loaded Google Fonts from Google’s servers and passed the visitor’s IP address on without consent. Self-hosting fonts has been standard practice since.
For cookies and similar technologies that are not strictly necessary, § 25 TDDDG requires consent. That typically covers analytics with cookies, embedded videos and ad networks. The law was called TTDSG until May 2024.
- Cites § 5 DDG, not the old § 5 TMG
- Full legal name and serviceable address, no PO box
- Email plus contact form or phone
- Footer link labelled Impressum on every page, visible on mobile
- Responsible person named if the blog is journalistic
- Privacy policy names your host, server logs and every embedded service
- Fonts self-hosted, cookie consent only where needed and done properly
Blogs with income have more to sort out: disclosure of ads and affiliate links, and tax registration. See affiliate disclosure for blogs and blogger tax in Germany. For the income side itself, read how to make money blogging.
This is general information, not legal advice. For company structures or a warning letter in your inbox, talk to a lawyer. And if you are reviewing your site’s technical setup anyway, OnlineBuilders covers website security as one of its fields.
Your next step: open your blog on your phone, find the Impressum, and run it against the checklist above.
Questions people ask
Can my Impressum be in English?
The law does not prescribe a language. If your blog is in English, an English legal notice is reasonable, but keep the heading recognisable, for example 'Impressum / Legal notice', so German readers and courts find it.
I moved to Germany but my blog is hosted in the US. Does the rule apply?
Where your server sits does not matter. What counts is where you as the provider are established. If you live and run the blog from Germany, German rules apply.
Do I need a phone number?
No. The CJEU ruled in 2008 that a second fast contact route besides email is needed, but a contact form can serve that purpose.
Is a PO box enough?
The prevailing view is no. You need an address where documents can be served on you reliably, which a PO box does not provide.
