May we write master craftsman business if the master is employed by us?

The Crafts Code ties the occupational title to the person who passed the examination; the phrase master craftsman business does not appear in it. What matters is therefore the impression the sentence creates in the reader. If the trade requiring authorisation is carried out by an employed manager holding the master examination and the business is entered in the craft trades register, the statement is substantively carried – provided it stays accurate the moment that person leaves. It is cleanly phrased when the trade and the name stand next to it, rather than the phrase sitting alone as a tile.

Our master examination is in a different trade from our main service. What does that mean for the site?

Under **section 51 paragraph 1** (Handwerksordnung) the title applies in connection with the trade for which the examination was taken. On the page that means: the trade belongs in the same sentence as the title. If the title sits without that addition above a service belonging to a different trade, the reader gains the impression that the examination relates to it – and that impression is the yardstick. The effort is small: half a sentence more, and the statement is accurate again.

What happens if an expired seal is still on the site?

Two legal routes are conceivable. With a quality mark, **item 2 of the annex** (Annex to section 3 paragraph 3 UWG) to the Act against Unfair Competition applies because the necessary authorisation is missing; with confirmations and approvals by third parties, **item 4 of the annex** (Annex to section 3 paragraph 3 UWG) applies. In neither case does it matter that the symbol was merely forgotten. In practice matters like this usually start not with an authority but with a letter from a competitor. That is why every symbol belongs on a list with an expiry date, not in one person's memory.

May we put a manufacturer's logo on our home page?

Only with a permission that covers exactly this use. Many manufacturers run tiered partner programmes, and each tier has its own logo with its own conditions – often linked to training courses or an annual confirmation. Design rules on size, spacing and colour come on top. Two mistakes are common: showing one tier too high and adapting the logo to your own design. Both are avoided by having the release in writing and taking the image file unchanged from the manufacturer.

Does the master title belong in the legal notice?

Anyone exercising a regulated profession must state, under **section 5 paragraph 1 item 5** (DDG), the chamber, the statutory professional title including the state in which it was awarded, and the professional rules together with how to access them. For a trade business in the authorisation-required segment that means the responsible chamber of crafts, the title under the Crafts Code and a reference to its text. The side effect is useful: these details are the one spot on the site where title, chamber and legal basis stand together and can therefore be checked without asking anyone.

May we write Bachelor Professional on the website?

Yes, if the precondition is met. **Section 51 paragraph 2** (Handwerksordnung) additionally permits the designation to anyone entitled to an occupational title under paragraph 1, stating the trade. Two points go with that: it is not a further qualification but a second permissible designation for the same examination, and naming the trade is part of the designation rather than decorative detail. On the page it therefore sits after a person's name and not as a separate tile among the logos.

Master Title and Seals: What Trades May Advertise

At the foot of many trade company websites runs a narrow band of symbols: a guild crest, a manufacturer logo, a seal with a year on it, and the words master craftsman business. That band was filled once when the site was built and never touched again. Ask inside the company who is entitled to carry which symbol and since when, and the room usually goes quiet. This is not a formality. In Germany 1,038,126 businesses (ZDH) are entered in the craft trades registers and in the register of trades similar to the crafts, and the same condition applies to every one of them: a symbol may appear on the site if its precondition is met on that day, and otherwise it may not. This article walks the band row by row: which title is tied to a person, which symbol needs a permission, how an expired certificate leaves the footer, and where a qualification has to sit so that it counts as evidence in search and in the business profile. How trust elements are designed and placed is covered in trust signals on your website – this article deals with the question that comes first: who is allowed to show what.

Key takeaways

Under section 51 paragraph 1 (Handwerksordnung, the German Crafts Code) the occupational title Meister is tied to a master craftsman examination passed in one specific trade. It belongs to a person, not to a company, and not to a number of years on the job.
Annex A of the Crafts Code lists 53 (Handwerksordnung) trades that require authorisation. The title is only meaningful in connection with one of them – which is why the trade belongs in every sentence that mentions the title.
Carrying such a title without that basis is a regulatory offence; the Crafts Code provides for a fine of up to 5,000 euros (section 117 Handwerksordnung). The second and far more common route runs through competition law.
Quality marks and quality labels used without the necessary authorisation appear in item 2 of the annex (Annex to section 3 paragraph 3 UWG) to the Act against Unfair Competition – where they count as unlawful towards consumers without any weighing of the individual case.
The most common problem is not a prohibition but a date: a seal from a year that has passed, sitting in a footer nobody maintains. Every symbol needs an expiry date in a follow-up list.

Who may carry the master title

The German Crafts Code needs a single sentence here. Under section 51 paragraph 1 (Handwerksordnung) the occupational title Meister or Meisterin in connection with a trade requiring authorisation may only be carried by a person who has passed the master craftsman examination for that trade. Three conditions sit inside that sentence, and websites regularly mix them up. It is an occupational title, so it refers to a person and not to a company. It refers to one specific trade and not to craftsmanship in general. And it refers to a passed examination, not to years of experience. Someone with twenty years of practice and no master examination has twenty years of practice – a real asset that can be described well, just under a different name.

Since the amendment of the Crafts Code there is a second designation that may go on the site. Section 51 paragraph 2 (Handwerksordnung) allows anyone entitled to an occupational title under paragraph 1 to additionally use the designation Bachelor Professional, stating the trade. Two details are regularly overlooked. The designation hangs on the same master examination; it is not an extra qualification that somebody still has to acquire. And the trade has to stand next to it – the designation on its own, without naming the trade, is not the one the law means. On the page that reads as an addition after a person's name, not as another tile in the logo band.

Next to the title sits the registration. Under section 1 paragraph 1 (Handwerksordnung) the independent operation of a trade requiring authorisation as a standing trade is permitted only to those natural persons, legal persons and partnerships entered in the craft trades register. Which trades those are is set out in Annex A to the act: 53 (Handwerksordnung) entries, from bricklayer and concrete worker through to organ and harmonium builder. The phrase master craftsman business, widespread on websites, appears in none of these provisions. It is not a legally defined term but an advertising statement, and it is therefore measured by whether it creates an accurate impression in the reader's mind. Anyone using the phrase should be able to say in the same breath who the master is and for which trade the examination was taken.

And if the title sits on the page without that basis? The Crafts Code treats this as a regulatory offence: carrying an occupational title contrary to section 51 paragraph 1 can be sanctioned under section 117 with a fine of up to 5,000 euros (section 117 Handwerksordnung). That is one route, and in practice it is rare. The second runs through competition law and occurs more often, because competitors and associations can set it in motion without any authority having to act. Both routes have the same trigger: a statement on the site that cannot be substantiated on the day it is examined. So clearing up here is not only a legal exercise – it produces a site whose statements anyone in the company can explain.

The title belongs to a person

The designation hangs on an examination, and a human being takes it. On the site it therefore belongs where a name appears: the about page, the team section, the legal notice. A crest in the footer with no name at all leaves open who is meant – and that is exactly what makes the statement vulnerable.

The company is a separate question

Whether a company may carry out a trade requiring authorisation is decided by its entry in the craft trades register, not by the title on the door. The two often coincide, but they do not have to: there are companies with an employed manager holding the examination, and there are title holders without a company of their own. The site should say which case applies.

When the master leaves

If the person on whom the registration rests departs, the basis for both statements changes – yet everything stays on the website, because nobody thinks of it. A person leaving is therefore an occasion to review the band, just like a change of company name or a handover to the next generation.

Walking the band row by row

The review needs no law firm and no half day. It needs a screenshot of the footer, a sheet with three columns and one person who knows what is in the filing cabinet. The first column takes every element that appears on the site – individually, even where five logos hang in one row. The second column takes the condition that carries precisely that element. The third column takes the sentence that should stand next to it so a reader can place the statement. Wherever the second column stays empty, the row is deleted. That is the whole method, and it works because it forces every single row to produce an answer.

Element on the page	Condition that must hold today	Sentence that belongs next to it
Master title	Master examination passed in the named trade, certificate on file	Master business in the electrical trade, examination passed in 2014
Craft trades register	Current entry with the responsible chamber of crafts	Entered in the craft trades register of the responsible chamber
Guild emblem	Membership exists today, emblem in the released version	Member of the guild since 2009
Quality mark	Permission from the issuing body exists and is still valid	Awarded in 2024, reviewed annually, issuing body named
Manufacturer partnership	Partner agreement is current, logo in the released version	Specialist partner since 2019, last training in 2025
Test result or award	The result exists and the reference can be checked	Publication, issue, category and ranking in plain words

The third column is the real gain of the exercise. A symbol without text is, for the reader, a claim they cannot check, and for search it is an image with no content. The same space with two lines of text underneath says what the symbol means, who issued it and when – and that turns decoration into evidence. In practice the band shrinks in the process: eight images become four that actually say something. That is not a loss. Eight equally sized tiles, none of which the reader recognises, look arbitrary; four with captions look checked, because they can be checked.

Who does the review, and how often? The company, not the agency – because the certificates, the contracts and the membership notices are held there. A fixed annual appointment works well, ideally tied to another recurring task so it does not get forgotten. Three occasions come on top of that: a change in company management, a handover or renaming, and any change at an issuing body. If the site is already looked after under ongoing maintenance, this item belongs on the same list as backups and updates – it costs twenty minutes and prevents the case that gets expensive later.

One sheet, three columns, one hour

Take a screenshot of the footer and one of the home page and break both into individual elements. Every row gets the question: which document in the building carries this statement, and until when is it valid? Anything that cannot be answered in two minutes goes on a second list and comes off the site until it is clarified. One row fewer costs nothing; one row nobody can substantiate costs considerably more when it matters.

Quality marks, guilds and partner logos

On quality marks the law is unusually clear. The annex to the Act against Unfair Competition lists commercial practices that are always unlawful (Annex to section 3 paragraph 3 UWG) towards consumers – with no weighing, no materiality threshold, no look at the individual case. Item 2 of the annex (Annex to section 3 paragraph 3 UWG) names there the use of quality marks, quality labels or similar without the necessary authorisation. In practice that means: with a quality mark there is no grey zone between permitted and not permitted. Either the issuing body's authorisation exists and is in force, or the image comes off the site. Between those two states lies one question to the issuing body and usually an answer the same day.

Guild and chamber emblems work differently but are often read wrongly. They evidence a membership or an affiliation, not a quality judgement about the work. A chamber of crafts emblem next to the words outstanding quality is therefore two claims in one image: one correct, and one the emblem does not carry. Then there is the time axis. A membership can end without anyone looking at the website because of it; the emblem then stays behind as an image file in the footer, anchored there since the site was built. And finally many issuing bodies have design rules – minimum size, clear space, no colour changes – which are just as much part of the permission as the membership itself.

Who issued the symbol, and is the permission on file in writing?
Until when does it apply, and who is reminded about the renewal?
Does it cover exactly the use taking place on the site – including home page, footer and business profile?
Is the symbol used in the version the issuing body released, with no custom colours, custom frame or custom crop?
Does the image alt text say what the symbol means rather than just repeating the file name?
Is there a visible line of text next to it naming the issuing body and the year?
Is the symbol tied to the statement it actually carries – membership, examination or partnership, not quality in general?

Manufacturer partnerships are the third case and the one with the most pitfalls. Many manufacturers run tiers, and every tier has its own logo, its own condition and its own expiry date – linked to training courses, to purchase volumes or to an annual confirmation. What was correct yesterday can be one tier too high today. On top of that comes the trademark side: the logo belongs to the manufacturer, and what may be done with it is set out in its guidelines and not left to the agency's judgement. Anyone already checking during a site build which marks and names belong to whom will find the approach in business name and domain: check trademarks first – third-party logos deserve the same care as your own name.

The logo belongs to the issuing body

A partner mark or quality mark is not an image from the company's own photo library but third-party material with terms of use. It must not be recoloured, cut out, built into a seal of your own or converted to greyscale to match the page design just because it fits better that way. Using an altered version can cost you the permission for the original. The rules for third-party image files in general are set out in image rights on your website.

Getting expired seals out of the footer

No business deliberately puts an expired seal on its site. It happens anyway, and the reason is always the same: the symbol sits in a place that does not exist editorially. The footer is part of the template and not part of an article; the image file has been in the directory since the build; whoever maintains the site sees the footer a hundred times a day and therefore stops seeing it at all. Only when a customer asks or a warning letter arrives does the year become visible. The way out is not more attention but a date: every symbol gets an expiry date when it is added, and a name attached to the reminder.

How a dead seal shows itself

A year in the image or in the file name, an address of the issuing body that leads nowhere, a logo in a design that no longer exists in that form. All three can be checked in an afternoon: list the image files in the directory, look at file names and dates, and look each symbol up once with the body that issued it.

Where it sits technically

Usually in the footer template, less often in a reusable block and sometimes hard-coded in the header of the home page. The important part is not merely to hide the file but to remove the inclusion – a symbol hidden by styling stays in the source and continues to be delivered.

The follow-up list

One entry per symbol with issuing body, date of award, expiry date and a responsible person. Two reminders are enough: one eight weeks before expiry, one on the day after. If the website is under ongoing support, hang the list on the same rhythm as maintenance and security.

Why the date carries so much weight becomes clear from a look at the same list as for quality marks. Item 4 of the annex (Annex to section 3 paragraph 3 UWG) covers the untrue statement that a trader, a commercial practice or a service has been confirmed, approved or authorised by a public or private body – and equally the untrue statement that the conditions for such a confirmation are being met. A seal whose conditions the business no longer meets today says exactly that, without anybody having written the sentence. The image is the statement. And because the list in the annex knows no weighing of interests, the argument that the symbol was merely forgotten does not help.

Awards are a characteristic of the business

Outside the list in the annex there is another rule that bears directly on seals and titles. Section 5 paragraph 2 item 3 (UWG) expressly counts among the circumstances a commercial practice can mislead about the trader's aptitude, status, approval, memberships or relationships as well as awards or distinctions. That is the collecting point for everything sitting in a logo band: the title, the chamber affiliation, the guild, the partnership, the prize from the year before last. The yardstick is not the intention but the impression created in the reader – which is why an ambiguously placed symbol has the same effect as an incorrect statement.

In practice this means: when a symbol falls away, it is replaced rather than simply deleted. The space in the footer is there, and so is the reader's question about reliability. What takes the place of the image is whatever the business can substantiate today: the number of years in the town, the names of the master craftsmen and craftswomen in the building, the number of apprentices, a statement about availability that holds up in daily practice. Details like these age more slowly than a seal with a year on it and can be used without anyone else's permission. How strongly they affect enquiries is a question of placement – which belongs to conversion optimization and not to the legal department.

Marking up qualifications so they count as evidence

The first place is the one nobody thinks of when the subject is seals: the legal notice. For services offered in the exercise of a regulated profession, section 5 paragraph 1 item 5 (DDG, the German Digital Services Act) requires details of the chamber the provider belongs to, of the statutory professional title and the state in which it was awarded, and of the professional rules together with how they can be accessed. That is not advertising space but a mandatory disclosure – and at the same time the most robust spot on the whole site, because chamber, title and legal basis stand there together. Which other details belong there and what is most often missing is set out in legal notice 2026: what the DDG requires.

The second place is the source code. A qualification that exists only as an image is not there for a search engine or for a screen reader. Both therefore belong in the markup: the business with address, activity and service area, and the person with name, role and qualification. How structured data is built and what it does in the result listing is described in rich snippets for local businesses. What matters is that the two run in step: whatever sits in the source code has to be visible on the page. Markup claiming a qualification that the visitor cannot read anywhere is not an advantage but a second point of attack.

Place	What carries there	What fizzles out there
Legal notice	Chamber, statutory professional title, state of award, professional rules	A crest with no text at all
Home page	One sentence with trade, name and year of examination	A row of six images with no captions
About page	Portrait, name, year of examination, responsible chamber	A blanket statement about the whole team
Service page	The qualification that belongs to precisely this service	The same band as on every other page
Structured data	Markup for the business and the person in the source code	Text that exists only inside an image
Business profile	Photo of the certificate, description naming the trade in plain words	The issuing body's logo as the profile picture

That leaves the alt text, which is almost always missing on seal images. It describes in one sentence what the symbol says – not the picture, but its meaning. A file called seal-new-final thereby turns into the information about which body confirmed what and when. This helps first of all the visitors who have the page read out to them, and along the way it helps search, which cannot read anything inside the image itself. The same text can be reused in the business profile, where images are particularly visible: anyone posting a certificate there should caption it. How the profile is maintained overall is covered in Google Business Profile, and the regional side of it in local search engine optimization.

Advertising with a test result means naming the reference

The Act against Unfair Competition expressly counts, in section 5 paragraph 2 item 1 (UWG), the results or material features of tests among the material characteristics of a service. A test reference on the site therefore needs the same details as in a printed brochure: who tested, when, in which issue, in which category and with what result – readable at the symbol and not in a footnote three screens further down.

What belongs on which page

The last question is one of arrangement. On the home page a short captioned line carries more than a band of images: the trade, the name, the year of the examination, plus at most two symbols the reader recognises from their own region. On a service page the qualification that matches that service belongs with it – a symbol for a type of system that is not offered there confuses more than it helps. What such a structure looks like for a trade business is shown on the page about web design for trades – which also sets out where the enquiry actually comes from.

Two further pages benefit above average. The careers page, because an applicant wants to know who she will be learning from and whether the company trains apprentices; which content works there is set out in careers page for trades. And the section with customer testimonials, because the same question of verifiability comes up there as with a seal – anyone showing reviews owes the information whether and how their genuineness is checked, which is described in customer testimonials on your website. The connection between the two subjects is no coincidence: in the reader's perception a symbol and a review are the same thing – a statement from a third party that is either substantiated or not.

Take a screenshot of the footer and the home page and list every symbol individually.
For each symbol, name the document in the building: certificate, notice, contract or confirmation, with a date.
Take everything without a document off the site – remove first, clarify afterwards, not the other way round.
Put one line of text next to every remaining symbol: issuing body, year, statement.
Add alt texts that state the meaning of the symbol rather than the file name.
Enter title and chamber in full in the legal notice and reconcile them with the home page.
Write expiry dates into a follow-up list, with a reminder eight weeks in advance.
Set a fixed annual date for the whole band, plus a trigger whenever staff change.

A symbol on a website is worth exactly as much as the document behind it in the office – and only for as long as that document remains valid.

Internetagentur Hildesheim

Sources and legal basis

This article draws on the German Crafts Code, the Act against Unfair Competition including the annex to section 3 paragraph 3, the German Digital Services Act and the key figures published by the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts. The authoritative version in each case is the one published by the Federal Ministry of Justice as at the date of retrieval. The article places these rules in the context of website work and does not replace legal advice in an individual case.