How Long Should a Cover Letter Be? 250 to 350 Words
Summary
How long should a cover letter be? Aim for 250 to 350 words across three or four short paragraphs, always under one page. The median letter in a review of 540,000 is 224 words, so brevity is normal. Spend the budget on one strong evidence paragraph, go shorter for referrals and emails, and go longer only for career changes or senior roles.
How long should a cover letter be? Aim for 250 to 350 words, which is three or four short paragraphs and well under one page. Anything past 400 words starts to cost you, because the person reading it is working through a pile and will stop where the letter stops being useful. Shorter than 200 reads as an afterthought. The rest of this piece covers where the number comes from, when to bend it, and how to cut a draft that has run long.
What the data says about cover letter length
The most useful number I have found comes from a review of more than 540,000 cover letters on MyPerfectResume, where the median letter was 224 words. Most guides then tell you to write 250 to 400. Those two figures sit close together, and that is the point: people who finish a letter tend to land near the same place, and the ones who overshoot are rarely rewarded for it.
Here is what that means in practice:
Under 200 words: fine for a referral or a role where you are clearly a fit, thin for anything competitive.
250 to 350 words: the range where you can make one argument and prove it once.
400 words and over: you are probably retelling your CV.
Over one page: almost always too long, whatever the word count says.
The word count is a proxy. The real limit is how much of the page the reader will give you before deciding. That is a few seconds of scanning for the first pass and, if you are lucky, a proper read for the second.
Why a shorter cover letter usually wins
I am a freelance recruiter in Sheffield and I read a lot of these. What I can tell you is what happens at the keyboard when a long letter lands. The first paragraph gets read. The second gets skimmed. By the third, I am looking for a number or a company name I recognise, and if I do not find one quickly I move to the CV.
Length also hides weak thinking. A 500-word letter often contains one real claim and four paragraphs of padding around it. A 280-word letter has no room for padding, so whatever is left has been chosen. That reads as confidence, which is rarely something a candidate can state directly but can show by editing.
There is a practical side as well. Many applications are read on a phone or in a narrow applicant tracking window. Four hundred words in a small box looks like a wall. Two hundred and eighty looks like something a person can finish while the kettle boils.
One more habit helps with all of this. Write the first draft without a word limit, then set it aside for a day. On the second read, the sentences that matter are obvious, because they are the ones you still agree with. In my experience a draft loses about a third of its length that way and gains clarity, which is a better trade than any formatting trick.
One page is the ceiling, not the target
Every guide says one page. They are right, but the rule is easy to misuse. One page of 11 point type with narrow margins can hold 600 words, and nobody wants to read that. Treat the page as a hard stop and the word count as the real target.
A comfortable layout looks like this:
Your contact details and the date at the top, in two or three lines.
A greeting to a named person where you can find one.
Three or four paragraphs of two to four sentences each.
A sign-off, your name, and nothing else.
If your letter runs onto a second page by even three lines, cut. Do not shrink the font. Shrinking the font is the written equivalent of hiding the mess under the bed.
Three length mistakes turn up again and again:
Pasting the whole CV into paragraph form. The reader already has the CV, so the letter should add the reasoning behind it, not a second copy.
Explaining the company to itself. A sentence about their mission is fine. Three sentences are a tell that you ran out of things to say about yourself.
Apologising in advance. Lines such as "I know I do not have every requirement" spend words on the weakest point in your application.
What each paragraph should cost you in words
Think of 300 words as a budget and spend it on purpose. This is the split I suggest and the one I would use myself.
Opening, 40 to 60 words: the role you are applying for and the one reason you are a fit. No warm-up, no hope that this finds them well.
Evidence, 100 to 140 words: one or two results from your work, with a number or a named outcome. This is the paragraph that earns the interview.
Fit, 60 to 90 words: why this employer, in terms specific enough that the letter could not be sent anywhere else.
Close, 30 to 50 words: the next step you would like, and a plain thank you.
The evidence paragraph is the longest on purpose. The other three exist to frame it. If you find the opening running to 120 words, it is not an opening, it is a biography, and it belongs on your CV.
Worked example: an opening that does its job in under 50 words.
"I am applying for the operations analyst role advertised on your careers page. In the last two years I rebuilt the weekly reporting process at a regional distributor, cutting the time it takes from two days to three hours. I would like to do the same for your fulfilment team."
That is 53 words. It names the role, makes a claim, and gives a number. The reader knows what the rest of the letter is for.
When to go shorter or longer
The 250 to 350 rule holds for most roles, but there are honest exceptions. These are the ones I have seen work.
Go shorter, 150 to 220 words, when:
Someone referred you and the cover letter is a courtesy.
The application is by email and the body of the message is the letter.
The role is junior and you have little to prove yet, so the only job is to be clear.
Go longer, 350 to 450 words, when:
You are changing careers and need one extra paragraph to connect two fields.
The role is senior and the advert asks for evidence of strategy, not just output.
You are explaining a gap, a relocation, or a move between countries that the CV alone would leave open.
Skip the temptation to go long just because the role is senior. Senior readers are the busiest. The best leadership letters I have read were short and specific.
How to cut a draft that has run long
Most people do not struggle to write a letter of the right length. They struggle to cut the one they wrote. Here is the order I would work in.
Delete every sentence that repeats your CV. If the reader can find it one page later, it is wasted here.
Cut the opening line if it says you are writing to apply. The subject line or the form field already said that.
Reduce each example to its result. Drop the backstory and keep the number.
Remove adjectives you chose to sound impressive. Hard-working, passionate and dynamic do no work.
Read it aloud. Wherever you run out of breath, split the sentence or cut it.
Then count. If you are still above 350, ask whether the fourth paragraph earns its place. If it only restates the third, remove it.
A scanner can help you check the result against a job description without rewriting your voice. These are the three I would try, and none of them should write the letter for you.
Does the word count change for email, forms and other countries?
Slightly. The principle stays the same: say it once, say it plainly, stop.
Email applications: the message body is the letter, so 150 to 250 words is enough. Put the role in the subject line and attach the CV.
Online forms with a text box: stay near 200 words, because many boxes cap at 1,000 to 2,000 characters.
United Kingdom: one side of A4, with a named recipient where possible.
United States: one page, usually a little more direct and a little more confident in tone.
Germany and much of mainland Europe: one page as well, though the Anschreiben tends to be more formal and a touch longer.
If an employer gives you a limit, respect it exactly. A letter that follows the instructions tells the reader you read the advert. One that ignores them tells them the opposite.
Short enough to be read, long enough to be yours
The safest answer to the question is 300 words, and the more useful one is that you should stop as soon as the argument is made. A letter is finished when removing a sentence would leave a hole, not when it reaches a number.
If you write a lot of these, keep a plain version of the structure above and fill it fresh each time. The boilerplate disappears. The personal part stays yours. That is the only kind of shortcut I trust, and it is the reason my own letters, when I write one, rarely pass 300 words.