55 Email Sign-Offs for Every Occasion

June 24, 2026

The sign-off is the last thing a reader sees before your name, and it sets the temperature of everything above it. Here is a working list, sorted by situation, plus a short note on the ones to retire.

Formal and first contact

Use when you have not met, when the recipient is senior, or when the message may be forwarded or filed.

Yours sincerely · Yours faithfully · Kind regards · Best regards · With thanks · Respectfully · Sincerely · With appreciation · Many thanks · Regards

Standard business

The safe middle. Appropriate for the overwhelming majority of work email.

Best · Best wishes · All the best · Thanks · Thank you · Warm regards · Kind regards · Many thanks · Much appreciated · With thanks

Friendly and familiar

For colleagues and contacts you speak to regularly.

Cheers · Thanks again · Speak soon · Talk soon · Catch you later · Have a good one · Until next time · Enjoy the weekend · Take care · All the best

When you need something back

These carry a gentle expectation without nagging.

Looking forward to your thoughts · Let me know what works · Happy to discuss · Over to you · Whenever you get a chance · Any thoughts welcome · Ready when you are · Let me know either way · Awaiting your confirmation · Grateful for a quick reply

One rule: the sign-off should not be doing work the message failed to do. If you need a reply by Thursday, say so in the body. “Awaiting your confirmation” is not a deadline.

Apologies and difficult news

Warm regards · With apologies · Thank you for your patience · With thanks for understanding · Sincerely · Appreciate your patience · Sorry again

Gratitude

Thank you · Thanks so much · Genuinely appreciated · With gratitude · Thanks for your help · Thanks for the quick turnaround · Grateful for your time

Networking and outreach

Looking forward to connecting · Great to meet you · Enjoyed our conversation · Let’s keep in touch

The ones to retire

Sent from my iPhone. Not a sign-off. It is an excuse for typos that stopped working around 2012.
Rgds. Saving four characters at the cost of looking rushed.
Yours truly. Reads as a love letter in a business context.
Thanks in advance. Widely read as pre-emptive pressure.
Best repeated in a thread. Fine once. By the fourth message it is furniture — drop it entirely.

Three practical notes

Match the register you received. If someone signs off “Cheers”, answering with “Yours faithfully” creates distance you probably did not intend.

Drop the sign-off in fast threads. Once a conversation is moving quickly, going straight to your first name — or nothing at all — reads as natural rather than curt.

Keep it separate from your signature block. The sign-off is human and varies by message. The signature is structural and does not. Blurring them is how you end up with “Kind regards” hard-coded into every automated notification your company sends.

If you only remember one thing

Pick two defaults — one formal, one friendly — and use them almost always. The variety above is for the handful of messages a month that need it. Deliberating over the other four hundred is a poor use of anyone’s attention.