Availability: Business and Enterprise* plans. Each unique signer requires one QES credit, which costs $5, no matter how many signatures they add to a document.
*Enterprise plan users receive:
Monthly plans: 1 QES credit per month
Yearly plans: 10 QES credits per year
Important:
If you send a document bundle with QES enabled, credits are charged per signer for each document in the bundle.
The credit packages you purchase expire when the current billing cycle ends.
Qualified e-signature is available only for active plan users with paid accounts.
Qualified electronic signature (QES) helps identify the signer of a document sent via PandaDoc.
PandaDoc uses third parties (such as Evrotrust) that are listed as European trusted service providers. This makes PandaDoc signatures eIDAS-compliant and admissible in court in case of a dispute. Documents signed with QES come with an additional signature certificate that can be brought to court to certify the signature’s validity.
Watch an overview video:
How to enable QES on a document
Important: Make sure Qualified electronic signature (face-to-face identity verification) is turned on in your workspace settings. Go to Settings > Recipient experience, select it under Signature verification settings, and select Save changes. If it's off, signers see a blank verification screen and can't continue.
Note: You can set up the qualified e-signature only in a document, not in a template or form.
To use QES in PandaDoc:
Open your document in Draft status.
Go to the File menu on the top left
From here, select E-signature and verification
On the right-hand panel, select Qualified e-signature
Alternatively, you can enable QES before sending out your document:
Click the three-dot menu (⋮) to the right of the recipient's name
Choose E-signature and verification
Select the Qualified e-signature (QES) option
Click Done
Note: QES must be enabled before the document is sent. It applies to the entire document and all recipients.
Once turned on, you can review your document, ensure a signature field is assigned to each recipient, and then send it.
Warning: You’ll be unable to send a document with set up QES if you do not have QES credits in your account.
Enable QES via the API
QES is a document setting. If you create and send documents through the PandaDoc API, you can turn it on programmatically instead of in the app.
Create the document from a template, an uploaded PDF, or document content.
Call Update document settings and set
qualified_electronic_signaturetotrue:
{ "qualified_electronic_signature": true }Assign at least one field to every signer.
Send the document.
To check whether QES is on for a document, call Get document settings. The response includes qualified_electronic_signature as true or false.
Note: You can't store QES on a template, so documents created from a template don't inherit it. You also can't set it in the create-document request. Turn it on for each document after you create it and before you send it.
Note: All requirements in this article apply the same way to documents sent via the API. These include plan availability, QES credits, signing order, one field per signer, and the unsupported options listed below.
Requirements and limitations
QES follows strict rules to ensure compliance and validity. Once you enable QES, signing order will be enabled by default and can’t be turned off. You can rearrange signing order before sending it to your recipients. Keep in mind that QES order is not the same as signing order, while it is based on the signing order, the last recipient in the signing order becomes the first in the QES identity verification process. Please also note the following requirements:
Each signer must be assigned at least one field.
All signers must complete their fields before verification begins.
Not supported with QES:
CC’d recipients
Recipient groups
Signature forwarding
Sharing via public link
Note: The document is locked after all fields are completed and before identity verification begins.
Warning: You’ll be unable to remove a recipient's delivery info (phone and email address) after the document is sent.
Purchasing QES credits
Go to Settings > Billing
Select Increase limit under Qualified e-signature (QES) add-on tile
Choose a volume package and select Buy now
Note: QES credits are sold in packages of 10 ($50). You can't buy single credits.
Note: Enterprise plans include auto-provisioning: 10 credits per year or 1 per month.
Certificate of signatures
Once all signers verify their identities, PandaDoc generates a Certificate of Signatures with QES metadata. You can validate the certificate using the official European Commission validation tool.
Note: Adobe Acrobat sometimes flags a valid QES signature as having a problem. Use the European Commission validation tool to confirm the signature. Its result is the authoritative check, and you can share it with anyone who needs proof of a qualified signature.
Supported identity providers (IDPs)
PandaDoc uses trusted third-party identity providers (IDPs). The signer selects their provider based on location.
Method | Coverage |
Smart-ID | EE, LV, LT, FI, BE |
Estonian Mobile-ID | EE |
Lithuanian Mobile-ID | LT |
Estonian ID card | EE |
Latvian ID card | LV |
Lithuanian ID card | LT |
Finnish ID card | FI, AX |
CertEurope USB token | FR, PL |
certSIGN USB token | RO, PL |
Evrotrust | AL, AD, AM, AU, AT, AZ, BY, BE, BA, BG, CA, HR, CY, CZ, DK, EE, FI, FR, GE, DE, GR, HU, IS, IE, IT, IL, KZ, KE, XK, LV, LI, LT, LU, MT, MD, MC, ME, NL, NZ, NO, MK, PL, PT, RU, SM, RS, SK, SI, ES, SE, CH, TW, TR, UA, GB, US, VA, AX |
Chave Movel | PT |
D-Trust | DE, CA, ZA, GR, NL, BE, FR, ES, PT, LU, IE, IS, MT, CY, AX, FI, US, BG, HU, LT, LV, EE, HR, SI, IT, CH, CZ, SK, LI, AT, GG, DK, SE, NO, PL, MX, AR, BR, CL, AU, ID, PH, SG, RU, JP, KR, CN, TR, IN, SA, AE, QA |
Itsme | BE, DK, EE, FI, FR, DE, IS, IE, IT, LU, NO, PT, SE, ES, NL, GB |
InfoCert | Worldwide |
Swisscom | CH |
MitID | DK |
SwissID | CH |
Swedish BankID | SE |
Local Certificate | Worldwide |