Frequently asked questions

The signing journey is done in one go, without creating an account, in six steps:

1. You enter your email address and confirm it with a one-time code.
2. You enter your identity — the one that will appear on the signature.
3. You upload your PDF and place the signature box where you want it.
4. You choose the signature level, after reading its prerequisites.
5. You enter your SignPass code: the stars needed are reserved, not debited.
6. You sign, then download the signed document and its evidence file.

Depending on the level chosen, a step to verify your mobile phone comes before the signature.

A PDF file, of at most 10 MB, that is neither password-protected nor locked against editing. An encrypted PDF cannot receive a signature: you need to produce an unprotected version of it.

One document per transaction. 1-signature is designed for a single signature, by a private individual, for themselves — it is not a tool for circulating signing workflows between several signatories.

If your file is not a PDF — a word-processing document, an image — convert it before uploading. Most office software offers "Export as PDF".

The level is chosen according to the risk of the transaction, not its amount. Ask yourself what you would need to be able to prove if someone disputed the signature.

• A low-stakes document, between people who know each other: level 1 is enough.
• An ordinary contractual commitment: an intermediate level, where your identity is verified by an identity provider.
• A deed for which the law or the other party requires a qualified signature — the only one to benefit from the presumption of reliability of the eIDAS regulation: levels 5 and 6.

The choice page shows the prerequisites and cost of each level. Read the prerequisites before reserving your stars: some levels require a prior step that cannot be improvised on the day of signing, such as activating France Identité (the French national digital ID app) at a town hall.

Yes. Signing takes place in a web page, on the device that started the signing journey: computer, tablet or phone, as you prefer.

Be careful not to confuse two different things. At the highest levels, a smartphone is needed to prove your identity, not to sign: France Identité (the French national digital ID app) reads the chip of your identity card contactlessly, and Identité Numérique La Poste (La Poste's digital identity) is an app protected by a PIN. So you can carry out the whole signing journey on a computer and only use the phone while you authenticate.

Uploading the document from a phone, however, depends on the app where it is stored. Local files, Dropbox and iCloud work; Google Drive on iPhone cannot hand a document over to another app — the workaround is to save it to "Files" first, or to prepare the signature from a computer.

No. 1-signature lets one private individual sign one document for themselves, in a single transaction. There is no sending to a third party, no circulation, no tracking of signatories.

This is a choice, not a temporary limitation: the service is made for when you need an electronic signature once, without subscribing or creating an account. If you need several people to sign, or to circulate a document, you need a signing workflow platform — Goodflag, which provides our signature technology, offers one.

The code normally arrives within a few seconds. If it does not:

• Check your spam folder and, with Gmail, the "Promotions" tab.
• Check the address you entered: a typo sends the code somewhere else.
• Wait until the displayed delay has passed, then ask for a new code. The previous code then stops being valid — make sure you use the last one you received.
• A code is only valid for ten minutes and can only be used once.

If nothing arrives after two attempts, write to support@1-signature.fr from the address concerned: our logs show whether the message was sent, and therefore whether the problem lies with us or with your email provider.

As long as the signature has not been launched, yes: go back to the identity step and correct it. The summary displayed just before launch is there for this — it is the last moment when a correction is possible, and it is worth reading.

Once the signature is done, no. The name you entered appears in the signature and in the evidence file; it cannot be changed afterwards without destroying the evidence itself. You then have to start a new signature, with new stars.

This point needs particular care at level 4: the certificate is issued there in the name you declare, with no verification by a third party. A typo there produces a technically valid signature bearing an incorrect name. At levels 3, 5 and 6, the identity provider compares your declaration with your real identity and stops the signing journey if they differ — your stars are then released.

The site has its own currency: the star, worth €2.50 incl. VAT. A signature costs from one to five stars depending on the level chosen — from €2.50 to €12.50.

The price follows the real cost: sealing the document and verifying your email address make one star; verification by SMS adds one; issuing a personal certificate in your name, two; the qualified status, two more.

Stars are bought as top-ups, and one star is free for every ten paid. They are only debited when a signature is completed.

It is what holds your stars. When you buy one, you receive a code by email — nine characters in three groups — which you enter when signing to pay for the signature.

A SignPass works like a gift card: it is payable to the bearer. Anyone who knows the code can spend the stars on it, without having to identify themselves. Keep it as you would keep a means of payment, and give it to nobody — not even our support, who will never ask you for it.

Two safeguards follow from this: a SignPass cannot hold more than 100 stars, and it is valid for twelve months, a period extended with every top-up.

We cannot send it to you again, and this is deliberate: your code does not exist anywhere on our side. We only keep a cryptographic fingerprint of it, which lets us check a code that is entered but not rebuild it. Nobody at our end can read a SignPass code — neither an administrator, nor someone who stole our database.

What we can do is reissue the SignPass: we cancel the old code and send you a new one, carrying the same star balance. Your stars are not lost.

To request a reissue, write to support@1-signature.fr from the email address that paid for the purchase — it is the only thing that links us to you, since you have no account. Give the reference of your SignPass, in the form SP-XXXXXXXX: it appears on your invoice and in the delivery email, and unlike the code it is not secret. We check the request, then we reissue.

If you have also lost the email address used for the purchase, write to us anyway: the payment reference at your bank may allow us to find the purchase.

When the signature is completed, and never before.

When you choose the level, the stars needed are reserved: they show as unavailable, but they are still yours. They only become a debit once the signed document and its evidence file have been produced and stored.

Any exit from the signing journey releases them: abandoning, failed authentication, expiry of the signing link, change of level. You then find them back on your SignPass.

The same applies to breakdowns: if something breaks on our side between the production of your document and the debit, the signature is on us. We prefer that error to the opposite one.

Yes: after twelve months. But the period is extended with every top-up — a SignPass that is used stays valid.

The expiry date appears in the delivery email and is shown when you enter your code. After that date, the remaining stars are lost.

It depends.

With 1-signature.fr, every level produces a digital document, sealed or electronically signed, whose authenticity and integrity are guaranteed, and which therefore has evidential value under Article 1366 of the French Civil Code (Code civil).

Likewise, every level produces an admissible electronic signature, since in each case it identifies its author and guarantees its link with the deed to which it is attached, in accordance with Article 1367 of the Civil Code.

What changes from one level to another is how easy it is to defend if it is disputed, because it is up to the person relying on the signature to prove its reliability, notably through the evidence file supplied with every signed document.

The qualified signature, on the other hand — our levels 5 and 6 — benefits from a presumption of reliability. The burden of proof is reversed: it is then up to the person disputing it to show that it is not valid. Under French law, some deeds can in fact only be signed electronically at this level.

Two items are handed to you at the end of the signing journey:

• the signed document, a PDF you can use as it is;
• an evidence file, a ZIP archive containing what is needed to establish, years later, how this signature was produced.

The archive contains the evidence certificate — a sealed PDF summarising the operation, its timestamps and the verified identity —, the technical evidence record holding the detail of the events, the supporting files, and a read_me.txt guide explaining step by step how to verify the whole.

Keep this archive with the signed document. It is of no use as long as nothing is disputed, and it is irreplaceable the day something is.

The simplest way: open the signed PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader, which shows a banner stating whether the signature is valid and in whose name. Most PDF readers can do this; some browsers cannot — so a display without a banner proves nothing.

For a check independent of any software vendor, use the European Commission's validation service, which checks compliance with the eIDAS regulation and that the certificate belongs to the EU trusted lists.

The read_me.txt guide in the evidence file sets out the full procedure, including how to verify the technical evidence record.

Seven days, then it is deleted — the signed document and the evidence file alike. After that, we no longer have them, so we cannot give them back to you. Download them and store them safely as soon as the signing journey ends.

This is not negligence, quite the opposite: we do not want to be the custodians of your documents. The PDF you upload is also encrypted as soon as it is received and is never readable in clear on our disks.

What we keep beyond that is the data the law requires us to retain: invoices, for ten years, under accounting obligations.

Only what is strictly necessary, because the service is designed without an account: there is no profile, no history to browse, no password to remember.

We keep your email address and the identity you declared, attached to the transaction — they are part of the evidence, and deleting them would empty the evidence file of its meaning. Your phone number, when a level requires it. Your billing details. We keep no bank details: the payment is handled by Stripe, and your card number never passes through our servers.

Your documents, for their part, are deleted after seven days. To exercise your rights of access, rectification or erasure, write to support@1-signature.fr; the Privacy Policy sets out how.

Yes, automatically. It is emailed to you at the time of purchase, as a PDF, and it is made out to the name and address you gave when paying.

It shows the public reference of your SignPass — SP-XXXXXXXX — which links an invoice to the signatures it paid for. The SignPass code, on the other hand, never appears on it: an invoice is passed on to an accountant and kept for ten years, which a means of payment must not be.

If you need an invoice in a company's name, enter its details when paying: they cannot be changed afterwards.