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Reference Letter Templates

References are frequently requested, but not always so easy to write. That’s why we’ve compiled a library of free reference letter templates for banking, business, property and rentals, employment, education, and more. Easy to download, print, or share.

Reference Letter Templates—Good To Go

Don’t spend your valuable time writing those references from scratch. Instead, you can use our reference letter templates to give you a head start. You can even e-sign your document before downloading to make your edits. Quick, easy, and professional.

Standard Reference Letters

Get access to a host of standard reference letter templates to suit your needs, with templates for banking, business, character references, and the basics. Straightforward, easy to use, and quick to e-sign, download, share, or print.

Employment Reference Letters

Employment reference letters can go from super simple to extremely complex. Use our templates for nursing, employers, and employees to create documents that suit your situation. Easy to download, e-sign, and quick to complete.

Rental Reference Letter

Rental reference letter templates that are ready to go whenever you need them. Remove the hassle and administrative burden from writing references and use our templates for landlords, as well as professional and personal references.

Academic Reference Letter

Academic reference letters can make or break a candidate’s admissions process. Use our templates for grad school candidates and teachers to take the fuss out of writing these important documents from scratch.

Free Reference Letter Templates to Download & Print

Reference letters can be a challenging part of getting things done. You might wonder if your letter is too long or too short. Maybe it’s too impersonal, not personal enough, or maybe not as professional as you’d like it to be? Does it suit the context of the situation and are you offering enough motivation for the successful candidate?

These are all really good questions and they show that you care. Using our templates will help you to write even better reference letters, because you won’t have to start from scratch. What’s more is that they’re totally free, easy to use, and quick to download, share, or print.

Who Are These Reference Letter Templates For?

Our reference letter templates cover a range of areas, such as employment, academia, and rentals. That means that they were developed primarily for folks in these different areas, like employers, folks in human resources or small businesses, teachers, schools, property owners or managers, and the like.

However, anyone could at some point be asked to write a reference letter and it could be for any situation imaginable. That’s why we also have standard templates that will help you to craft your letter the way you want. Super easy to use, e-sign, and download. You can even share or print your document to be stored in hardcopy format.

Professional Reference Letter Templates

Our reference letter templates were created both for specific professional areas and for folks who need something basic to just get started. Either way, our templates are developed so that anyone who uses them has the opportunity to create reference letters that look professional regardless of their industry or their specific situation.

All you need to do is open the template you want to use, e-sign if you want, and then download, share, or print. In fact, if you’d rather download and save the template to use for another time, you can do that, too!

Any Questions?

  • Do I need to pay to use a template?

    Nope, you won’t need to pay a dime for any of our templates. We’re super passionate about making document work easy for everyone, which is why we’ve absorbed the cost and made our documents totally free to use.


  • Can I reduce the size of a template?

    Need to compress your template to an email-ready size? Easy! Our editor offers you two compress options to reduce the size of your document without affecting its quality.


  • Should reference letters be e-signed?

    It may not be essential for reference letters to be signed, but it’s recommended that they are, whether that’s with an e-signature or with ink on a paper document. To e-sign your document, simply open our eSign tool to get started.


  • Must I register for an account before I get started?

    You’re welcome to use our reference letter templates for free, but you may need to register for a free account. By registering, you’ll have free access to our entire library of templates and limited access to all our document tools.


  • Is Smallpdf safe for me to use?

    Absolutely. We’re obsessed with security, which is why we’re GDPR and eIDAS compliant, plus ISO/IEC 27001 certified. Our website is secure to use and we offer TLS encryption on all document transfers.


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