Documents you cannot sign electronically in the US

Most business agreements can be signed electronically. A short list of document types cannot rely on ESIGN or UETA, and getting one of them wrong is expensive.

Nothing here is legal advice. The lists below describe what the federal ESIGN Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) exclude from their scope. Being excluded does not always mean electronic signing is forbidden — another law may allow it — but it does mean these two laws will not rescue a signature that is challenged. States add their own rules, so check the law where the document will be used.

Excluded by both ESIGN and UETA

Document type	Notes

|---|---|

Wills, codicils and testamentary trusts	A growing number of states have separate electronic-wills laws with their own witnessing rules. Without one, sign on paper

Excluded by ESIGN specifically

The federal act also leaves these out:

• Adoption, divorce and other matters of family law
• Court orders, notices and official court documents, including briefs and pleadings
• Notices that utility services such as water, heat or power will be cancelled or terminated
• Notices of default, acceleration, repossession, foreclosure or eviction, or of the right to cure, under a credit or rental agreement for a primary residence
• Notices cancelling or terminating health insurance or benefits, or life insurance benefits (annuities excepted)
• Notices of a product recall or of a product failure that risks endangering health or safety
• Documents required to accompany the transport or handling of hazardous materials, pesticides or other toxic or dangerous materials

Several of these are notices a business sends, not agreements it signs. If you send consumer notices in these categories, sending them only electronically is the risk, not the signature.

Inside the law, but with extra formalities

Being within ESIGN or UETA settles that the signature can be electronic. It does not remove other requirements that apply to the document:

• Notarisation. Many states allow remote online notarisation, but only through an approved platform and a commissioned notary. An e-signature alone is not a notarisation.
• Witnessing. Where a statute requires witnesses, the witnesses have to be arranged in a form that law accepts.
• Recording. Deeds and other documents filed with a county recorder must meet that office's own acceptance rules.
• Specific consumer disclosures. Some regulated industries require disclosures in a particular form before a consumer can agree electronically.

Outside the US

In the EU, eIDAS lets member states keep formal requirements for certain documents, and some transactions — often property transfers and family matters — still need a notary or a qualified electronic signature. The tier matters: a simple electronic signature and a qualified one are not interchangeable.

A practical rule for businesses

For ordinary commercial documents — sales agreements, NDAs, statements of work, offer letters, vendor contracts, purchase orders and most leases of goods — electronic signing is routine. Keep a short internal list of the excluded categories above, route those to paper or to a qualified process, and record which route each document took.

Pactlyra does not decide what a document is. It records what happened — who was asked, how they proved who they were, what they saw and what they signed — so that whichever route you choose, the evidence is there.

Last reviewed 2026-09-26. Pactlyra produces a detailed evidence record for every completed document. Electronic signature validity depends on your jurisdiction, the document type, and how the transaction is carried out; nothing here is legal advice.