Know what’s on your site before a plaintiff’s firm does
A free privacy audit shows which cookies, pixels and trackers are running — and which ones commonly appear in privacy claims.
hubspotutk is the cookie that turns an anonymous website visitor into a named contact in HubSpot. It’s set by the HubSpot tracking code, and when someone fills in a form it’s sent along with their details so HubSpot can attach their earlier page views to their contact record.
What Is the hubspotutk Cookie?
HubSpot’s cookie list says hubspotutk “keeps track of a visitor’s identity. It is passed to HubSpot on form submission and used when deduplicating contacts.” It contains “an opaque GUID to represent the current visitor” and expires in six months. HubSpot lists it under analytics cookies, which it describes as non-essential and controlled by the cookie banner.
How hubspotutk Works With Other HubSpot Cookies
- __hstc: HubSpot’s main tracking cookie. It includes the domain, the
hubspotutkvalue, first, last and current visit timestamps, and a session count. Six months. __hssc: tracks the current session and page views. 30 minutes.__hssrc: notes whether the browser restarted, to detect new sessions. Session.- messagesUtk: recognizes visitors who use HubSpot chat. Six months.
Other tools use the same pattern of an anonymous ID that gets stitched to a known person later. Segment’s ajs_anonymous_id is one example.
What Happens When a Form Is Submitted
Before a form is filled in, HubSpot records page views against the anonymous hubspotutk ID. When the visitor submits a HubSpot form, or a non-HubSpot form that passes the hutk value through HubSpot’s forms API, the ID is linked to the email address. From then on the contact’s timeline shows the pages they viewed before they ever introduced themselves. For marketers that’s useful attribution. For privacy teams, it means the browsing history is now tied to a named person.
Does hubspotutk Need Consent?
EU and UK
Yes. HubSpot itself classifies it as a non-essential analytics cookie controlled by the consent banner. Turn on HubSpot’s cookie banner in opt-in mode, or use another consent platform that blocks the HubSpot tracking code until visitors accept. Our GDPR cookie consent guide covers what valid consent looks like.
US states
Using visitor tracking for your own analytics and lead management usually isn’t a “sale” by itself, but disclose it and the linking of browsing history to contacts in your privacy notice. HubSpot also says it uses some tracking-code data to improve its products, including its Breeze Intelligence dataset, and that account owners can turn that data sharing off. Check that setting and describe it accurately.
How to Block or Delete hubspotutk
- Site owners: enable HubSpot’s consent banner with opt-in for EU visitors, or hold the tracking code in your own CMP.
- Do Not Track: HubSpot supports a
__hs_do_not_trackcookie that stops the tracking code sending data. - Visitors: clear the site’s cookies or decline analytics in the banner. Our guide to deleting cookies without logging out shows how to remove just one site’s cookies.
HubSpot notes that visitors who arrived before a banner was set up already hold its cookies and won’t see the banner until those cookies are removed or expire. If you’ve just added consent, expect that gap.
Managing HubSpot Tracking With Captain Compliance
Captain Compliance’s cookie scanner finds hubspotutk, __hstc and other HubSpot cookies and checks whether they load before consent. Our consent banner can hold the HubSpot script until visitors opt in and passes their choice to your other tags. Our overview of cookie consent requirements covers the rules by region.
FAQ
Does hubspotutk contain my email address?
No. It holds a random ID. Your email is linked to that ID in HubSpot only after you submit a form.
Is hubspotutk a third-party cookie?
No. It’s set on the website’s own domain by the HubSpot script.
Will deleting hubspotutk remove me from a company’s CRM?
No. It stops future tracking from linking to you, but your contact record stays until you ask the company to delete it.
The hubspotutk cookie is the point where anonymous analytics becomes a record about a named person. That makes it a cookie to settle consent for before a visitor fills in a form, not after.
Put this into practice
Turn privacy guidance into working controls.
Captain Compliance helps teams discover tracking technologies, enforce consent, manage privacy requests and document the evidence behind every decision.
