Terms and conditions on a small business website: when you need them.

The short answer

Two different documents get called terms. Terms of use set the rules for visiting the site. Terms of sale are the contract when someone buys or books. A brochure site needs neither in most places. The moment the site takes money or a commitment, it needs the second.

Terms of sale matter when your website handles:

• Online sales of products, with delivery and returns.
• Bookings with a deposit or prepayment, such as a venue, a tour or a course.
• Memberships and subscriptions that renew.
• Packages paid upfront, such as ten personal training sessions.
• Quotes or proposals that customers accept online.
• Gift cards and vouchers.
• User accounts, uploads or reviews posted by visitors.

A site that lists your services and has a contact form does none of these. It can skip terms and conditions, as long as it shows who runs it where the law asks for that, and has a privacy notice, which a separate guide covers.

A brochure site: say who you are, and keep any terms short

In the EU, the e-Commerce Directive requires anyone providing an online service to make some information easily, directly and permanently accessible: your name, your geographic address, an email address and other details that let people reach you quickly, your trade register and number if you are registered, the supervisory authority if your work needs a licence, your professional body and title if you are in a regulated profession, and your VAT number. The UK kept the same list in its own e-commerce regulations. A footer and a short contact page usually carry all of it.

A terms of use page is optional. If you want one, keep it short: what the site is, who owns its content, what visitors must not do, the limits of your responsibility within what the law allows, and which law applies.

Our own terms of use are the short kind. They say the site is general information and not an offer that can be accepted, that prices, timelines and deliverables are only binding when agreed in writing for a specific project, and that nothing in them limits rights a visitor has as a consumer. The middle line does real work. It stops a price on a page, or an answer from the site's assistant, being read as a contract. If you publish prices and then quote, say the same.

Terms only bind people who agreed to them

A link in the footer is not agreement. In Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, decided in 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a shopper was not bound by the arbitration clause in a site's terms of use, linked from every page, because the site gave him no notice and asked for no action to show he agreed. Placing the link close to the buttons he clicked was not enough on its own.

So put the terms where the decision is made. Next to the pay or book button, show a line such as "By booking you agree to our booking terms", with the words linked, or better, an unticked box the customer has to tick. Then send the terms with the confirmation.

That last step is a legal point in the EU too. The e-Commerce Directive says contract terms and general conditions given to a customer must be available in a way that lets them store and reproduce them. The text in the confirmation email, or a PDF attached to it, does that. A link to a page you may change next month does not do it alone, so keep a dated copy of every version.

Selling online to consumers in the EU and the UK

The EU's Consumer Rights Directive lists what a consumer must be told before a distance contract binds them, and much of it ends up in your terms. In plain words, before the order:

• The main characteristics of what you sell.
• Who you are, with your geographical address, phone number and email address.
• The total price including taxes, plus delivery and any other charges, or how the price will be worked out. For a subscription, the total per billing period.
• How payment, delivery and performance work, and when you will deliver or perform.
• Whether there is a right of withdrawal, with its conditions, time limit and steps, and the model withdrawal form. Where there is no right, a statement saying so.
• How long the contract lasts, how to end it, and any minimum term.
• Any deposit you take, and your complaint handling where you have a policy.

Right before the order, the directive asks you to show the main characteristics, the total price, the duration and the minimum term again, and to label the button "order with obligation to pay" or an equally clear phrase. If you do not, the consumer is not bound by the order.

The 14-day right to change their mind

A consumer in the EU has 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract without giving a reason. The UK's rules are the same in outline: for a service, the cancellation period ends 14 days after the day the contract is made, and for goods, 14 days after they arrive. If you never tell the consumer about the right, the EU period runs for an extra 12 months.

From 19 June 2026, EU sales made through a website or app also need a withdrawal function. It must be labelled "withdraw from contract here" or something equally clear, stay available for the whole withdrawal period and be easy to find. It leads to a short online statement where the customer gives their name, the contract and where to send the confirmation, then a button labelled "confirm withdrawal". You then send an acknowledgement on a durable medium, such as an email, with its content and the date and time it was sent. This is an EU rule, not a UK one.

Some sales have no withdrawal right. The exceptions that matter most to small businesses are:

• A service fully performed, if the customer asked for it to start and acknowledged they would lose the right once it was done.
• Goods made to the customer's specifications or clearly personalised.
• Goods that deteriorate or expire quickly.
• Accommodation, car hire, catering and leisure services booked for a specific date or period.
• An urgent repair the customer asked you to come out for.

If a customer wants a service to start inside the 14 days, they have to ask for it expressly. If they then withdraw, they pay for the part already provided, in proportion to the whole.

Selling online in the US

No single federal law sets what website terms must say. Terms of sale are a contract, governed by state law. Several rules still reach into them:

• Automatic renewals and memberships sold online, covered in membership cancellation rules.
• How prices and fees are shown, covered in price display and fee rules.
• The FTC Act's ban on deceptive practices, which applies when your terms contradict what your pages promise.

Courts also look at how the customer agreed, as the Nguyen case shows. Clauses that take something away from the customer, such as arbitration or a waiver of class actions, are the ones most worth a clear tick box.

What terms for online sales should cover

Write them from how you really work. A checklist:

• Who you are and how to reach you.
• What is included and what is not, using the words on your price list.
• Prices, taxes and fees, and when payment is taken.
• Deposits: what they hold, when they are taken and when they are refundable.
• Delivery or performance: the dates, and what happens if you are late.
• Cancellation by the customer, including the withdrawal right where it applies. Wording for appointment cancellation fees is in the no-show and cancellation policy guide.
• Cancellation by you, for example if a venue has to close for a day.
• Faulty goods and poor service: how to report a problem and what you will do.
• Complaints: who handles them and how quickly you reply.
• Gift cards and vouchers: how long they last and where they can be used.
• Your liability, within what the law allows.
• How the terms change, and which version applies to an order.
• Which law applies.

What generated templates get wrong

• A governing law clause naming Delaware, or another country, for a business that sells to consumers in Europe. Under the EU's Rome I rules, when a business directs its activities at a consumer's country, the consumer keeps the protection of the rules there that cannot be contracted out of, whatever the clause says.
• "No refunds" or "all sales final" on goods sold online to EU or UK consumers, which contradicts the 14-day withdrawal right.
• A clause excluding all liability. In the UK, a trader cannot exclude or restrict liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, and an unfair term does not bind the consumer. EU law also makes unfair terms in consumer contracts non-binding.
• A link to the EU's online dispute resolution platform. The platform was discontinued and the regulation behind it was repealed from 20 July 2025, so a template that still asks for the link is out of date.
• Clauses for things you do not do, such as user accounts, forums or app downloads, which bury the terms that matter.
• Terms that contradict your website, such as a refund promise on the FAQ page and no refunds in the terms. EU law says that where the meaning of a term is in doubt, the reading most favourable to the consumer wins.
• Terms copied from another business. The text is someone else's copyright, and the policies are theirs, not yours.

A template is a reasonable first draft. Rewrite every line until it describes your business, then delete what is left over.

Three businesses, three sets of terms

• A wedding venue that takes a deposit online to hold a date. The couple ticks booking terms before paying: what the deposit holds, when the balance is due, what happens if either side cancels and how a date can move. EU law lists leisure services booked for a specific date among the exceptions to the withdrawal right, which the venue's adviser should confirm for its country.
• A personal trainer selling packs of ten sessions on her site. Her terms say how long the sessions stay valid, what happens to unused ones and, for clients in the EU or the UK, how the 14-day right works, with a line for clients who want to start sooner to ask for that. A fitness studio selling class packs needs the same points.
• An online store selling cakes made to each customer's design. A personalised, perishable cake has no withdrawal right in the EU, and the store says so clearly before the order, as the directive requires when no right applies.

Where the terms go on your site

• A link in the footer of every page, named for what it is: Booking terms, Terms of sale.
• The same link next to the pay or book button, with a box to tick where the terms hold anything a customer would not expect.
• A copy in the confirmation email, as text or an attached PDF.
• A version date at the top, with old versions kept, so you know what each customer agreed to.
• A two-line summary where the decision is made, such as the deposit and cancellation rule on the booking page, with the full terms linked.

On a website that takes bookings or payments, each of these is a small piece of the build that is easy to forget, and the confirmation email is the one most often missed.

When to pay for legal advice

A careful template, rewritten to fit, can be enough for a small shop selling one kind of product in one country. Pay an adviser to write or check your terms when you take large deposits, sell subscriptions, sell to consumers in several countries, sign contracts with businesses that carry real liability, or work in a regulated trade such as health, law or finance.

Bring screenshots of your booking or checkout on a phone, your price list, what you do today when someone cancels, and the complaints you have had. An adviser who sees the real flow writes terms that fit it.

This is general information, not legal advice. Consumer law differs between the US states, the UK and each EU country, and it changes. Have your terms checked where your customers are.