Free Font License Checker: Verify Commercial Use and Embedding Rights

How to Use

Font License Checker

Upload a font file or search for license information

Upload & AnalyzeUsage Rights ExplainedCommercial Use Info

Upload Font to Check License

Drop your font file here or click to browse

Choose Font File

Supports: TTF, OTF, WOFF, WOFF2, TTC

Search Font or License

Try popular fonts like: Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat

Quick License Reference

Popular Font Licenses

Font	License	Commercial
Roboto		Yes
Open Sans		Yes
Lato		Yes
Montserrat		Yes
Oswald		Yes
Raleway		Yes
PT Sans		Yes
Source Sans Pro		Yes
Nunito		Yes
Merriweather		Yes
Playfair Display		Yes
Inter		Yes

Disclaimer

This tool provides general information about common font licenses. Always verify the specific license terms from the official font source or foundry before using fonts in commercial projects. License terms can change, and this information may not reflect the most current terms.

Developer & Verifier

Developed by

Marcus Rodriguez

Full-stack developer specializing in web font implementation and performance optimization

Verified by

Sarah Mitchell

Typography expert specializing in font design, web typography, and accessibility

Three Permission Questions Every Font Has to Answer

Before a typeface ships in anything real, three permissions decide whether you are allowed to proceed: may you use it commercially, may you serve it from your own domain through @font-face, and may you alter the file by subsetting or converting it. Those three answers live in different places. The commercial answer comes from the license the font was released under. The embedding answer comes from that license and from the fsType field inside the file. The modification answer comes from the license alone, because no metadata field records it.

This checker reads the copyright, trademark, designer, manufacturer, and license fields out of a TTF, OTF, WOFF, or WOFF2 file, matches the text against 18 known license types, and reports a permissions verdict across commercial use, web embedding, modification, redistribution, and attribution. You can also skip the upload and pick a license type directly, or look up one of 12 widely used Google Fonts families from the built-in reference.

A note on scope: this page is about permissions, not about typographic quality. If your question is how many glyphs a font carries, which Unicode blocks it covers, which OpenType features it exposes, or what its ascender and descender values are, the font analyzer is the right tool. The analyzer tells you what a font contains. This checker tells you what you are allowed to do with it.

Confusion here is widespread and expensive. A 2018 industry survey of 15,745 respondents found that 51% consider font licensing confusing, and statutory damages for infringement in the United States run from $750 to $150,000 per font. The most common mistake is assuming one purchase covers every channel. Desktop, web, application, and ebook rights are sold separately, so read desktop versus web font licensing and the section on commercial versus personal licenses before you deploy.

Turning a License Check Into a Compliance Decision

Identify the license

Run the file through the checker to see the detected license type, the copyright holder, and any Reserved Font Name. A blank result is a signal to go looking for a receipt, not a green light.

Match it to your channel

Name the deployment: marketing site, client brand system, mobile app binary, distributed PDF, or merchandise. Then confirm the license covers that channel specifically, not just some use in general.

Check before you modify

Subsetting and format conversion are modifications. Open licenses permit them. Most proprietary EULAs do not, and the fsType no-subsetting flag is an explicit instruction to stop.

Record the evidence

Keep the license text, the purchase record, and the traffic tier alongside the font file. Foundries audit by crawling live sites, and a metadata screenshot is not proof of purchase.

What the Checker Reports

Commercial Use Verdict

Web Embedding Permission

Modification and Subsetting Rights

Redistribution and Attribution Rules

Automatic License Detection

18 License Types Covered

TTF, OTF, WOFF, WOFF2 Support

Processed In Memory, Never Stored

fsType Embedding Bits, and What Each Value Permits

fsType is a 16-bit field in the OS/2 table of every OpenType font. It is the one place inside the binary where the foundry states how the font may be embedded in documents and applications. The four base values are mutually exclusive, so a font carries one of them. Two further flags, bit 8 and bit 9, are modifiers that stack on top of whichever base value is set.

fsType	Name	What the foundry is stating	Effect on web embedding and conversion
0x0000	Installable Embedding	No embedding restriction is declared in the file.	The file itself raises no objection to @font-face delivery or format conversion. The license still governs.
0x0002	Restricted License Embedding	The font must not be embedded or exchanged without explicit written permission from the owner.	Treat as a stop sign. Do not build a webfont from it without a license that says otherwise. Many conversion tools refuse the file outright.
0x0004	Preview and Print Embedding	The font may be embedded and temporarily loaded so a document can be viewed and printed, but that document must stay read-only.	Fine for a flattened PDF. Not a basis for serving the font on a live site, where anyone can download the file.
0x0008	Editable Embedding	The font may be embedded and temporarily loaded, and the document that carries it may be edited.	The most permissive restricted value for documents. It is still a document permission, not a webfont license.
bit 8 (0x0100)	No subsetting	The font must be embedded whole. Removing unused glyphs before embedding is not permitted.	Rules out subsetting and unicode-range slicing, which is the main lever for cutting webfont payload size.
bit 9 (0x0200)	Bitmap embedding only	Only bitmap glyphs may be embedded. The outlines must not be.	Incompatible with WOFF and WOFF2 web delivery, which carry outline data.

Two clarifications that trip people up. First, fsType is a declaration, not an enforcement mechanism: nothing in a browser reads it, so a font with a restrictive value will still render if you serve it, and you will still be in breach. Second, the license text outranks the field. A font released under the SIL Open Font License but shipped with a Restricted value in its OS/2 table is legally free to use, because the OFL grants the permission the metadata forgot to. Our reference on font embedding bits covers how the field is written and how different applications interpret it.

License Types Compared: Web Embedding, Modification, Subsetting, Redistribution

Most fonts you will meet fall into one of five buckets. The first three are open licenses that permit everything a web workflow needs. The last two are commercial agreements where the permitted scope is whatever you actually paid for.

License	Web embedding	Modification	Subsetting and conversion	Redistribution
SIL OFL 1.1	Yes, self-hosted or via a CDN, commercial projects included	Yes. Rename the result if the family carries a Reserved Font Name	Yes, both	Yes, bundled with the OFL text and copyright notice. Never sold on its own
Apache 2.0	Yes, no attribution needed in your rendered pages	Yes. Significant changes should be stated	Yes, both	Yes, keeping the LICENSE and NOTICE files
MIT	Yes, with essentially no conditions	Yes	Yes, both	Yes, keeping the copyright and permission notice
Proprietary desktop EULA	No. Covers installation, design files, and print only	Usually prohibited outright	Usually prohibited. Converting to WOFF2 is a modification	No. Files may not be handed to clients or contractors
Commercial webfont license	Yes, within a pageview cap or a named set of domains	Limited. Metric and name edits are typically barred	Sometimes. Foundries often supply their own subsets instead	No. Self-hosting is allowed only where the agreement grants it

Google Fonts ships more than 1,900 families, nearly all under the OFL, which is why self-hosting them is unproblematic. For anything bought from a foundry, the questions that decide compliance are the tier and the cap, and those are covered in the guide to open-source and commercial font licenses.

What This Checker Can and Cannot Tell You

Font metadata is not a legal document. The name table entries and the fsType bits record the intent the foundry stated at build time, which makes them an excellent first filter and a poor final authority. The binding terms are the end user license agreement you accepted when you obtained the font. Where the two disagree, the agreement wins, in both directions: a permissive fsType value does not grant you rights the EULA withholds, and a restrictive one does not remove rights an open license already granted.

What it can tell you

Which license family the font declares, and the license URL if one is embedded
Who holds the copyright, and which foundry or designer produced the file
Whether a Reserved Font Name applies to modified builds
What the declared license family normally permits for commercial use, embedding, modification, and redistribution
Enough context to know which question to take to the foundry next

What it cannot tell you

Whether you personally hold a valid license for this file, which only a receipt proves
Your pageview cap, domain count, seat count, or app install allowance, none of which are stored in the file
Whether metadata was left blank, copied from a template, or edited by a previous owner
Whether a trial, educational, or personal-use build was swapped in for the commercial release
Anything that counts as legal advice for your jurisdiction or contract

The practical rule: use the checker to classify the font in seconds, then verify anything that carries real risk against the EULA and your purchase record. If the file reports no license text at all, that is not permission, it is a missing document, and the safest response is to re-source the font from the foundry or replace it with an OFL equivalent. For scenario-by-scenario answers on apps, PDFs, and redistribution, see the section on font license types and what each one covers.

Font Licensing Questions Answered

Is this font free for commercial use?

It depends on the license the file was released under, not on where you downloaded it. Fonts under the SIL Open Font License, Apache 2.0, MIT, or CC0 are free for commercial use, including client work and paid products. Fonts sold under a foundry EULA are commercial only within the tier you bought, and a font marked "free for personal use" is not free for any revenue-generating work. Upload the file here and the checker reports the detected license along with a commercial use verdict.

What is fsType and where does a font store its embedding permissions?

fsType is a 16-bit field in the OS/2 table of a TTF, OTF, WOFF, or WOFF2 file. It records the permission level the foundry intended for embedding the font in documents and applications: 0 means Installable Embedding, 2 means Restricted License Embedding, 4 means Preview and Print Embedding, and 8 means Editable Embedding. Two extra flags sit on top of those values: bit 8 forbids subsetting, and bit 9 permits bitmap embedding only.

What does a Restricted License Embedding bit mean for a web font?

An fsType value of 2 means the foundry states the font must not be embedded or exchanged without their explicit written permission. In practice, treat it as a stop sign for @font-face delivery: do not convert the file to WOFF2 and serve it from your own domain unless you hold a webfont license that says otherwise. Some conversion tools refuse to process fonts with this bit set.

Can a font license checker replace reading the EULA?

No. The name table and the fsType bits express the intent stated by the foundry, and they are a fast, reliable first filter, but the binding terms are the license agreement you accepted when you obtained the font. Metadata can be stale, blank, copied from a template, or edited by whoever last touched the file, and it never records the pageview cap, domain count, or seat count in your specific contract. Use the checker to find out what to look for, then confirm against the EULA or your purchase record.

Does an open-source font license allow subsetting and format conversion?

Yes. The SIL Open Font License, Apache 2.0, and MIT all permit modification, which covers subsetting to a smaller character set and converting between TTF, OTF, WOFF, and WOFF2. Under the OFL you must keep the copyright notice and the license text with any redistributed file, and if the font carries a Reserved Font Name you must rename the modified version. Most proprietary desktop EULAs prohibit both subsetting and conversion.

Do I need a separate license to use a desktop font on a website?

Almost always yes. Desktop, web, application, and ebook rights are sold as separate tiers, and buying one does not grant the others. A desktop license covers installing the font and using it in print or design files; serving the same file through @font-face requires a webfont license, which is usually capped by monthly pageviews or by the number of domains.

What is a Reserved Font Name?

A Reserved Font Name is an SIL Open Font License provision that stops a modified version from carrying the original family name. If a font reserves the name "Roboto", a subset or restyled build must ship under a different name. The rule protects the designer from having a degraded derivative attributed to them, and it applies to modified files you redistribute, not to using the unmodified font on a site.

How is this different from the font analyzer?

The font license checker answers what you are permitted to do with a font: commercial use, web embedding, modification, subsetting, redistribution, and attribution. The font analyzer answers what a font contains: glyph count, Unicode coverage, OpenType features, and vertical metrics. Use the analyzer to judge whether a typeface is technically right for a project, and use this checker before you deploy or convert it.