Sign PDF online free — court-admissible under ESIGN Act + UETA

Genuinely free, no card, no expiry. The Free plan covers everything with a watermark and 0 AI Deep Detect, with the full ESIGN/UETA proof log and PAdES-LTV signature — only the FRE 902(13) certification template, magic-link signature requests beyond 5, AI Deep Detect, and watermark removal are paywalled. For comparison: DocuSign Free is a 30-day trial that drops to 0 envelopes; Adobe Acrobat Sign requires Acrobat Pro $19.99/mo; HelloSign Free covers 3 docs/mo with watermark; Dropbox Sign Free is 3 signature requests/mo. iFillPDF Start at $8.99/mo (8 AI Deep Detect/mo, watermark removed, full magic-link suite) undercuts DocuSign Personal $15/mo on volume, Adobe Acrobat Sign Individual $14.99/mo on EU compliance, HelloSign $20/mo on PAdES-LTV, PandaDoc $19/mo on file retention, Dropbox Sign $20/mo on Cloud Act exposure.

Yes — admissible under the federal ESIGN Act of 2000 (15 USC §7001-§7006), UETA 1999 (47 states + DC + USVI + PR), the Illinois Electronic Commerce Security Act 5 ILCS 175 (Illinois did not adopt UETA), and the New York General Obligations Law §304 / NY ESRA Article III. Three things must be provable in court: (1) intent to sign, (2) attribution to the signer, (3) integrity of the signed document — all three are captured in the iFillPDF proof log (signer IP, device fingerprint, browser User-Agent, RFC 3161 qualified timestamp, SHA-256 document hash, page-by-page coordinates of every action). The evidence pack ships with a pre-filled FRE Rule 902(13) certification template and a 28 USC §1746 unsworn declaration template, both signed by the iFillPDF compliance officer — your federal court filing skips the FRE 901 authentication hearing entirely. Carve-outs that still require wet ink (ESIGN §103): wills, codicils, testamentary trusts, family law (divorce, adoption, child custody, prenups in some states), court orders, product recall notices, certain UCC Article 3 negotiable instruments, and notices of acceleration on residential mortgages in 14 states. iFillPDF auto-flags these document types in the upload screen.

PAdES-LTV (PDF Advanced Electronic Signature — Long Term Validity, ETSI EN 319 142, ISO 32000-2:2020 §12.8.3) embeds three things into the signed PDF at signing time: (1) the full X.509 certificate chain up to the root CA, (2) OCSP revocation responses and CRL snapshots proving the cert was valid at signing, (3) an RFC 3161 qualified timestamp from a Certified Timestamping Authority (CTA) that itself has its own LTV evidence. Result: even when your signing certificate expires in 1-3 years, or when SHA-256 is eventually deprecated (NIST estimates 2030+), the signature remains cryptographically verifiable because every input is frozen in the PDF. DocuSign reserves PAdES-LTV for Business Pro $40/mo, Adobe Sign for Acrobat Sign for Business; iFillPDF includes it on every plan including Free.

An electronic signature is the legal act of consenting to a document under ESIGN §106(5) — typing your name, drawing with a finger, clicking I agree, even forwarding an email reply with intent. A digital signature is the cryptographic technology (X.509 PKI, SHA-256 hash, RSA-2048 or ECDSA P-256 private key) that locks the signature to the document. Every iFillPDF signature is both: a visual electronic signature (drawn, typed or uploaded) AND a PAdES-LTV digital signature (PKI-backed, timestamped, hash-locked) — so you get the simplicity of a click and the cryptographic strength a federal judge expects under FRE 901(b)(9) and FRE 902(13). DocuSign Personal $15/mo, HelloSign $20/mo and Smallpdf $9/mo offer only the visual electronic layer on entry plans — the cryptographic PAdES-LTV layer is paywalled.

No — iFillPDF infrastructure is hosted on Hetzner Falkenstein (Saxony, Germany), a German GmbH with no US legal presence. We are immune to US Cloud Act 50 USC §3024 cross-border data subpoenas, FISA Section 702 mass surveillance, National Security Letters under 18 USC §2709, and gag orders under 18 USC §2705(b). The only legal regime that applies is German BDSG, EU GDPR, and the EU TADPF (Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework). Files are AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest with envelope encryption (per-file DEK + KMS-managed KEK), TLS 1.3 in transit, ISO/IEC 27001-aligned infrastructure, and auto-deleted 1 hour after the signed PDF is downloaded. We never use your files to train AI — Terms §4.2 — unlike DocuSign ToS §3.4, Adobe Sign ToS §2.5, and HelloSign Privacy Policy §6 which reserve broad data-processing rights. Critical if you handle PHI under HIPAA 45 CFR §164.312(d), client tax data under IRS Pub 1075 §9.3, attorney-client privilege under ABA Model Rule 1.6(c), GLBA-protected non-public information under 16 CFR Part 314 (Safeguards Rule), or SOX §404 internal control records.

Yes — via a one-time magic link backed by HMAC-SHA256 signed tokens, free for the first 5 signature requests per month. The recipient gets an email, opens the link in any browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge — desktop or mobile), signs without creating an iFillPDF account, and you receive the signed PDF + full FRE 902(13) evidence pack in your inbox. Sequential routing (signer A then signer B then signer C), parallel routing (all signers in any order), and conditional routing on Start and above. Identity verification via SMS OTP, government ID scan (Onfido pipeline), or knowledge-based authentication (KBA, 5 questions from public records) on Start — meeting NIST SP 800-63-3 IAL2 required for IRS Form 8879, IRS Form 4506-C, and HIPAA-regulated patient consent. DocuSign charges $25/mo for the same feature, HelloSign $20/mo, PandaDoc $19/mo, Dropbox Sign $20/mo.

All PDF types: AcroForms, flat scans, contracts and NDAs exported from Word, Google Docs or Pages, MSAs, employment offer letters, IRS forms (W-9, W-8BEN, W-8ECI, W-2, 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC, Form 8879 e-file authorization, Form 4506-C, Form 1040 Schedule C), USCIS forms (I-9 employment eligibility, I-130, I-485, N-400 naturalization), DOS DS-160, real-estate disclosures (TDS California, RPDS Texas, federal Lead-Based Paint Disclosure under 42 USC §4852d), healthcare consent forms compliant with HIPAA 45 CFR §164.508, residential leases compliant in all 50 states + DC, board resolutions and operating agreements for LLCs in Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada. Output is a flattened ISO 32000-2:2020 PDF with embedded PAdES-LTV signature — opens in Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit, Preview (macOS), Chrome built-in viewer, and any ISO 32000-compliant reader. HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA) available on the Unlimited plan; FedRAMP Moderate equivalent infrastructure for federal contractor use.

No installation, no extension, no desktop app. Everything runs in your browser: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge — on Windows 10/11, macOS 12+, Ubuntu/Debian Linux, iOS 15+ (iPhone, iPad), Android 11+, and ChromeOS. Touch-sign with finger or stylus on iPad Pro / Apple Pencil, Galaxy Tab S / S Pen, Surface Pro / Surface Pen. No need for Adobe Acrobat Pro $19.99/mo, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, the DocuSign desktop client, the HelloSign Outlook plugin, or any Chrome extension that reads your other tabs. The full PAdES-LTV signing pipeline runs server-side on Hetzner Falkenstein — your browser only renders the PDF and captures pen strokes.