What to Write in a Leaving Card: 70+ Messages for Any Colleague

A leaving card goes round the office in a brown envelope and you get about ninety seconds to think of something. Half the signatures end up as “Good luck!” and a squiggle. Here are 70+ original messages for every kind of colleague — including the ones you barely know.

If they have already gone, send a free congratulations ecard instead.

Quick leaving card messages

1. All the best in the new role. You will be missed here.
2. Good luck with everything next. It has been great working with you.
3. Sorry to see you go. Wishing you every success.
4. Best of luck! Their gain is very much our loss.
5. All the best. Thanks for everything you did here.
6. Good luck in the new job. Keep in touch.
7. Wishing you all the best in your next chapter.
8. Sad to see you leave. Go and be brilliant.
9. Good luck! It has been a genuine pleasure.
10. All the best for whatever comes next.
11. Thanks for everything. Good luck out there.
12. Wishing you every success. You have earned it.

For a colleague you liked working with

1. The place is going to be noticeably worse without you. Good luck.
2. Thanks for making a job I did not always enjoy considerably better. All the best.
3. You made this team work. I hope the new place realises what it has got.
4. Genuinely sorry you are going. Thanks for all the patience and all the coffees.
5. Working with you has been one of the better parts of the last few years. Good luck.
6. Thanks for always picking up the phone when it was not your problem.
7. You have taught me more than you probably realise. All the best.
8. It has been a pleasure. Do not be a stranger — I mean that, not the card version of it.
9. Thanks for being the person who actually said what everyone was thinking.
10. Best of luck. Whoever gets you next is very lucky.

For a colleague you do not know well

1. All the best in the new role. Wishing you every success.
2. Good luck with the next step. Best wishes.
3. Wishing you all the best. Enjoy the new challenge.
4. Best of luck with everything ahead.
5. All the best — hope the new place treats you well.
6. Good luck! Wishing you a great next chapter.
7. Best wishes for the future. Enjoy it.
8. All the best in your new role.

Funny leaving card messages

1. Congratulations on your escape. Send help.
2. Good luck! Please leave the door unlocked behind you.
3. So you are leaving. Selfish, frankly.
4. Best of luck! I have already claimed your chair.
5. Good luck in the new job. Try not to enjoy it too visibly.
6. Leaving? After everything we have been through together? Fine. Go.
7. All the best! Your inbox will be handled with the respect it deserves.
8. Good luck! We will keep your mug in a place of honour, then lose it.
9. Congratulations! One of us had to get out and it was never going to be me.
10. Good luck. If it is terrible, we never spoke.

For a boss or manager

1. Thank you for the support and the trust. Both made a difference. All the best.
2. You made this a place people wanted to work. That is not common. Good luck.
3. Thank you for backing me when it counted. Wishing you every success.
4. The best manager I have had, and I have had a few. All the best.
5. Thank you for the guidance and for never micromanaging it. Good luck.
6. Wishing you all the best. The team you built will keep going — that is your doing.
7. Thank you for taking a chance on me. I have not forgotten it.
8. Good luck in the next role. They are getting someone very good.

For someone retiring

1. Enjoy every single day of it. Thoroughly earned.
2. A brilliant career and a well-deserved finish. Enjoy retirement.
3. Thank you for decades of getting on with it. Now go and stop.
4. Wishing you a long, lazy, extremely well-earned retirement.
5. The end of an era here. Enjoy the next one.
6. Congratulations on retiring. Do absolutely nothing, at length.

When you will genuinely miss them

1. This is the one I did not want to sign. All the best, truly.
2. Work friends are still friends. Keep in touch properly.
3. I will miss the daily nonsense more than the actual work.
4. You were the reason Mondays were survivable. Good luck.
5. Not saying goodbye, just changing the venue. Drinks soon.
6. Genuinely gutted. Delighted for you, but gutted.
7. Thanks for the friendship as much as the work. All the best.
8. You are taking most of the fun with you. Good luck anyway.

Short leaving card messages

1. All the best!
2. Good luck — you will be missed.
3. Best of luck in the new role.
4. Thanks for everything.
5. Sorry to see you go!
6. Go and be brilliant.
7. Wishing you every success.
8. Keep in touch!
9. It has been a pleasure.
10. All the best for what is next.

How to write it

1. Say one specific thing. A single real memory beats a paragraph of good wishes — and it is what makes yours stand out among forty signatures.
2. Match your actual closeness. Overclaiming a friendship in a leaving card reads as awkward; a warm, brief line never does.
3. Keep the jokes work-safe. The card gets read by them, their partner, and often the whole team.
4. Do not complain about the company. “Get out while you can” lands badly when the card is passed to a manager to sign.
5. If you mean “keep in touch”, say how. Otherwise it is filler.

Send it — and pair it with a gift

A free congratulations ecard reaches them after the last day. See also new job congratulations and retirement wishes:

FAQ

What do you write in a leaving card?

One specific thing you valued about working with them, a good wish for the new role, and — if you mean it — a concrete way to keep in touch. Two or three lines is right.

What do you write for someone you barely know?

Keep it short and sincere: “All the best in the new role. Wishing you every success.” Nobody expects more, and padding it reads as insincere.

Can a leaving card be funny?

Yes, if you know them. Aim the joke at missing them rather than at the company, and remember the card is read by everyone.

What should you not write?

Complaints about the employer, “lucky you, getting out”, anything about salary, and in-jokes that exclude the rest of the team.

What is a good short message?

“All the best in the new role. You will be missed here.” Warm, appropriate for anyone, and complete.

What do you write if they were made redundant?

Focus on them rather than the circumstances: thank them for their work, say they will be missed, and wish them well. Avoid “everything happens for a reason”.

More work collections

• Welcome to the team messages
• Employee appreciation messages
• What to say after a redundancy