Resignation letter generator

Your manager shouldn’t find out you’re leaving from an email. Ask for a short one-to-one or a call, tell them in a sentence or two, and say the letter will follow the same day. The conversation is what keeps the relationship; the letter is the record.

After the meeting, send the letter to your manager and copy HR if your company has an HR team. Keep a copy with the date you sent it: your notice period runs from it, and you’ll want it if there’s ever a disagreement about your last day or your final pay.

The right notice period depends on where you work and what you signed:

• United States. Most jobs are “at will”, so two weeks’ notice is a professional convention rather than a legal rule. Some contracts, senior roles and union agreements ask for more; check your offer letter and the employee handbook.
• United Kingdom. Your contract sets the notice period, often one month and up to three for senior roles. If the contract says nothing, the legal minimum after a month in the job is one week.
• Germany and the rest of Europe. Notice comes from the law, collective agreements and your contract. In Germany the basic statutory period is four weeks, to the 15th or the end of a calendar month, and many contracts set longer.

Your employer can agree to let you go earlier, or put you on garden leave (paid, but away from work), but they don’t have to. If you need an earlier date, ask for it in the meeting instead of writing it into the letter as a fact.

A resignation letter needs four things: that you’re resigning, from which role, your last working day and an offer to help with the handover. A line of thanks is optional, but it costs nothing and people remember it.

Leave out:

• Complaints. The letter goes into your HR file and may be read long after you’ve gone. Save feedback for an exit interview, and keep it constructive there too.
• A detailed reason. You don’t have to explain why you’re leaving. “I’ve accepted a new role”, or nothing at all, is fine.
• Your new salary or employer, unless you’re happy for everyone to know.
• Conditions. “I’ll stay if…” turns a resignation into a negotiation. If you’re open to a counteroffer, have that conversation before you resign.

Sometimes you can’t work your notice: a health problem, a family emergency, an unsafe workplace, wages that haven’t been paid. A short, factual letter is enough, and the reason can stay private.

Check your contract before you send it. In the US, leaving an at-will job without notice usually costs you goodwill rather than money, although whether unused vacation is paid out depends on your state and your employer’s policy. In the UK and much of Europe, leaving without the agreed notice can breach your contract, and an employer could in principle claim the cost of covering your notice period, although that’s rare. If you’re leaving because of how your employer has treated you, talk to an employment adviser first: how and when you resign can affect any claim you make later.

Either way, return company equipment quickly and ask in writing how your final pay will be handled.

Resigning sometimes produces a better offer from your current employer. Decide before the meeting whether anything would make you stay, and be honest with yourself about why you started looking. If the reason was pay alone, a counteroffer can fix it. If it was the manager, the work or the lack of progress, more money rarely changes that for long.

Keep it plain. The subject should say what the email is, so it’s easy to find later:

• Resignation – Jordan Lee
• Resignation – Jordan Lee, Account Executive
• Notice of resignation: last day November 27
• Letter of resignation – Jordan Lee (Sales team)
• Resignation effective immediately – Jordan Lee
• Thank you, and my resignation

Once you’ve resigned, the next questions come from your new employer and from future interviewers. Our guide on how to explain your reason for leaving a job has wording for each situation, and if you’re leaving without a new job lined up, see how to explain a gap on your CV.