Legal CBD site: 7 statements a shop must display

A French online shop is subject to three blocks of texts. The first is loi n° 2004-575 du 21 juin 2004 pour la confiance dans l'économie numérique (the French law on confidence in the digital economy), which requires the publisher's identity and contact details to be made accessible. The second is the code de la consommation (the French consumer code), which governs pre-contractual information, price, terms and conditions and withdrawal. The third is the General Data Protection Regulation, for information about personal data.

To those is added a single text specific to hemp: the arrêté du 30 décembre 2021 (the French ministerial order on hemp), which sets the Δ⁹-THC threshold and the growing conditions. The Conseil d'État (France's supreme administrative court), in decision no. 444887 of 29 December 2022, annulled paragraph II of article 1, the one banning the sale of raw flowers and leaves to consumers. It did, on the other hand, uphold the 0.30% threshold, which it held justified for identifying the authorised varieties.

The first four hold for any online business. The fifth is specific to hemp. The last two are general, but quickly verified on a CBD site.

3.1 The publisher's identity

Article 19 of the 2004 law lists what must be easily, directly and permanently accessible: name or company name, address of the establishment, email address, telephone details allowing effective contact, and, for a registered company, the registration number, the capital and the address of the registered office. An individual VAT number is required where the seller is liable for VAT.

The common failing is not the absence of a page but its incompleteness: a company name with no registration number cannot be checked against any public register. Article 6 of the same law requires the publication director and the site's host to be named.

3.2 The right of withdrawal

Article L221-18 of the code de la consommation gives the consumer fourteen days to withdraw from a contract concluded at a distance, without giving a reason. The period runs from receipt of the goods for a sale, and from conclusion of the contract for a service. Article L221-24 requires the seller to refund all sums paid, delivery costs included, within fourteen days of being notified.

The exceptions are listed exhaustively at article L221-28. Two concern hemp: goods liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly, and goods unsealed by the consumer that cannot be returned for reasons of hygiene or health protection. A site relying on one of those exceptions must say so before the order, since article L221-5 requires the consumer to be told of the circumstances in which this right does not apply or is lost.

3.3 The Δ⁹-THC content and the batch

Article 1, I of the arrêté du 30 décembre 2021 authorises only Cannabis sativa L. varieties listed in the Union common catalogue or the French catalogue, whose Δ⁹-THC content is no higher than 0.30%. Paragraph III applies the same limit to hemp extracts. The figure is therefore the same for a flower and for a resin, and our article on the 0.30% threshold sets out its exact reach.

In practice, the useful statement is not the phrase "compliant with the legislation" but the pairing of a measured value with a batch number. A content figure shown without a batch cannot be checked: it points to no document.

3.4 The absence of any health promise

Article L121-2 of the code de la consommation classes as misleading any commercial practice resting on claims, indications or presentations that are false or liable to mislead, in particular as to the substantial qualities of the goods, their properties and the results expected from their use. A product that does not have the status of a health product cannot therefore be credited with an effect on the body, neither in a product page nor in a testimonial the shop puts forward.

1. Open the legal notices page from the footer. Note the company name and the registration number, then check both against a public company register.
2. Open the general terms and conditions of sale and search for the word "withdrawal". The period stated must be at least fourteen days, and the model form must be supplied or reachable.
3. On a product page, check that the price is quoted inclusive of taxes and that the treatment of delivery costs is specified before the order is confirmed.
4. On the same page, look for the Δ⁹-THC content and the batch number. With no batch, the value cannot be verified.
5. Read the page looking for any promise of an effect on the body. Its presence is the clearest signal of a site to walk away from.

None of those five points calls for legal training: they compare what is displayed with what the text requires.

The legal notices page carries the company name, the legal form, the capital, the address of the registered office, the registration number, the intra-EU VAT number, the publication director and the host. The general terms and conditions of sale cover the products, the price inclusive of all taxes excluding delivery costs specified before confirmation, the order, payment, delivery, the fourteen-day withdrawal right under article L221-18, the statutory guarantees of conformity and against hidden defects, then disputes.

On the product side, the our laboratory page describes a batch's journey: a sample sent to an independent laboratory accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard, cannabinoids and terpenes quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography, the 0.30% threshold checked before the listing goes live, a certificate published batch by batch. Recurring questions about orders and delivery are gathered in the FAQ, and the CBD flowers catalogue shows, for each reference, the measured value and the matching batch.

Three statements circulate as though they were compulsory, when none of the texts cited here provides for them.

• A minimum age. No French text sets a legal age for buying CBD, unlike alcohol or tobacco. The phrase "adults only" is a voluntary commercial undertaking, not the application of a rule.
• A quality label. There is no public CBD label in France. What carries weight is the certificate of analysis from an accredited laboratory, attached to a batch number.
• The phrase "product not intended for ingestion". It follows from the food status of hemp extracts, not from a display obligation. It remains useful, but its absence is not in itself an offence.

Telling these habits apart from the seven required statements avoids judging a site against criteria with no basis in any text.

• Légifrance, loi n° 2004-575 du 21 juin 2004, article 19 (accessed 16 September 2026)
• Légifrance, code de la consommation, article L221-18
• Légifrance, code de la consommation, "Right of withdrawal" section (L221-18 to L221-28)
• Légifrance, code de la consommation, pre-contractual information (L221-5 to L221-7)
• Légifrance, code de la consommation, article L121-2
• Légifrance, arrêté du 30 décembre 2021, article 1
• Conseil d'État, decision of 29 December 2022, no. 444887
• CNIL, the General Data Protection Regulation