Legal Notices, Terms of Sale and Terms of Use: The Legal Obligations of a Professional Website in 2026

Why a professional website is never just a marketing tool

A website is not only a storefront: it is a publication subject to precise legal obligations, much like a newspaper or a billboard. In 2023, France's consumer protection agency, the DGCCRF, inspected 66,240 establishments across 95,360 visits, and failures to display required information online (seller identity, mandatory notices, missing terms of sale) were among the most frequent grounds for complaints after an online purchase, with 11,320 reports recorded that year. For any small or mid-sized business creating or redesigning its site, the question is not "should I deal with this?" but "where do I start?"

This guide clarifies three documents that are often confused (legal notices, terms of sale, terms of use), a new obligation taking effect on 19 June 2026, and the penalties actually faced in case of non-compliance.

Legal notices: what French law (LCEN) really requires

The obligation stems from article 6-III of the French law for confidence in the digital economy (LCEN) of 21 June 2004. It applies to any publicly accessible website, regardless of the company's size or revenue: showcase sites, blogs, landing pages and online shops are all concerned.

Required information depending on your legal status

• Sole trader or micro-entrepreneur: first and last name, business address, SIREN number, email address and phone number.
• SASU, SAS, SARL, EURL (incorporated companies): company name, legal form, share capital amount, registered address, trade register (RCS) number, and intra-community VAT number where applicable.
• Publication director: name of the person responsible for the site's content (usually the company's legal representative).
• Hosting provider details: company name, address and phone number of the host, a detail that is often forgotten during a hosting migration.
• Regulated professions: professional registration or licence number, and reference to the applicable professional rules (lawyers, accountants, medical professions, etc.).

Where and how to display them

Legal notices must be reachable in one click from any page, typically through a footer link. They must never be merged with the terms of sale or the GDPR privacy policy, even though all three documents can coexist as separate pages on the same site.

Terms of sale and terms of use: two documents, two different obligations

This is the most common point of confusion among small business owners. Legal notices identify the site's publisher; terms of sale and terms of use govern the commercial relationship or the use of the service.

Terms of sale: mandatory from your very first online sale

As soon as a site allows a product or service to be purchased (B2C or B2B), general terms of sale become mandatory under article L.111-1 of the French Consumer Code. They must be provided before any order is confirmed and must specify the product's characteristics, price, payment terms, delivery times, legal warranties, and the conditions for exercising the right of withdrawal.

Terms of use: rarely mandatory, but often essential

General terms of use are not imposed by a specific text in the general case. However, as soon as the site offers a customer account, a member area, online booking or a community feature, clear terms of use become the only way to prove acceptance of the usage rules and to limit the publisher's liability in the event of a dispute.

What's new in 2026: an online withdrawal function becomes mandatory on 19 June

This is the most significant change of the year for online sellers, and it is still not widely covered. Ordinance No. 2026-2 and decree No. 2026-3 of 5 January 2026 transpose EU directive 2023/2673 into French law and amend article L.221-21 of the Consumer Code.

From 19 June 2026, any professional selling online to consumers will have to offer a free, visible and easily accessible feature allowing the right of withdrawal to be exercised directly from the purchasing interface: e-commerce site, mobile app, marketplace, customer account area, or even sales made through social media. The button must carry an unambiguous label, such as "cancel the contract here", and the professional must then send an acknowledgement of receipt on a durable medium (email or document) stating the date and time of the request.

For any business that sells online, this means reviewing its terms of sale before summer 2026 and, in many cases, updating the website or checkout flow to include this feature.

What does a non-compliant business risk?

The penalties set out by the LCEN are a strong deterrent: up to €75,000 in fines and one year of imprisonment for an individual, and up to €375,000 in fines for a company, in the event of a total absence of legal notices.

In practice, inspections are real and frequent. The DGCCRF's 2023 report shows 20,560 warnings and 27,122 formal notices issued to businesses to remind them of their obligations, along with 2,247 administrative fines and 3,197 reports forwarded to public prosecutors, across all sectors. On the personal data side, the French data protection authority (CNIL) issued 66 sanctions in 2025, a reminder that legal notices and GDPR compliance are often reviewed together, as detailed in our guide to cookies and GDPR for small businesses.

The 7-step checklist to bring your website into compliance

1. Identify your exact legal status and the resulting list of required notices (sole trader, company, regulated profession).
2. Write complete legal notices including the publisher, the publication director and the hosting provider.
3. Determine whether terms of sale are needed: as soon as there is a shopping cart, an online quote or a payment, the answer is yes.
4. Draft terms of use if the site offers an account, a customer area or a booking feature.
5. Plan ahead for the online withdrawal obligation if you sell to consumers, before the 19 June 2026 deadline.
6. Check that legal pages are accessible from the footer, on both mobile and desktop, a point also linked to your site's digital accessibility (RGAA).
7. Have everything reviewed by a legal professional before going live, particularly for the terms of sale of an e-commerce site.

Don't forget to update these pages during a website redesign

Legal compliance is not a one-off project: it must be reviewed with every significant change to the site. A change of hosting provider, the addition of a payment module, or a full website redesign are all moments when legal notices, terms of sale and terms of use need to be reviewed and, most often, updated. It is also the right time to check whether your current setup still makes it easy to add a withdrawal button or a compliant checkout flow, especially if you are also expanding and building a multilingual website to sell internationally.

At Majoli, every website creation project includes the structuring of mandatory legal pages from the outset, to avoid having to add them in a hurry after launch. If your current site has never been audited on this point, a conversation with our team can quickly identify any gaps.

Frequently asked questions

Does a showcase site without online sales need terms of sale?

No, a showcase site that does not allow any transaction is not required to publish terms of sale. Legal notices, however, remain mandatory regardless of the type of site. If the site offers an online quote followed by a payment, terms of sale become necessary again.

What is the difference between legal notices and a privacy policy?

Legal notices identify the site's publisher and its hosting provider under the LCEN. The privacy policy explains how visitors' personal data is collected and processed, in accordance with the GDPR. These are two separate documents, even though they are sometimes accessible from the same page.

Who is liable for an error in the legal notices: the site's creator or the business?

Legal liability for the accuracy of legal notices rests with the site's publisher, meaning the business itself, not the provider who built the site. A serious provider should nonetheless flag any missing information to its client before launch.

Should legal notices be updated after a website redesign?

Yes, systematically. A change of hosting provider, legal form, share capital or domain name must be reflected immediately in the legal notices, otherwise the business risks publishing inaccurate information, which is itself subject to penalties.

What does a business risk if its hosting provider is not mentioned?

Under the LCEN, the absence of the hosting provider's details is treated as a complete absence of legal notices. It therefore carries the same penalties, up to €375,000 in fines for a company, even if the rest of the notices are complete.