Legal Notice for Therapists: What You Actually Need to Include
The legal notice is the least popular page on any website. Nobody likes reading it, hardly anyone likes writing it — and yet it's mandatory. And for therapists, there are specific requirements for healthcare professions that most generic legal notice generators simply miss.
This article shows what must be included in a legal notice, what applies specifically to therapists, and where the most common mistakes occur.
The legal basis
The legal notice requirement in Germany stems from the Digital Services Act (Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz, DDG), which replaced the former Telemedia Act in May 2024. Anyone operating a website that is not purely private needs a legal notice. This applies to every practice, every individual in a healthcare profession, and everyone offering services through their website.
The legal notice must be easy to find — directly linked from every page of the website, no more than two clicks away. A link in the footer is sufficient, as long as it appears on every page.
What every legal notice must contain
What additionally applies to therapists
This is where it gets specific. Anyone belonging to a regulated profession — and that includes psychotherapists, naturopaths, physiotherapists, and many other healthcare professions — must include additional information in their legal notice.
| Required information | Example |
|---|---|
| Professional title + country | "Psychological Psychotherapist, medical license: Germany" |
| Competent supervisory authority | State Chamber of Psychotherapists NRW (for licensed PTs) / Public Health Office Cologne (for naturopaths) |
| Chamber membership | Chamber of Psychotherapists NRW, name and address |
| Professional regulations | Professional code of the BPtK, with citation |
| VAT ID (if subject to VAT) | Not applicable for insurance panel holders, mandatory for coaching/supervision |
The full GDPR requirements for therapist websites — including privacy policy and cookie consent — are covered in a separate guide.
The most common mistakes
Another mistake: embedding the legal notice as an image or PDF. It must be in text format — so search engines can index it and screen readers can read it.
What naturopaths need to watch out for
Naturopaths have a special case: the professional title "Heilpraktiker" (naturopath) is protected, but there are different types — the general naturopath license and the sectoral license for psychotherapy. Those with only a sectoral license may not simply call themselves "Heilpraktiker" but must use "Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie" (naturopath for psychotherapy).
More on website design for naturopaths can be found in our guide for naturopath websites.
How Therapendo solves this
Therapendo generates the legal notice automatically — from the practice data you enter during onboarding. Professional title, chamber, supervisory authority, contact details, professional regulations — everything is filled in correctly according to your profession and published on your website.
If something changes — address, phone number, chamber membership — you update it in one place and the legal notice updates automatically. The same applies to the privacy policy. Anyone just starting to create their own practice website has one less thing to worry about.