HubSpot Email Tracking Consent Rules: What’s Changing in 2026
HubSpot recently emailed users about new consent requirements for email tracking in France and Italy. If that email left you with more questions than answers, you're not alone — we're breaking it down in plain English.
HubSpot Email Tracking Just Got More Complicated
If you got an email from HubSpot recently about "HubSpot email tracking consent requirements changing," and your first reaction was to close the tab because it sounded like legal jargon — we get it. Let's break down what's actually going on, in plain English.
A quick disclaimer before we dive in: We're not lawyers, and this post isn't legal advice. It's our attempt to translate a regulatory update into plain English so you know what to look into. If you send emails to contacts in France or Italy, please talk to your attorney or compliance advisor before making changes to your tracking settings based on anything here.
What is email tracking, anyway?
When you send a marketing email or a one-on-one sales email through HubSpot, the platform can quietly tell you when someone opens it and when they click a link inside it. It does this with something called a tracking pixel — a tiny, invisible image embedded in the email. When the recipient's email client loads that image, HubSpot logs it as an "open."
This is standard practice across pretty much every major email platform, not just HubSpot, and it's how you get those open rate and click rate numbers you're used to seeing in your reports.
So what changed?
Two European regulators — France's data protection authority (CNIL) and Italy's data protection authority (Garante) — decided that tracking pixels count as accessing something on the recipient's device, similar to how cookies work on a website. And under European privacy law, accessing someone's device generally requires their consent first.
In plain terms: if you're sending tracked emails to people in France or Italy, you may now need their permission before you track whether they open or click those emails — not just permission to email them in the first place.
This matters for two separate settings inside HubSpot:
- Marketing emails (like newsletters and campaigns), where open and click tracking is turned on by default
- One-to-one emails (like sales outreach from a rep's inbox), which have their own separate tracking settings
What are the deadlines?
Right now, France's deadline lands around mid-July 2026, and Italy's runs longer, into late October 2026. We're sharing those dates so you know roughly what timeline you're working with — but treat them as a starting point, not a confirmed answer. Regulatory deadlines can shift, and the exact date that applies to your business depends on your specific situation. Your attorney is the right person to confirm what actually applies to you.
What can you actually do in HubSpot?
HubSpot has given account admins a couple of levers to work with:
- Turn off tracking for all marketing emails at the account level (Settings > Tools > Marketing > Email > Tracking)
- Turn off tracking for an individual marketing email in the email editor (this is currently a beta feature)
- Review and adjust one-to-one email tracking settings separately, since sales and marketing tracking aren't governed by the same toggle
You can find HubSpot's full breakdown of these settings here: HubSpot Knowledge Base: Understand HubSpot email tracking and logging
Our honest take
We're still working through what this means for our own clients, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. This is genuinely new territory — the guidance is recent, some of it is still being interpreted by legal experts, and "how strict do we need to be" is a fair question without a settled answer yet.
What we do know: if you're sending emails to contacts in France or Italy, this is worth a look before the deadlines above. And this is a "loop in your legal team" moment, not a "wing it based on a blog post" moment — ours included.
What to do next
Start by figuring out whether you actually have contacts in France or Italy. If you do, take a look at your HubSpot email tracking settings and talk to your legal or compliance advisor about what level of consent you need to collect. If you want a second set of eyes on your HubSpot setup while you sort this out, reach out to our team — we're happy to help you think it through.
Disclaimer
This post is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult an attorney regarding your specific compliance obligations.
About Amy Kant
Amy Kant is a Sales Architect at The Middle Six®. She specializes in process mapping and HubSpot data schema architecture. With over 20 years of experience in digital marketing, web development, project management, and communication, she thrives on transforming complex systems into streamlined, scalable solutions that drive business success. Amy uncovers operational efficiencies and optimize business and sales practices. She is passionate about innovation and problem-solving, empowering teams with the right tools and structures to work smarter.
Need some 1:1 attention?
If you’re looking for expert guidance on HubSpot architecture, implementation, or ongoing support, The Middle Six team is here to help. Visit our HubSpot services page to learn more and get started today.
