Is an electronic signature legally binding?
Yes. Electronic signatures are legally binding in the US under the ESIGN Act (2000) and UETA, and recognized in 60+ countries including the EU (eIDAS), UK, Canada, and Australia. They have the same legal weight as handwritten signatures.
Electronic signatures have the same legal weight as wet-ink signatures across nearly every developed country. In the United States, the ESIGN Act of 2000 and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) — adopted by 49 states — establish that no signature can be denied legal effect simply because it's electronic.
For an e-signature to hold up in court, four elements must be present: (1) intent to sign, (2) consent to do business electronically, (3) association of the signature with the record, and (4) record retention. iContract, DocuSign, Adobe Sign, and Dropbox Sign all meet these requirements automatically through audit trails.
Internationally, e-signatures are recognized under eIDAS in the EU, PIPEDA in Canada, the Electronic Communications Act in the UK, and equivalents in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan. Some high-stakes documents — wills, divorce decrees, certain real estate deeds — still require wet ink in some jurisdictions, so check local rules for those edge cases.
The enforceability of an e-signed document depends largely on the audit trail: timestamp, IP address, signer authentication, and document hash. iContract logs all of these automatically with every signature.
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