Instagram giveaway rules, including the state laws

An Instagram giveaway is legal and allowed as long as you follow two sets of rules. Instagram's own promotion guidelines ask for official rules and two short statements about Instagram. State law asks that entry is free, and in some states it wants you to register when the prizes are big. For a typical small-business giveaway, a $50 gift card or a free service, you can do all of it in an afternoon.

Free to enter, decided by chance

Many Instagram giveaways are sweepstakes: people enter, and a winner is drawn at random. The state laws we checked for this article are written for exactly that kind of promotion, and both assume the entry is free.

• Florida makes it unlawful to require an entry fee, payment or proof of purchase as a condition of entering a game promotion.
• New York applies its registration law to promotions that offer prizes "as determined by chance, without any consideration".

So "buy a coffee this week and you are entered" is a different and riskier thing than "follow us and comment to enter". If you want to reward customers who buy, the safe pattern is a free way in that counts just as much, and a lawyer's look at the wording first.

A contest is something else: the winner is picked for the best photo, recipe or story, not by luck. Contests are judged, so the rules need to say who judges and how.

What Instagram requires

Instagram's Promotion Guidelines are short. If you use Instagram to run or announce a promotion, you are responsible for it being lawful, including:

• the official rules
• the offer terms and who can enter, for example age and where they live
• following the laws that apply to the promotion and the prizes, including registration where it is required

Two more rules are specific to Instagram:

1. Every promotion must include a complete release of Instagram by each person who enters, and an acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.
2. You must not tag content inaccurately or ask people to. Instagram's own example: do not encourage people to tag themselves in photos they are not in.

Instagram also says it will not help you run the promotion, and that you do it at your own risk. In practice, the release and the acknowledgement go into one line of your caption and your rules, as in the example further down.

When a state wants you to register

For a small prize, neither state below asks you to file anything. The paperwork starts above $5,000 in total prizes:

Florida also requires the rules in all advertising copy. An ad may carry only the material terms if it gives a website, a toll-free number or a mailing address where the full rules can be found for the whole promotion.

Neither rule is new: Florida's law dates from 1971 and was last amended in 2022, and both were in force as we wrote this. These are the two states we checked at the source. Other states have their own laws on sweepstakes and lotteries, so if your giveaway is open nationwide with a large prize, check with the attorney general's office in your state or with a lawyer. The easiest way to stay out of registration in these two is to keep the total value of all prizes at $5,000 or less.

Official rules on one page

A small giveaway does not need a ten-page document. It needs one page, linked in your bio or in the caption, that answers what an entrant would ask:

• who runs it: your business name and city
• start and end date and time, with the time zone
• who can enter: for example, US residents 18 or older, not employees or their families
• how to enter, and that no purchase is necessary
• how many entries a person can have
• how and when the winner is picked: a random draw, or judged with the criteria
• the prize, its value, and how many there are
• how the winner is told, and how long they have to answer before you pick someone else
• the release of Instagram and the acknowledgement that Instagram is not involved

A caption, before and after

Say you run a bakery and want to give away a birthday cake.

Before: "GIVEAWAY. Like, follow, tag 3 friends and share to your story to win a free cake. Winner Friday."

After: "We are giving away one custom birthday cake (value $65). To enter: follow us and comment with the flavor you would pick. One entry per person. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 18+ who can pick up in Austin. Ends Friday, January 30 at 6 pm CT. Winner drawn at random and notified by DM. Full rules: link in bio. This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram. By entering you release Instagram from any liability."

The second version is longer and it works better: people know what they can win, by when, and whether they qualify. Put the main points on the image too, and repeat the end date in your stories. Our Instagram story ideas include a few ways to do that.

If people have to post something themselves to enter, with your hashtag, ask them to make the contest clear in it. The FTC's answers on endorsements say a hashtag like #XYZ_Rocks is not enough to show a post was part of a contest, while putting the word "contest" or "sweepstakes" into the hashtag, as in #XYZ_Contest, should be.

After the draw

• Pick the winner the way your rules say. A screen recording of a random comment picker is a simple record.
• Message the winner from your business account only, and never ask a winner for a payment or card details. Say so in your caption, so entrants can tell your message from a copycat.
• Announce the winner, with their permission, and thank everyone who entered.
• Keep the rules, the entry list and the proof of delivery for a while. If you registered in New York or Florida, file the winners list on time.

This is general information, not legal advice. For a large prize or a giveaway open to the whole country, check with your state attorney general's office or a lawyer before you post.

Giveaways work best on a feed that is already alive

A giveaway brings a wave of new followers who look at your last few posts and decide whether to stay. If the posts before it are three months old, most of them leave again. If February is your big month, our Valentine's Day post ideas work well around a giveaway too. When you want the regular posting off your plate, our plans turn the photos you send into posts and publish them on schedule. See the plans.