Adding space/padding to a UILabel

If you want to stick with UILabel, without subclassing it, Mundi has given you a clear solution.

If alternatively, you would be willing to avoid wrapping the UILabel with a UIView, you could use UITextView to enable the use of UIEdgeInsets (padding) or subclass UILabel to support UIEdgeInsets.

Using a UITextView would only need to provide the insets (Objective-C):

textView.textContainerInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(10, 0, 10, 0);

Alternative, if you subclass UILabel, an example to this approach would be overriding the drawTextInRect method
(Objective-C)

- (void)drawTextInRect:(CGRect)uiLabelRect {
    UIEdgeInsets myLabelInsets = {10, 0, 10, 0};
    [super drawTextInRect:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(uiLabelRect, myLabelInsets)];
}

You could additionally provide your new subclassed UILabel with insets variables for TOP, LEFT, BOTTOM and RIGHT.

An example code could be:

In .h (Objective-C)

float topInset, leftInset,bottomInset, rightInset;

In .m (Objective-C)

- (void)drawTextInRect:(CGRect)uiLabelRect {
    [super drawTextInRect:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(uiLabelRect, UIEdgeInsetsMake(topInset,leftInset,bottomInset,rightInset))];
}

From what I have seen, it seems you have to override the intrinsicContentSize of the UILabel when subclassing it.

So you should override intrinsicContentSize like:

- (CGSize) intrinsicContentSize {
    CGSize intrinsicSuperViewContentSize = [super intrinsicContentSize] ;
    intrinsicSuperViewContentSize.height += topInset + bottomInset ;
    intrinsicSuperViewContentSize.width += leftInset + rightInset ;
    return intrinsicSuperViewContentSize ;
}

And add the following method to edit your insets, instead of editing them individually:

- (void) setContentEdgeInsets:(UIEdgeInsets)edgeInsets {
    topInset = edgeInsets.top;
    leftInset = edgeInsets.left;
    rightInset = edgeInsets.right;
    bottomInset = edgeInsets.bottom;
    [self invalidateIntrinsicContentSize] ;
}

It will update the size of your UILabel to match the edge insets and cover the multiline necessity you referred to.

After searching a bit I have found this Gist with an IPInsetLabel. If none of those solutions work you could try it out.

There was a similar question (duplicate) about this matter.
For a full list of available solutions, see this answer: UILabel text margin

I have tried with it on Swift 4.2, hopefully it work for you!

@IBDesignable class PaddingLabel: UILabel {

    @IBInspectable var topInset: CGFloat = 5.0
    @IBInspectable var bottomInset: CGFloat = 5.0
    @IBInspectable var leftInset: CGFloat = 7.0
    @IBInspectable var rightInset: CGFloat = 7.0

    override func drawText(in rect: CGRect) {
        let insets = UIEdgeInsets(top: topInset, left: leftInset, bottom: bottomInset, right: rightInset)
        super.drawText(in: rect.inset(by: insets))
    }

    override var intrinsicContentSize: CGSize {
        let size = super.intrinsicContentSize
        return CGSize(width: size.width + leftInset + rightInset,
                      height: size.height + topInset + bottomInset)
    }   

    override var bounds: CGRect {
        didSet {
            // ensures this works within stack views if multi-line
            preferredMaxLayoutWidth = bounds.width - (leftInset + rightInset)
        }
    } 
}

Or you can use CocoaPods here https://github.com/levantAJ/PaddingLabel

pod 'PaddingLabel', '1.2'

Swift 3

import UIKit

class PaddingLabel: UILabel {

   @IBInspectable var topInset: CGFloat = 5.0
   @IBInspectable var bottomInset: CGFloat = 5.0
   @IBInspectable var leftInset: CGFloat = 5.0
   @IBInspectable var rightInset: CGFloat = 5.0

   override func drawText(in rect: CGRect) {
      let insets = UIEdgeInsets(top: topInset, left: leftInset, bottom: bottomInset, right: rightInset)
      super.drawText(in: UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(rect, insets))
   }

   override var intrinsicContentSize: CGSize {
      get {
         var contentSize = super.intrinsicContentSize
         contentSize.height += topInset + bottomInset
         contentSize.width += leftInset + rightInset
         return contentSize
      }
   }
}