Cold Stamping Foil — UV Cold Foil Complete Guide & Supplier

Cold stamping foil (also called cold foil, cold transfer foil, or UV cold foil) is a metallized film that is bonded to a substrate using UV-cured adhesive instead of heat. A 12 µm PET carrier holds a release layer, an aluminium metallization layer (~50 nm), and a colour / top-coat. On press, a UV-curable adhesive is printed onto the substrate in the artwork shape (via flexo plate or offset blanket), the cold stamping foil web is laminated over it, a UV lamp instantly cures the adhesive, and the PET carrier peels away — leaving only the metallized layer adhered exactly where the adhesive was printed. The whole transfer happens inline at the press speed of the host machine, with no heated die, no tooling die-cost, and no second pass through a hot foil press.

Three differences. (1) Bonding mechanism: hot stamping foil uses heat (95–145 °C), pressure and dwell with an engraved die; cold stamping foil uses UV-cured adhesive — no heat, no die. (2) Tooling: hot needs an engraved magnesium/brass die per artwork ($40–600 each); cold needs only a printing plate (flexo) or offset image — the same plate the press already uses. (3) Production speed: hot stamping runs 1,500–8,000 sheets/hour on dedicated flatbed presses; cold stamping foil runs inline at 10,000–15,000 sph on offset and up to 300 m/min on flexo label presses. Cold wins on speed, tooling cost, and ability to be over-printed with CMYK to create custom metallic colours; hot wins on edge sharpness, finish brilliance, and the ability to decorate heat-tolerant plastics, leather, and textile.

Five inline steps. (1) Adhesive printing — a UV-curable adhesive is printed onto the substrate in the exact shape of the artwork, using either a dedicated flexo plate (inline label presses) or an offset blanket on a dedicated cold-foil unit (sheet-fed offset). (2) Foil lamination — the cold stamping foil web unwinds and is pressed against the wet adhesive via a nip roller. (3) UV cure — a UV lamp (typically 200–400 W/cm mercury or LED-UV 16 W/cm²) instantly cures the adhesive through the PET carrier or substrate, locking the metallization in place. (4) Web stripping — the spent PET carrier is wound onto a take-up reel; only the metallized layer remains, bonded exactly where the adhesive was printed. (5) Optional overprint — the cold-foiled area can be overprinted inline with CMYK to create custom metallic colours (gold from yellow over silver, copper from magenta over silver, rainbow holographic graphics, etc.).

Three press families. (1) Sheet-fed offset with a dedicated cold-foil unit — Heidelberg FoilStar / DryStar, KBA / Koenig & Bauer Foil-Stream, manroland InlineFoiler — running at 10,000–15,000 sph on B1 (1,050 × 750 mm) folding cartons. The cold-foil unit sits between the first and second printing tower, applying adhesive then laminating foil before the subsequent CMYK towers overprint. (2) Inline flexo label / narrow-web presses — Gallus, Mark Andy, Nilpeter, Bobst — running 60–250 m/min on pressure-sensitive labels with a dedicated cold-foil station and UV cure. (3) Digital sheet-fed presses with cold-foil-friendly toner or inline cold-foil retrofits for short-run B2 work. Hybrid offset+flexo+cold-foil label presses are the highest-volume application — combining cold stamping foil with white ink, CMYK and varnish on a single pass.

Best: high-quality coated paper and board (SBS, FBB, C1S, C2S) 80–450 gsm — the smoother and more closed the coating, the brighter the metallic finish. Good: coated label face stock (BOPP, PP, PE, paper) 50–90 gsm — the dominant cold-foil substrate in the wine, beer, spirits and beauty label markets. Marginal: uncoated paper / kraftboard — the porous surface absorbs UV adhesive and dulls the metallic; possible but use higher adhesive lay-down. Not recommended: rigid plastics (PC/ABS/PMMA), leather, textile, glass, ceramic, wood — these are hot stamping territory. Cold stamping foil is fundamentally a coated-paper-and-film process and delivers its best results on press-ready packaging and label stocks.

Two cost drivers and one major advantage. (1) Foil consumption — cold foil is wider-format and runs continuously across the impression cylinder, so foil-area consumption is higher than hot stamping (you can't skip un-imaged areas as easily). Typical cold stamping foil cost: $0.04–0.10 per 1,000 cm² of substrate width (not artwork area). (2) Adhesive — UV cold-foil adhesive runs ~$8–14 per kg, consumption ~1.5–3 g/m². (3) The big advantage: zero die cost vs hot stamping's $40–600 per artwork, plus 2–3× faster press speed and zero second-pass handling. Break-even vs hot stamping is typically 20,000–50,000 sheets — above that quantity cold stamping foil is the cheaper route; below it, hot stamping often wins. For label converters running 100,000+ unit runs of premium beverage labels, cold stamping foil is the default choice. Send substrate, run length and artwork for an exact FOB Shanghai quote.

Yes — and this is the single biggest reason converters choose cold stamping foil over hot stamping. Because the metallized layer is laid down inline before the rest of the CMYK stations, every following printing unit can overprint the silver foil. Practical results: yellow over silver → bright metallic gold (no need for a separate gold foil SKU); magenta over silver → metallic rose / copper; cyan over silver → metallic teal; gradient screen tints over silver → soft pearl effects; full-process CMYK over silver → metallic photo imagery (used heavily on premium beverage and confectionery packaging). One silver cold foil roll plus standard CMYK inks can produce an unlimited palette of metallic colours — a flexibility that hot stamping (one foil colour per pass) physically cannot match.

Four families: (1) Silver (the default) — full ~50 nm aluminium, 85–95 GU mirror gloss, the universal cold-foil base for CMYK overprinting; (2) Gold cold stamping foil — pre-tinted gold lacquer over aluminium for direct gold without overprint; (3) Holographic cold foil — diffraction-embossed silver for rainbow / pillar-of-light / dot-matrix effects under cold-foil adhesive; (4) Coloured cold foil — pre-tinted red, blue, green, copper, rose for direct branding without overprint. Stock widths: 330 mm, 420 mm, 520 mm, 720 mm, 1,040 mm. Stock lengths: 600 m and 1,200 m per roll. Adhesive variants are matched to flexo-UV vs offset-UV chemistry — always specify your press type on the inquiry.

Stock silver cold stamping foil (the 80% case): 1 roll MOQ at 330 mm / 520 mm / 720 mm / 1,040 mm × 1,200 m, ships in 5–7 days FOB Shanghai. Stock gold and stock rainbow holographic cold foil: 1 roll MOQ, 7–10 days. Custom-width slit rolls (any width 200–1,600 mm): 5 roll MOQ, 12–15 days. Custom-tint cold foil (Pantone ΔE ≤ 1.5): 1,000 m² MOQ, 25–30 days. Custom-logo registered holographic cold foil: 5,000 m² MOQ, 35–50 days (origination $1,500–4,500 one-off). Free A4 swatch pack covering silver, gold, copper, rose and 4 rainbow holographic cold-foil grades shipped in 5 business days to qualified B2B buyers. Sample rolls of 200 m available for press-trial qualification.