Blog · 2026-08-06
Do side projects need an Impressum? German imprint rules for indie hackers
By the howsafeismyapp team
You shipped a side project. It has a landing page, maybe a Stripe checkout, maybe just a waitlist. Somewhere between "weekend hack" and "actual business" sits a question German law answers more strictly than almost anywhere else: do you need an Impressum — the imprint page with your name and address on it?
Short version: more often than indie hackers expect, and the page is cheap to add compared to what its absence signals. Here is how the rule actually works. (Practical guidance, not legal advice — for edge cases, especially around your personal address, a short consultation with a lawyer is money well spent.)
The rule: § 5 DDG
Germany's § 5 DDG (Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz, the successor to the old TMG rule) requires providers of digital services that are offered *geschäftsmäßig* — in a business-like manner — to publish provider identification: who runs this service, where they sit, how to reach them.
The word doing the work is *geschäftsmäßig*, and it is broader than "profitable" or even "commercial." Case law and regulators read it as: offered on a sustained basis and not purely private or personal. You do not need revenue. You do not need a registered company. A free tool can qualify.
Signals that push a project into imprint territory:
- Any monetization — paid plans, a Stripe link, ads, affiliate links, sponsoring, "buy me a coffee" tied to the service.
- Promoting it publicly as a product — a landing page with signup, Product Hunt launch, SEO content.
- Sustained operation — it runs continuously for anyone to use, rather than being a one-off demo for friends.
What stays out: genuinely private pages — a personal photo blog for family, a portfolio with no services offered. The honest summary for indie hackers: if you would describe it as "my product" rather than "my homepage," plan for an imprint.
Does German law even apply to me?
If you are based in Germany and the project is business-like: yes, regardless of language or audience.
If you are based elsewhere: the practical trigger is directing your offer at the German market — a German-language version, prices in EUR aimed at Germany, German-market advertising. A US indie hacker with an English-only tool and no German targeting is usually outside the blast radius; the moment you localize for Germany, plan as if the rule applies. Our scanner flags a missing imprint only as a German-market finding for exactly this reason: no imprint (Impressum) found.
What has to be in it
For an individual (no company), § 5 DDG boils down to:
- Full name — a first and last name, not a username or brand alone.
- A postal address where you can be reached — a real, physical address. A P.O. box is not sufficient.
- Contact details enabling fast electronic contact — an email address at minimum; a phone number is commonly listed and the safer reading.
- If applicable: commercial register entry and number, the supervisory authority for regulated professions, and your VAT ID (
USt-IdNr.) if you have one.
For a UG/GmbH, add the company name with legal form, registered office, register court and number, and the authorized representatives (Geschäftsführer).
Put it on its own page — /imprint or /impressum — and link it from the footer of every page, the deployed app included, not just the marketing site. "Two clicks from anywhere, clearly labeled" is the standard courts apply.
"I don't want my home address on the internet"
The most common objection, and a legitimate one. Your options, roughly in order of seriousness:
- A business address service — providers rent you a real, staffed address (often with mail forwarding) that you may use as your ladungsfähige Anschrift. This is the standard indie solution. Vet the provider: the address must actually accept mail for you.
- A coworking space or office you genuinely use can serve the same role.
- Forming a company (e.g. a UG) whose registered office is such an address moves your home address out of the imprint — at the cost of real formation and accounting overhead.
What is not an option: a fake address, an address you have no relationship with, or omitting the address and hoping. An incorrect imprint is worse than an honest one, and roughly as discoverable as a missing one.
Why competitors care about your footer
Imprint violations are a classic Abmahnung (warning-letter) topic in Germany because they are trivially detectable from outside and cheap to send: a competitor's lawyer checks your footer, finds nothing, and mails you a cease-and-desist with a fee attached. The same "visible from outside" logic applies to your privacy policy, which Art. 13 GDPR requires as soon as you process personal data — a contact form counts: no privacy policy found. We cover what actually belongs in it in writing a privacy policy for an AI-built app.
If you built the project with Lovable, Bolt or v0: the generators write code, never legal pages. The full pre-launch pass is in our Lovable checklist.
Common questions
My project is free and has no ads. Do I really need an imprint?
Possibly yes — *geschäftsmäßig* does not require money. A sustained, publicly offered service can qualify even at €0 revenue. The pragmatic take: an imprint costs you one page; betting on the narrow reading costs you the downside of a warning letter.
Can I use a P.O. box or just an email address?
No. The law requires an address where legal documents can be served (ladungsfähige Anschrift) — a physical address where you can actually be reached. Email alone or a P.O. box does not satisfy that.
I write in English and my users are global. Does that exempt me?
Not by itself. If you are established in Germany, the duty follows you regardless of language. If you are established abroad, language is one factor in whether you target the German market — English-only with no German targeting usually points away from applicability.
Impressum and privacy policy — same page?
Legally they are separate duties (§ 5 DDG vs. Art. 13 GDPR) with different required content. Keep them as two pages, or clearly separated sections, each linked from the footer — mixing them into one wall of text is a usability problem that invites mistakes.
The thirty-second outside check
Whether your footer actually links an imprint and a privacy policy is exactly the kind of thing best verified from outside — the free Impressum Checker does just that in seconds. And our full passive scan goes further: it loads your app like any anonymous visitor, checks the legal-page basics along with the technical findings, and takes about a minute. No login, nothing stored.