Electronic signature in Switzerland: simple, advanced, qualified

Levels of electronic signature (Art. 2 ZertES)

ZertES (Act of 18 March 2016, SR 943.03, SCSE in French) defines four levels of electronic signature and a seal intended for businesses. Each level takes over the requirements of the previous one and adds more.

A qualified certificate can only be issued to a natural person (Art. 8 ZertES). A company therefore does not sign at the qualified level itself: its representatives sign, each with their own certificate. To mark a document on behalf of the company, ZertES provides for the regulated electronic seal.

One last useful concept: the qualified electronic time stamp (let. j). It certifies that data existed at a specific moment; it is operated by a recognised provider and bears a regulated electronic seal.

Legal value: when an electronic signature equals a handwritten one

Only a qualified electronic signature with a qualified electronic time stamp is equivalent to a handwritten signature (Art. 14 para. 2bis CO; the official English translation of the CO calls them an “authenticated” signature and time stamp). Statutory or contractual provisions to the contrary are reserved. Two practical consequences:

• a qualified signature without a qualified time stamp does not meet the condition of Art. 14 para. 2bis CO;
• a simple signature (a click, a scanned image of your signature) or an advanced signature is not a handwritten signature within the meaning of Art. 14 CO. It can serve as evidence, but it does not satisfy a written-form requirement.

The starting point remains freedom of form: the validity of a contract is subject to a particular form only where the law specifically prescribes one (Art. 11 para. 1 CO). Where the law requires written form, the contract must be signed by all persons on whom it imposes obligations (Art. 13 para. 1 CO), and the signature must be handwritten (Art. 14 para. 1 CO), or qualified with a qualified time stamp.

If the parties agree on a form that the law does not require, they are bound only once that form has been completed (Art. 16 para. 1 CO). Reread your general terms and conditions: a written-form clause may make a qualified signature necessary.

Written form or not: practical business cases

For a document with no form requirement, a simple or advanced signature is enough; its value lies in the evidence it provides. A qualified signature with a time stamp is only essential if the law or the contract requires written form. Here is what the legislation says for common documents.

Recognised providers and no agreement with the EU

Only recognised providers issue regulated and qualified certificates. The public list is kept by the accreditation body (Art. 5 para. 2 ZertES); the only accredited recognition body is KPMG AG. The Swiss trusted list issued on 13 August 2026 includes five providers:

• Swisscom (Schweiz) AG;
• SwissSign AG;
• DigiCert Switzerland AG;
• SIGN8 AG;
• Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems and Telecommunication (FOITT), which provides its services only to the administration.

A signing platform is not necessarily a recognised provider: it may rely on one of them for identification and certificates. Skribble, a Zurich-based company, for example, has worked with Swisscom Trust Services since it was founded in 2018.

Switzerland and the European Union: no mutual recognition

A Swiss qualified signature is not automatically qualified under EU law (eIDAS), and vice versa: OFCOM states that no mutual recognition agreement has been concluded with the EU. A negotiating mandate has been in preparation since 29 January 2025, but an agreement before the end of 2026 “currently appears unlikely”.

For a contract signed on both sides of the border, choose a service that goes through a provider recognised under both regimes, or agree with your counterparty on the accepted level. Skribble states that Swisscom is “the only European provider” to meet both the eIDAS and the ZertES requirements: this is the vendor's claim.

Qualified electronic signature: identification and price

To issue a qualified certificate, the recognised provider must verify your identity: the law requires the applicant to appear in person and prove their identity (Art. 9 para. 1 ZertES). The Federal Council may provide for exemptions from appearing in person (Art. 9 para. 4), and the provider may delegate identification to a registration office, for which it remains responsible (Art. 9 para. 6).

Example of published prices: Skribble

Prices shown by Skribble for Switzerland as of 27 September 2026, excluding VAT:

Skribble states that it hosts data in Switzerland and offers a 14-day trial. At low volume, paying per signature costs less than a subscription: ten qualified signatures a year cost CHF 50 excluding VAT on the Starter plan, identification not included.

E-invoices: VAT does not require a qualified signature

An e-invoice does not need a qualified signature for VAT: the FTA sees no need to require one. Since 1 January 2018, Art. 122 of the VAT Ordinance (MWSTV) has referred to the Code of Obligations and to the Ordinance on the Keeping and Retention of Accounting Records (GeBüV) for the transmission and retention of electronic supporting documents.

To prove the origin and integrity of an invoice, the FTA cites the regulated electronic signature and the regulated electronic seal (Art. 2 let. c and d ZertES) as particularly suitable. Otherwise, the principle of free consideration of evidence applies (Art. 81 para. 3 of the VAT Act, MWSTG).

The integrity of documents is also guaranteed by the way they are archived: on a modifiable medium, the GeBüV lists electronic signatures and time stamps among the accepted processes (Art. 9). See our record retention guide and, for invoice formats, our guide to e-invoicing in Switzerland.

Verifying a signature, signing a PDF, e-ID

To verify a Swiss electronic signature, use the Confederation's official validator, to which OFCOM refers.

Signing a PDF

Pasting an image of your signature into a PDF produces a simple signature. For an advanced or qualified signature, use a service that relies on a recognised provider: any later change to the document then becomes detectable. If you need equivalence with a handwritten signature, check that the signature is qualified and bears a qualified time stamp.

The e-ID

The Federal Act on Electronic Identity (e-ID) was approved by popular vote on 28 September 2025. According to the Federal Office of Justice, its launch has been postponed; the Office's page on the Act gives the current timetable. We state here neither a go-live date nor any role for the e-ID in identification for a qualified signature: the texts consulted do not yet allow us to say.

Dossivio Signature: signing within the file workflow

In a business, a document to be signed is almost always part of a file: a mandate, a contract, a payment approval. Dossivio Signature integrates Swiss electronic signatures into Dossivio's file workflows, so that the document is sent from the file and the signed version is filed there with the other documents.

As with the rest of the service, an authorised person approves before anything is sent, and the data is hosted in Switzerland; the details are on our sovereignty page. The choice of signature level is still dictated by the document, under the rules described above.