Letterhead Templates for Australian Businesses

What the Corporations Act requires on a company letterhead

Under section 153 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), a company must set out its full legal name and its ACN (Australian Company Number) on every public document it issues — and ASIC names business letterhead specifically as one of those documents. Where the company name appears on more than one page, the name and ACN only need to appear on the first page, but the ACN must sit immediately after the first appearance of the name, in a clear and readable format. ASIC's recommended layout is three groups of three digits, e.g. ACN 123 456 789.

You don't need to show both numbers. A company can display its ABN instead of its ACN, as long as the last nine digits of the ABN match the ACN — which is the normal case, since an Australian company's ABN is simply its ACN with two check digits added at the front. Trading under a separate registered business name doesn't get you out of this: the full legal name (with its Pty Ltd, Ltd, or Incorporated suffix) and the ACN or ABN still have to appear. It's a strict-liability offence, and penalties have been reported at up to $1,100 per offence, with individual directors exposed as well as the company.

Sole traders and partnerships have no ACN, so there's nothing to disclose under section 153 — but the ABN is still expected on any document that doubles as a quote or invoice, which most letterheads eventually do. Every template here has entity-type presets — Pty Ltd, sole trader, and incorporated association — so the footer only asks for the number you're actually required to show.

• Pty Ltd company — full legal name + ACN (or ABN with matching last nine digits), placed right after the name on the first page.
• Sole trader or partnership — legal name + ABN, plus your registered business name if you trade under one.
• Incorporated association — legal name + ABN + your state association registration number.
• Regulated sectors commonly add a licence line too — AFSL number for financial services, Tax Agent Number for tax agents, or a builder's/contractor's licence number for trades.

True A4, not US Letter — and why the difference actually shows up in the post

Australia adopted ISO 216 A-series paper with metrication in 1974, and A4 (210 × 297 mm) is the only size Australian printers, mailhouses and office suppliers stock for letterhead. US Letter (215.9 × 279.4 mm) is shorter and wider, and a template built on that canvas prints with the wrong margins and a header that no longer sits where it should. Canva's own template library defaults to US Letter — you can tell because its A4 designs are individually tagged "A4" in the title, which only makes sense if A4 is the exception rather than the rule. Every template on this page opens in true A4 from the start, with no resize step and no premium gate to change paper size.

Getting the paper size right also matters for how the letter travels in an envelope. Australian mailhouses position the recipient address block roughly 20 mm from the left edge and 42 mm from the top of the sheet so it lines up in the window of a standard Australian DL envelope; a C5 window envelope needs a single offset fold at around 143 mm from the top, while a DL envelope takes the usual tri-fold at 99 mm and 198 mm. None of this is a certified national standard — there isn't one — but it's the working convention Australian print shops build to, and it's built into our address-block position by default. Unlike German DIN 5008 templates, Australian letterheads don't conventionally show printed fold marks on the finished sheet, so we keep our fold guide as an optional, off-by-default layer in the editor rather than something that prints.

Word template, Canva, or the local print shop — how this actually compares

A Microsoft Word template gets you an offline file, but you generally need a Microsoft account to open the gallery, the defaults are US Letter, and there's no guidance on ACN, ABN, or where the address block needs to sit for a window envelope. Canva is the strongest competitor by a distance — genuinely huge template range, a slick in-browser editor — but browsing is where the free part ends: opening a template into the editor and downloading it both require a Canva account, a meaningful share of the catalogue carries a Pro watermark you can't identify until you've already signed up and started editing, and Canva doesn't run a dedicated Australian version of its letterhead page at all — it's the same US-English copy ("personalize", "color") served everywhere, ACN and ABN unmentioned.

Officeworks and Vistaprint, meanwhile, aren't really template sites — they're print orders. Officeworks sells A4 100gsm letterhead stock from around $130 a pack and outsources the actual design work to Canva; Vistaprint's "design studio" exists to sell you a print run, not hand you a file. None of the three will let you open a template, drop in your ACN, and download a finished PDF or Word document in under a minute with nothing to sign up for and nothing watermarked. That's the specific gap this tool fills.

The letter-writing conventions this tool follows

Australian business letters use full block format — everything flush to the left margin, no indented paragraphs, a blank line between paragraphs, ragged right rather than justified. The date is written in full, day before month, with no comma: 14 August 2026, never the American August 14, 2026. Close with Yours sincerely when you've named the recipient (Dear Ms Nguyen) and Yours faithfully when you haven't (Dear Sir or Madam) — the British convention that Australian style guides, including the Australian Government Style Manual, still teach. The final line of a recipient's address should be in capitals with the state abbreviated and no comma before the postcode, for example SOUTH MELBOURNE VIC 3205 — the format Australia Post's own guidance recommends. All of this is set as the default in the editor, in genuine Australian English (customise, organisation, colour), not the US spelling Canva's own copy uses.