QES · Qualified Electronic Signature
AES + a qualified certificate — legally equivalent to handwritten ink.
What it is
An AES that uses (1) a qualified certificate issued by a Qualified Trust Service Provider (QTSP) listed on a member-state Trusted List, and (2) a Qualified Signature Creation Device (QSCD) such as a smart card or mobile certificate. Article 25(2): a QES shall have the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature.
Scope
Every EU member state and Switzerland (via the EU-Swiss mutual recognition agreement). Required for transactions where 'in writing' is a statutory requirement under specific national law: real estate deeds, certain employment terminations, surety bonds, etc.
What letssign.now does
QES production is on the roadmap. Today we recognise and verify QES signatures from third parties (every member state's QTSPs are loaded into our LOTL trust pool) — /verify will identify a QES as such and report the issuing QTSP and the qualifying device.
Deeper detail
The QTSP layerExpandClose
Each member state designates one or more supervisory bodies that authorise Qualified Trust Service Providers. The QTSP issues the qualified certificate, which is the cryptographic credential that makes a signature 'qualified'. The list of all QTSPs is published in the LOTL.
The QSCD layerExpandClose
A Qualified Signature Creation Device is hardware — typically a smart card, USB token, or HSM behind a remote-signing API — that ensures the private key never leaves a tamper-resistant environment. Without a QSCD the signature is AES, not QES.
Related standards
The frameworks above interlock. Each linked page covers one in full.
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