UK disclosure rules for creators

Two regulators, two different powers

The Advertising Standards Authority administers the CAP Code, which is the rulebook for advertising content in the UK. It handles complaints, rules on them publicly, and names creators who break the rules.

The Competition and Markets Authority enforces consumer protection law, which sits behind the CAP Code and has real legal teeth. Undisclosed paid promotion can be a breach of consumer protection law, not merely of an industry code.

In practice you comply with both by doing the same thing: making the commercial relationship obvious, upfront, and in plain words.

When disclosure is required

The test is whether you received something of value AND the brand had some control or expectation over what you posted. If both are true, disclose.

• Paid posts — money changed hands. Obviously.
• Gifted products, even unsolicited ones, if you post about them and there was any expectation of coverage.
• Affiliate links and discount codes that earn you a commission.
• Your own products, or a brand you have any stake in. "Own brand" still needs to be clear.
• Trips, events, meals, loans of equipment, and anything else of value that is not cash.

Where the disclosure has to be

Prominent and upfront is the standard, and it is stricter than most people assume. The label has to be visible before someone engages with the content — not after a "more" tap, not at the end of a caption, not buried in a block of hashtags.

On video, saying it out loud and putting it on screen early is safer than a caption alone, because the caption may never be read. On a platform's built-in paid-partnership label, use the label AND write it in the caption: the labels render inconsistently and can be missed.

What does not count as disclosure

The ASA has repeatedly ruled against these, and they come up again and again.

• "sp", "spon", "collab", "ambassador", "thanks to", or a brand tag on its own. They are not clear enough.
• A disclosure that only appears after "...more" is expanded.
• A hashtag lost at the end of a run of twenty others.
• Disclosing on the first post of a series but not the rest. Each post is judged on its own.
• A bio that says "some links are affiliate" while individual posts say nothing.

The part creators get wrong most often

Disclosure protects you, not just the audience. The creator is the one the ASA names in a published ruling, and it is the creator's account that carries the reputational cost — not the brand's marketing manager, who will have moved on.

If a brand asks you to make the disclosure less prominent, that is a request to take a regulatory risk on their behalf, for free. It is a reasonable thing to refuse, and the professional ones will not ask.