✉️ Free cover letter templates

9 free cover letter templates for US and UK applications

Compare American month-first and British day-first formats alongside modern, classic and minimal layouts. Every free cover letter template is single-column, uses real text, and is built for ATS readability. Use it as a cover letter for your resume or a covering letter for your CV: preview it live, then export your finished letter to PDF or Word without a watermark.

Choose a free cover letter template

Arrow keys move between them. The preview on the right is the real layout, not a picture of it.

Best for: Technology, product, marketing and most corporate roles.
Region: US & EU
ATS: Single column, plain text, no tables or images.

Jane Doe

jane.doe@example.com·+1 (415) 555-0134·Portland, OR·linkedin.com/in/janedoe

September 16, 2026

Ms. A. Whitfield

Greenfield SaaS, Inc.

Frontend Engineer — application

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am applying for the Frontend Engineer role at Greenfield SaaS. Your posting asks for someone who can take a feature from an accessible interface all the way to a released build, which is close to how I have spent the last four years.

At Northwind I rebuilt the customer dashboard in React and TypeScript, cutting first meaningful paint from 4.2s to 1.1s and lifting weekly active use by 18%. The work included a WCAG 2.2 AA pass across 40 components and a migration to a shared REST client that removed 6,000 lines of duplicated fetch logic.

I write the documentation that makes a remote team work: PR descriptions, runbooks and the contribution guide our three newest engineers used to ship in their first week.

Kind regards,

Jane Doe

Every cover letter template, and when to use it

Meridian

Modern

Technology, product, marketing and most corporate roles.

Single column, plain text, no tables or images. · US & EU

Atlas

Classic

Law, finance, academia, government and conservative US employers.

The most conservative layout here: no colour, no rules, serif text. · US

Boardroom

Executive

Director, VP and C-suite applications where scope matters most.

Colour is used only on the rule; all text stays black. · US & EU

Signal

ATS-first

Applications screened by an applicant tracking system, or a plain-text form field.

No rules, no colour, no alignment tricks — the safest layout for parsers. · US & EU

Kontor

European

UK, German, Dutch, Nordic and other European applications that use a day-first date and address block.

Address blocks are plain text lines; day-first date follows EU convention. · UK & EU

Prism

Modern

Design, brand, marketing and start-up roles that reward a little personality.

The band is a background colour behind real text — it is never an image. · US & EU

Aria

Classic

Editorial, hospitality, non-profit and traditional US applications.

Centered heading only; the body stays left-aligned for readability. · US

Ledger

Corporate

Consulting, operations, finance and large organisations.

The accent bar is a border on the heading block; text is untouched. · US & EU

Vellum

Compact

Longer letters, referral applications and anything that must fit one page.

Tighter type, still above the 10 pt floor that keeps text legible. · US & EU

US vs UK cover letter templates

Choose the market first, then the visual style. The words should sound like you; the date, address block and sign-off should look familiar to the employer reading them.

US cover letter templates

Recommended: Meridian, Atlas, Signal or Aria

Use a month-first date, concise American business English and a one-page US Letter layout. Pair the letter with a resume, not a CV, unless the employer uses different wording.

UK cover letter templates (covering letters)

Recommended: Kontor

In the UK a cover letter is often called a covering letter. Use a day-first date, British business English and the appropriate formal sign-off. Pair the letter with your CV; A4 is the customary paper size for a downloaded or printed application.

Applying in the UK? Pair your covering letter with a free UK CV template.

Resume and cover letter templates that match

A cover letter and resume read best as one application. Pick a letter template with a similar font and heading style to your resume, keep both to one reading column, and reuse the same contact details at the top. You can build the resume first and write the letter second.

Browse ATS resume templates Open the free resume builder UK CV templates

Free cover letter samples and examples

A template gives you the layout; a sample shows the words. The preview above uses a short sample letter so you can judge typography, but replace every line with your own evidence for the role. For fuller samples by job and situation, read our cover letter examples, or let the cover letter generator draft one from the job advert.

What you need, and what a template cannot do

To use one you need the job advert and one real skill or achievement; every template creates the same document structure, so the layout decision never costs you content.

What a template cannot do is write the letter or check the facts in it. A clean layout does not make a generic letter specific, and no template can influence how an employer reads an application.

What makes a cover letter template ATS-friendly

These are the rules every template here follows. They are worth knowing because many templates online break one or more of them.

One column, top to bottom

A parser reads a document in the order the text appears. Two columns, sidebars and text boxes can hand it the content in a scrambled order, and the letter may be filed against the wrong job.

No tables, images or icon fonts

A table cell can become an arbitrary string; an image becomes nothing at all. Contact details set as icons can disappear entirely, so the recruiter never sees how to reach you.

Standard fonts and real text

Helvetica, Arial, Georgia, Calibri and Times New Roman render widely, including in a recruiter's preview pane. Custom web fonts can fall back unpredictably and change your line count.

Ordinary headings, no text boxes

Text boxes are often dropped by parsers. Bold text on its own line is read as plain text and looks the same to a human.

Colour only behind text, never as text

A coloured rule or header band is decoration a parser ignores. Coloured text can vanish in monochrome printing and in low-contrast readers.

One page, 250–400 words

Recruiters often skim cover letters, so a short, specific letter is easier to read. Anything past the first page is at risk of going unread.

Want the same checks for your resume? Read the applicant tracking system resume guide.

Cover letter format at a glance

Font size: 10.5–12pt for the body. Smaller than 10pt reads as cramped; larger looks like padding.
Line spacing: 1.5 is a good default. Single spacing makes a letter feel dense, and 2.0 pushes it onto a second page.
Margins: 0.75in–1in on all four sides. Very narrow margins can be clipped when printed.
Paragraphs: Three or four, of three to six lines each. Leave a blank line between them rather than indenting.
File format: PDF preserves the layout you chose. Send .docx only when the posting asks for an editable file.
File name: firstname-lastname-cover-letter.pdf. It is the first thing anyone sees in a download folder.

Where your letter is written and stored

A template controls the layout only. When you use the generator, the resume and advert text you supply are sent to the configured processing service, which returns the draft; your edits, the tone you choose and the finished letter are then stored in this browser. There is no account and no server-side copy of your letter, and the privacy policy lists every key involved.

Cover letter template questions

What is the best cover letter template?

The one that matches the employer's own material. A serif classic (Atlas) suits law, finance and academia; a clean modern layout (Meridian, Signal) suits technology and product; the European format (Kontor) is what German, Dutch and Nordic recruiters commonly expect. When in doubt, choose the plainest one: a simple layout keeps attention on what you wrote.

Are these cover letter templates free?

All nine are free, with no sign-up and no watermark. Export the finished letter as a PDF, a Word document or plain text, as often as you like.

Are they ATS-friendly?

They are built to be. Every template is single-column with selectable text, no tables, no images and no icon fonts, so an applicant tracking system can read the same words a recruiter sees. The coloured-header designs keep the text selectable; only the background is decorative. No template can guarantee how a particular employer's system will treat your application.

What format should a cover letter be in?

One page, 250–400 words, three to four short paragraphs, 10.5–12pt in a standard font, 1.5 line spacing and 0.75–1in margins. Your contact details at the top, the employer's details below, then the date and the letter itself.

What changes between a US and UK cover letter template?

A US template normally uses a month-first date and is paired with a resume. A UK template uses a day-first date, is paired with a CV and usually has a more formal sign-off: Yours sincerely for a named recipient or Yours faithfully when no name is given. Both should stay concise and fit on one page.

What is a covering letter, and is it the same as a cover letter?

Yes. ‘Covering letter’ is the common UK term for what US employers call a cover letter: a one-page letter that accompanies your CV or resume and explains why you fit the role. The templates on this page work for either name.

Do I need a different template for Europe?

For many EU applications, yes, slightly. A sender address block, the recipient's address and a day-first date are common, and 200–300 words is often enough. The Kontor template uses that layout and date format by default.

Can I download a cover letter template in Word or Google Docs?

You download your finished letter as an .docx file, styled with the template you chose, ready to edit in Word or import into Google Docs. We do not ship blank template files, because a letter with placeholder text is only the first of several drafts you still have to write.

Is a cover letter the same as a resume letter or a cover page?

People search for it under several names, including resume letter, CV letter and resume cover page. A cover letter is the written letter that goes with your resume or CV. A cover page is a title sheet and is rarely needed for a job application. These templates make the letter.

Which free cover letter template should I use with my resume?

Pick a template whose style matches your resume: a classic letter with a traditional resume, a clean modern letter with a modern one. Matching fonts and heading style make the two documents look like one application. Browse our ATS resume templates and UK CV templates to pair them.

Does switching template change what I wrote?

No. Templates restyle the letter only — typography, header layout, spacing, date format. Your words, your edits and your paragraph order survive every switch.

Pick the template. We will write the letter.

Paste the job description, add your details, and the generator writes a tailored letter in whichever template you chose — then exports it as a PDF, a Word file or plain text.

Open the cover letter generator See cover letter examples