Free fax cover sheet templates.
Three printable cover sheets — standard, confidential and urgent. Each one fits on a single page, so it costs you one page of the fax and no more. No email address, no account, no watermark.
Pick the one that fits.
Standard
Everyday business faxes
The plain one. Every field a recipient needs, and a short note telling anyone who gets it by mistake what to do.
Download PDFConfidential
Medical records, legal documents
Adds a confidentiality notice covering information protected by law, including health information under HIPAA.
Download PDFUrgent
Time-critical filings and authorisations
Flags the fax for immediate attention and asks the recipient to call if a page is missing rather than wait.
Download PDFSending from HelpMeFax rather than a machine? You do not need any of these — there is an optional cover page built into the send form that is prepended as the first page of your fax. Send a fax for $2.99 and fill it in on screen.
What do you put on a fax cover sheet?
Eight things. The page count is the one people get wrong, and it is the one that matters most — it is how a recipient knows whether a page went missing.
- Who it is from — your name and organization.
- Who it is for — the person's name, not just the department. A fax addressed to nobody sits on a shared machine.
- Both fax numbers — theirs and yours, so a reply has somewhere to go.
- A phone number someone answers — the single most useful field on the sheet when something goes wrong.
- The date.
- Total pages, including the cover sheet — write "including this one" so it cannot be misread.
- A subject line — what this is about, in a few words.
- A misdirection notice — what someone should do if it reached them by mistake. This is the part that turns a wrong number from a silent problem into a phone call.
Faxing patient records? The cover sheet is one of several safeguards — how to fax medical records walks through verifying the number, sending the minimum necessary and getting a Business Associate Agreement signed first. Replying to a tax notice? See how to fax the IRS.
Cover sheet questions.
Eight things: who it is from, who it is for, both fax numbers, a phone number someone actually answers, the date, the total page count including the cover sheet itself, a subject line, and a short notice telling anyone who receives it by mistake what to do. A message box is optional but useful — it saves the recipient opening the attachment to find out what the fax is about.
Not by law in general. It is required by many organizations' own procedures, and under HIPAA it counts as one of the reasonable safeguards you are expected to apply when you disclose protected health information by fax (45 CFR 164.530(c)). The page count is the practical reason to use one either way: it is how a recipient knows whether a page went missing in transmission.
Yes — write the total including the cover sheet itself, and say so on the sheet. "3 pages including this one" is unambiguous; "3 pages" is not, and a recipient who receives three pages cannot tell whether a fourth is missing.
No. HelpMeFax has an optional cover page built into the send form: fill it in and it is prepended as the first page of your fax, so there is nothing to print or scan. These downloads are for faxing from a machine, or for anyone who wants a blank form to hand-fill.
Yes. Whether you use one of these or the built-in cover page, it is a page of the fax and counts toward the page band you are billed at. A 4-page document with a cover sheet is 5 pages, which is still $4.99 on the 6–10 band only if it reaches six — a 1–5 page fax is $2.99.
That the contents are confidential, may contain information protected by law, are intended only for the named recipient, and that anyone else must not read, copy, use or share them and should call immediately and destroy what they received. The Confidential template above uses that wording. A cover sheet is one safeguard, not a compliance program — sending protected health information also needs a signed Business Associate Agreement with your fax provider.
They are PDFs designed to be printed and filled in by hand, or typed into with any PDF reader that supports adding text. They carry no HelpMeFax branding beyond one small line at the foot, so they are usable on your own letterhead workflow.
Skip the printer entirely.
Send the fax from your browser with a cover page filled in on screen. $2.99 for 1–5 pages, no subscription.