Mandatory website/social-media legal notice under § 5 Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (DDG — the successor, since 2024, to the former § 5 Telemediengesetz "TMG") — must be reachable within two clicks from any page; a defective or missing Impressum is one of the most common targets of "Abmahnanwälte" (competitor/law-firm cease-and-desist letters).
⚠️ This is a blank template, not legal advice: check the wording with a lawyer and adapt it to your jurisdiction and your case.
This template has no optional clauses: the text is the same for everyone. Field placeholders are shown as labels — on the site the template is read-only, values are entered inside the system.
IMPRESSUM (WEBSITE LEGAL NOTICE) (§ 5 Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz "DDG", formerly § 5 Telemediengesetz "TMG")
Information according to § 5 DDG:
Business name (Legal form) Business address
1. CONTACT 1.1. E-mail: Contact e-mail 1.2. Phone: Phone number
2. REPRESENTED BY 2.1. Legal representative (Geschäftsführer/Inhaber)
3. REGISTER ENTRY 3.1. Commercial register entry: Commercial register entry, if any 3.2. VAT identification number (Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer per § 27a UStG): VAT ID (USt-IdNr), if any
4. SUPERVISORY AUTHORITY / CHAMBER 4.1. Supervisory authority / chamber, if applicable 4.2. ⚠️ A hairdressing (Friseur) business is a meisterpflichtiges Handwerk under Anlage A of the Handwerksordnung (HwO) and must be entered in the Handwerksrolle — its supervising Handwerkskammer must be named here; other beauty/cosmetics services (Kosmetik) are generally zulassungsfrei and do not require this entry.
5. ACCESSIBILITY REQUIREMENT 5.1. Under § 5 DDG, this Impressum must be "easily recognisable, directly accessible and permanently available" — the established standard is reachability within TWO CLICKS from any page of the website, including linked social-media profiles used for the business.
6. WHY THIS MATTERS 6.1. ⚠️ A missing, incomplete, or hard-to-find Impressum is one of the most common and inexpensive targets for competitor and specialised-lawyer cease-and-desist letters (Abmahnungen) in Germany, typically claiming €500–2,000 plus a cease-and-desist declaration (Unterlassungserklärung). Keep every field current — for example, the 2024 rename from TMG to DDG is a classic example of an outdated legal reference that Abmahnanwälte specifically look for.
Effective date: Effective date
— — — ⚠️ This is a boilerplate template, not legal advice. German employment, consumer-protection, data-protection and workplace-safety law (BGB, Nachweisgesetz "NachwG", ArbSchG, MiLoG, SGB IV, DSGVO/BDSG, DDG, EGBGB Art. 246a) changes frequently and includes sector-specific exceptions — notably § 2a Gesetz gegen Schwarzarbeit "SchwarzArbG", which keeps the Gaststätten- und Beherbergungsgewerbe (restaurants and hotels) on paper-only Schriftform even after the BEG IV digitalisation reform. Statutory figures (Mindestlohn, Minijob-Grenze) are re-indexed periodically — have this document reviewed and adapted by a German employment/legal advisor (Rechtsanwalt/Steuerberater) and verified against the current rates before use. Where a German-language version of this document is also used, that version prevails in case of conflict.
Fields that belong to a switched-off clause are dimmed — they are not asked for.
HRB/HRA number and the registering Amtsgericht
e.g. Handwerkskammer for a Friseur business (Anlage A HwO, meisterpflichtiges Handwerk)
1 of 10 fields are taken from the company, employee or counterparty record, the questionnaire can be dictated to the AI, and the finished document comes with a number, a PDF and an acknowledgement record.