What are the best free fonts for commercial use?

The best free fonts for commercial use are open-licensed families such as Inter, Source Sans 3, IBM Plex, Lato, Work Sans and Public Sans for sans-serif text, Source Serif 4, Literata, Lora and Merriweather for serif text, and JetBrains Mono or IBM Plex Mono for code. Most of these are released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), which lets you use them in websites, apps, logos, print and products you sell, without paying or crediting the designer. What you can't do is sell the font files on their own. Google Fonts is the easiest place to find them, because everything in its library is published under an open licence. The word "free" on a random download site, by contrast, often means free for personal use only.

Using a font without the right licence is a real legal and financial risk, and it's an easy mistake to make when fonts are a click away. In this article you'll learn what makes a font free for commercial use, how the common open licences differ, a shortlist of reliable fonts by role, where to download them safely, how to check the licence inside a font file, and how to self-host open fonts properly.

What "Free for Commercial Use" Means

A font is software, and its licence decides what you can do with it. For a font to be genuinely free for commercial use, the licence has to allow:

• Embedding on websites: Serving the font with @font-face to visitors.
• Use in commercial work: Client sites, adverts, packaging, merchandise and products you sell.
• Use in apps and documents: Bundling the font in a mobile app or embedding it in a PDF.
• No fees or per-view limits: No charge based on traffic, installs or seats.

Fonts labelled "free for personal use", "demo" or "non-commercial" fail these tests. They're fine for a school project, but using them on a business website or logo usually means buying a licence.

Common Open Font Licences

SIL Open Font License 1.1

The OFL is the most common licence for free fonts and the one used by most of the Google Fonts library. In plain terms:

• You can use the font for any purpose, commercial or not, including logos and products for sale.
• You can embed it in websites, apps, PDFs and games, and bundle it with software.
• You can modify it, for example subsetting or adding glyphs.
• You can't sell the font files by themselves.
• If you modify it and distribute the result, the derivative must stay under the OFL and, if the original declares Reserved Font Names, the modified version must use a different name.

Subsetting a font for web delivery is technically a modification. In practice this is very widely done with OFL fonts, but if the font declares a Reserved Font Name, check the licence and the project's FAQ; some foundries explicitly state that web subsets are fine.

Apache License 2.0

Some fonts, historically including several early Google families, use Apache 2.0. It allows commercial use, modification and redistribution. When you redistribute the files you must include the licence and keep any notices.

Ubuntu Font Licence and Others

The Ubuntu fonts use their own permissive licence, and some foundries publish under custom free licences such as those used on Fontshare. These can be generous, but terms vary, so read each one rather than assuming it matches the OFL.

Licence	Commercial use	Modify	Sell fonts alone	Key condition
SIL OFL 1.1	Yes	Yes	No	Derivatives stay OFL, respect Reserved Font Names
Apache 2.0	Yes	Yes	Permitted under terms	Include licence and notices when redistributing
Ubuntu Font Licence	Yes	Yes	No	Derivatives must be renamed
"Free for personal use"	No	Usually no	No	Commercial licence required

Best Free Sans-Serif Fonts

Sans-serifs cover most interface and body text needs. These are all openly licensed, well maintained and available as variable fonts or with a full set of weights.

• Inter: Designed for screens, with a large x-height, many OpenType features including tabular figures, and a variable version. A safe default for products and dashboards.
• Source Sans 3: Adobe's humanist sans, readable and slightly warmer than Inter. Pairs with Source Serif 4 and Source Code Pro.
• IBM Plex Sans: Distinctive but professional, part of a superfamily with serif, mono and condensed members.
• Lato: Semi-rounded, friendly and very widely used. Good for marketing sites.
• Work Sans: Grotesque-inspired, slightly wide, works well for headings and short body text.
• Public Sans: Created for the United States government's design system, neutral and highly legible.
• Atkinson Hyperlegible: Designed with the Braille Institute for low-vision readers, with strongly differentiated letterforms.
• DM Sans and Manrope: Geometric options popular for modern product and startup sites.

Best Free Serif Fonts

• Source Serif 4: A transitional serif with optical sizes, comfortable for long-form text.
• Literata: Originally commissioned for Google Play Books, designed for long reading on screens.
• Lora: A contemporary serif with calligraphic roots, good for blogs and editorial sites.
• Merriweather: Sturdy with a large x-height, readable even at smaller sizes.
• EB Garamond: A revival of Claude Garamond's types, best for literary or classical tones at generous sizes.
• Fraunces: A soft, characterful variable serif aimed at display use, with optical size and other axes.
• Playfair Display: High-contrast and elegant for large headlines. Avoid it for body text.

Best Free Monospace and Display Fonts

For code and data:

• JetBrains Mono: Tall x-height, clear distinctions between similar characters, optional ligatures.
• IBM Plex Mono: A friendly mono that matches IBM Plex Sans and Serif.
• Source Code Pro: Clean and neutral, pairs with the Source family.

For headlines and branding:

• Bebas Neue: A condensed all-caps display face, common for posters and bold headings.
• Archivo Black and Archivo: A grotesque family with a heavy display weight and widths.
• Space Grotesk: A quirky, technical sans for headlines.

Being popular has a cost: many of these fonts are used everywhere. If distinctiveness matters for your brand, consider less common open fonts or a paid typeface for headings only.

Where to Download Free Fonts Safely

• Google Fonts: Every family is published under an open licence, shown on the font's page. You can use the hosted service or download the files to self-host.
• The designer's or foundry's repository: Many open fonts are developed on GitHub, often with newer releases than other sources. The licence file sits in the repository.
• Adobe Fonts: Not free in the open-source sense. Fonts are licensed through an Adobe subscription and served from Adobe's service, with terms tied to that subscription.
• Font Squirrel: Curates fonts it describes as free for commercial use, but read each font's licence before relying on that.
• General free-font sites: Many list fonts as "free" that are personal-use only. Treat them with caution and always find the actual licence text.

How to Check a Font's Licence

Never rely on a download page's label alone. Check the licence file that comes with the font and the metadata inside the font itself.

Read the Included Licence

Open-licensed downloads normally include a file such as OFL.txt, LICENSE.txt or LICENSE. If there's no licence file, don't assume the font is free.

Inspect the Font's Name Table

Fonts store licence details in the name table: ID 13 is the licence description and ID 14 is the licence URL. You can read them with the fontTools Python library (pip install fonttools):

import sys
from fontTools.ttLib import TTFont

for path in sys.argv[1:]:
    font = TTFont(path)
    name = font["name"]
    print(path)
    print("  Family: ", name.getDebugName(1))
    print("  Licence:", (name.getDebugName(13) or "not set")[:90])
    print("  URL:    ", name.getDebugName(14) or "not set")
    print("  fsType: ", font["OS/2"].fsType)

Save it as check_licence.py and run it:

python3 check_licence.py fonts/Inter-Variable.ttf fonts/MysteryFont.otf

fonts/Inter-Variable.ttf
  Family:  Inter Variable
  Licence: This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1. Thi
  URL:     https://openfontlicense.org
  fsType:  0
fonts/MysteryFont.otf
  Family:  Mystery Font
  Licence: Free for personal use only. Contact the author for a commercial licence.
  URL:     not set
  fsType:  2

The fsType field holds embedding permission flags. A value of 0 means installable embedding with no restrictions. Other values, such as 2 for restricted embedding, indicate the vendor intended limits. These flags are a hint, not the licence itself, but a restrictive value on a font sold as "free" is a red flag.

Keep a Record

For client work, keep a short record of each font, its source, its licence and the date you downloaded it. If a question ever comes up, you can show the font was used within its terms.

Self-Hosting an Open Font Correctly

Self-hosting gives you control over caching and privacy. With an OFL font, keep the licence with the files:

public/
  fonts/
    inter/
      InterVariable.woff2
      InterVariable-Italic.woff2
      OFL.txt

Then declare the faces:

@font-face {
  font-family: "Inter";
  src: url("/fonts/inter/InterVariable.woff2") format("woff2");
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

@font-face {
  font-family: "Inter";
  src: url("/fonts/inter/InterVariable-Italic.woff2") format("woff2");
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: italic;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: "Inter", system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif;
}

If you convert TTF files to WOFF2 yourself, fontTools can do it (WOFF2 support needs the brotli extra):

pip install "fonttools[woff]"
python3 -c "from fontTools.ttLib import TTFont; f = TTFont('Inter.ttf'); f.flavor = 'woff2'; f.save('Inter.woff2')"

Format conversion and subsetting for your own site are routine with open fonts. Renaming a font or distributing a modified version publicly is where the Reserved Font Name rules apply.

A Quick Licence Checklist

Before using any free font commercially, confirm:

1. The licence text is present and names a known open licence or explicitly allows commercial use.
2. Web embedding, apps and logos are allowed if you need them.
3. You downloaded it from the designer, the foundry or a reputable library.
4. You're not selling the font files themselves.
5. If you've modified and are distributing the font, you've followed the naming rules.

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FAQ: Free Fonts for Commercial Use

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Conclusion

There are excellent free fonts for every common role: Inter, Source Sans 3, IBM Plex and Public Sans for interface and body text, Source Serif 4, Literata and Lora for reading, JetBrains Mono for code and a handful of display faces for headlines. Most are released under the SIL Open Font License, which allows commercial use almost anywhere as long as you don't sell the fonts themselves.

The risk lies in fonts that only look free. Download from the designer, the foundry or a reputable library like Google Fonts, read the licence file, check the font's own metadata when in doubt, and keep a short record for client projects. With those habits, free fonts are a safe and professional foundation for commercial work.