The personal notation is one of the least-discussed elements of a business letter, yet it does a job no other line can: it instructs every person who handles the envelope that the contents are strictly for the named recipient. Use it correctly and your confidential correspondence stays sealed. Use it carelessly, or skip it when you need it, and you hand control over to whoever happens to be sorting the mail that day.
What the personal notation is
A personal notation is a short instruction, typically PERSONAL, CONFIDENTIAL, or PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL, that appears on both the envelope and the letter itself. It tells mail-room staff, receptionists, and administrative assistants that they should not open or read the document. The notation belongs to a family of special instructions that also includes the attention line and the reference line, but it serves a different purpose: it protects access rather than routing the document toward a particular person.
The distinction between PERSONAL and CONFIDENTIAL is worth knowing. Personal means the letter contains private information meant only for the named individual. Confidential means the content is sensitive in a business or legal sense, not necessarily private to that individual. In practice, many writers combine them as PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL when both conditions apply, such as a letter discussing a disciplinary matter or a formal legal notice.
Where to place the personal notation
Placement follows a strict rule. On the letter itself, the notation sits at the left margin, two lines below the date line and two lines above the inside address. It appears in full capitals, with no full stop at the end. That's it. Nothing before it on the same line, nothing after it on the same line.
A correctly formatted block looks like this:
15 October 2026
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
Ms Rebecca Tran
Chief Financial Officer
Meridian Solutions Ltd
Level 12, 400 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000On the envelope, the notation goes in the top-left corner or two lines above the recipient's address block, again in full capitals. If you're printing on a window envelope, check that the notation doesn't fall behind the window and disappear. Handlers need to see it before they decide whether to open the envelope, not after.
Some writers place the notation below the inside address, just above the salutation. Don't. By that point it's too late to instruct anyone: the reader is already in the letter. The notation's purpose is to reach the person handling the sealed envelope, and that means it must appear high on the page.
Common mistakes with personal notations
Writers make four mistakes with this element more than any other.
- Using mixed case instead of full capitals. "Personal and Confidential" reads as a heading. "PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL" reads as an instruction. The visual difference matters.
- Putting it on the letter but forgetting the envelope. If the notation only appears inside the letter, the envelope will be opened by whoever processes incoming mail. The notation on the letter is then pointless.
- Using it on every letter as a habit. Overuse trains handlers to ignore it. Reserve personal notations for letters that genuinely require restricted access.
- Adding a full stop after the notation. PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL. looks like a sentence. PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL reads like an instruction. Drop the full stop.
When to use it
Use a personal notation when the letter contains information that would cause harm, embarrassment, or a legal problem if it were read by anyone other than the named recipient. Disciplinary letters, redundancy notices, medical correspondence, legal claims, salary discussions, and performance reviews all qualify. A letter congratulating a client on a contract renewal doesn't.
If you're unsure whether the letter warrants the notation, ask yourself whether you'd be comfortable with a mail-room assistant or a shared administrator reading it. If the answer is no, use the notation. If you'd have no objection, skip it.
It's also worth noting that a personal notation is not a legal guarantee of confidentiality. It's an instruction that most professional organisations follow as a matter of protocol. If a letter contains information protected by law, such as legally privileged advice, the notation should be paired with the appropriate legal language in the body of the letter.
How the personal notation fits the rest of the letter
The personal notation works alongside other structural elements. If your letter also uses a reference line, the reference line comes after the inside address, not before it. The personal notation always appears before the inside address. Keep the sequence clear: date, notation, inside address, reference line, salutation. Switching the order creates confusion about what the notation is actually doing.
Similarly, if the letter is being copied to additional recipients, the copy notation sits at the very bottom of the letter, after the enclosure line if there is one. A letter marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL can still carry a copy notation, but be deliberate about who you're copying. Routing a confidential letter to three people and then marking it personal undercuts the notation entirely.
A note on digital equivalents
The personal notation originated with physical mail, but its logic applies in digital contexts too. Email clients offer a Sensitivity setting (marked Private or Confidential in Outlook) that functions as the digital version of this notation. It doesn't prevent forwarding, just as a paper notation doesn't physically bar anyone from opening an envelope, but it signals the same intent. For genuinely sensitive digital correspondence, use the sensitivity setting and consider whether email is the right channel at all.
For physical letters, the notation remains the clearest, most universally understood way to mark a document for the recipient's eyes only. Get the placement right, use full capitals, and put it on both the letter and the envelope. That's the whole job.