A cc letter sample is easiest to follow when you see the finished shape first: the “cc:” notation goes at the very bottom of the letter, below your signature and below any enclosure line, with each copied recipient’s name and title on its own line. Here is what a complete ending looks like.
Sincerely,
Jane Doe
Director of Operations
Enclosure: Contract Amendment No. 3
cc: Michael Torres, General Counsel
Where the CC Line Belongs on the Page
Type a lowercase “cc” followed by a colon, one space, then the name. An uppercase “CC:” is equally acceptable in formal business settings. Pick one style and keep it consistent through the letter.
The cc line is the last thing on the page. Enclosures describe what is physically in the envelope; the cc line describes who else received the letter, so it sits below the enclosure notation. If there are no enclosures and no typist initials, the cc line simply follows the signature block after a couple of blank lines.
Order of the End Notations
Business letters often stack several notations under the signature. Top to bottom, the standard order is:
- Typist initials, with the author’s initials in uppercase followed by the typist’s in lowercase (for example, JD/mt). Skip this if you typed the letter yourself.
- Enclosure notation. Write “Enclosure,” “Enclosures (3),” or list each item by name.
- The cc line, listing every person receiving a copy.
Each notation starts on its own line. The enclosure notation typically sits about three lines below the signature or one line below the typist initials, and the cc line follows directly after.
Listing More Than One Recipient
Stack additional names on their own lines, aligned under the first name so the column reads cleanly:
cc: Sarah Kim, Chief Financial Officer
David Chen, Project Manager
Rachel Adams, Outside Counsel
Two ordering methods work. Alphabetical order by last name is the default for most business correspondence where no one outranks anyone else in the context of the letter. Hierarchical order by seniority fits government, military, and highly structured corporate settings where rank carries weight. Pick one approach and use it across your correspondence so recipients don’t read meaning into their position on the list.
Add each person’s title or role after the name. A bare name can cause confusion in large organizations where two people share a surname, and the title tells the primary recipient why that person was copied.
Showing Who Receives the Enclosures
When the letter includes contracts, exhibits, or reports, the primary recipient’s enclosure notation makes clear what is in their envelope. The copied recipients may or may not get those same documents. Say so on the cc line itself:
cc: Michael Torres, General Counsel (with enclosures)
Rachel Adams, Outside Counsel (without enclosures)
This small detail prevents follow-up calls from people wondering whether they should have received the attachments. In legal or compliance correspondence where the enclosures are the whole point of the letter, skipping the notation reliably creates confusion.
CC in Email
Email clients handle the mechanics. The “To” field holds the primary recipient, and the “CC” field holds everyone who should see the message but isn’t expected to respond. Every address in both fields is visible to every other recipient, so treat the CC field as fully transparent.
Copied recipients often feel pressure to Reply All, which can turn a routine update into a long thread. If your message doesn’t need input from the copied parties, say so in the body: “Copying Sarah for visibility; no action needed on her end.” That one line sets expectations and cuts unnecessary replies.
When you send a digital follow-up to a printed letter, match the CC list exactly. If the printed letter copied three people, the email should copy the same three. Inconsistencies between the two versions raise questions about who was actually notified.
BCC and When to Use It
BCC stands for blind carbon copy. Names in this field are invisible to every other recipient. In a printed letter, a BCC notation appears only on the sender’s file copy, never on the version the primary recipient sees.
BCC has two legitimate uses. It protects privacy when the same letter or email goes to a large group of people who don’t know each other, since a visible CC line would expose everyone’s contact information. It also keeps your file copy complete by recording who received the document even when discretion requires hiding that from the primary recipient.
Handle BCC carefully in confidential or legally sensitive correspondence. In the attorney-client context, including an outside third party on privileged correspondence, whether through CC or BCC, can waive the privilege entirely. Courts generally hold that disclosing a privileged communication to someone outside the attorney-client relationship destroys the protection unless a narrow exception applies. If you’re unsure whether copying someone could jeopardize a privilege, ask your attorney before sending.
Common Formatting Mistakes
A few errors show up repeatedly, and all are easy to avoid.
- Burying the cc line in the body of the letter. It belongs at the very end, after the signature and any other end notations. Placing it mid-letter or directly after the closing paragraph makes it easy to miss.
- Switching capitalization between letters. Choose “cc:” or “CC:” and use it every time.
- Listing names without titles. A bare “cc: David Chen” forces the primary recipient to guess who David Chen is and why he matters. A role removes the guesswork.
- Copying someone to apply pressure. Looping in a boss or authority figure as a form of escalation reads as passive-aggressive. If the situation warrants escalation, address that person in a separate communication.
A cc line is a transparency tool. Accurate, clearly formatted, and limited to people who need the information, it does its job without drawing attention to itself.