Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, there are rules about putting imprints on printed election material. We regulate compliance with those rules.

Whenever printed election material is produced, it must contain certain details (which we refer to as an ‘imprint’) to show who is responsible for the material. This helps to ensure there is transparency about who is campaigning.

The rules on imprints apply to all political parties. They apply whenever you produce printed material promoting your party. This factsheet explains the rules you must follow.

Different imprint rules apply to political parties campaigning at Scottish Parliamentary elections and council elections in Scotland. Please see Imprints for political parties – Scottish Parliamentary elections and council elections in Scotland for more details.

This factsheet explains the rules you must follow when campaigning in any other election.

Under the Elections Act 2022, imprints are also required on certain digital material. This factsheet does not cover that part of the law. For the imprint requirements on digital material, please see our statutory guidance on digital imprints.
 

Election material is published material that can reasonably be regarded as intended to influence voters to vote for or against one or more political parties or a category of candidates at certain elections.

For political parties, this will include printed material such as leaflets and adverts that promote the party, its candidates or its policies, or criticise other parties, at an election.

For imprints on digital material such as social media posts, please see our statutory guidance on digital imprints.

On printed election material such as leaflets and posters, you must include the name and address of:

• the printer
• the promoter
• any person on behalf of whom the material is being published (and who is not the promoter)

The promoter is whoever has caused the material to be published.

You must use an address where you can be contacted. You can use a home address or an office or business address. You can also use a PO Box address or other mailbox service.

If you are putting an advert in a print newspaper, your advert does not need to include the printer’s name and address, but the name and address of the printer of the newspaper must appear on the first or last page of the newspaper. The advert must include the other details as usual.  

If you are being paid to publish election material, the material must include an imprint which includes the details of whoever is paying you. This is because either they are the promoter, or you are publishing the material on their behalf.

In all cases, you must make sure that the imprint lists all the organisations involved in publishing and promoting the material.

It is an offence for a printer or promoter to publish printed election material without an imprint. 

The promoter may be the party treasurer, another officer of the party, or the party itself.

A standard imprint on party election material should look like this:

Printed by Armadillo Printing Ltd, 22 Thornfields Avenue, Glasgow, G9 1AB.

Promoted by the Yellow Party, 110 High Street, Airdrie, AD1 1AD.

If your material is a single-sided printed document – such as a window poster – or where most of the information is on one side, you must put the imprint on that side of the document.

If it is a multi-sided printed document, you must put it on the first or last page.

For the law on where imprints must appear on digital material, please see our statutory guidance on digital imprints.