Are electronic signatures legal in Wyoming?

What Wyoming's act says

Wyoming passed the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act in 2001 (Senate File 116). It's chapter 21 of Title 40 of the Wyoming Statutes, W.S. 40-21-101 through 40-21-119, and applies to records created on or after July 1, 2001 (§ 40-21-104(a)).

The rest of § 40-21-107 says a record, signature or contract can't be denied legal effect just because it's electronic, and an electronic record satisfies a writing requirement. Courts can't refuse evidence just because it's electronic (§ 40-21-113). Wyoming defines an electronic signature the uniform way: an electronic sound, symbol or process attached to or logically associated with a record and adopted with intent to sign (§ 40-21-102).

A short exclusion list

• The law on making and signing wills, codicils and testamentary trusts (§ 40-21-103(b)(i)).
• The Uniform Commercial Code, except W.S. 34.1-1-107 and 34.1-1-206 and articles 2 (sales) and 2A (leases) (§ 40-21-103(b)(ii)).
• The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (§ 40-21-103(b)(iii)).

Even an excluded record is covered to the extent another law governs it (§ 40-21-103(c)), and every transaction stays subject to other substantive law. One more Wyoming wrinkle: the state's Financial Technology Sandbox Act applies to this chapter (§ 40-21-104(b)). That act lets regulators grant approved fintech products limited, time-bound waivers of specified statutes (§ 40-29-103).

Agreement and the federal ESIGN Act

The act applies only to transactions between parties who have each agreed to deal electronically, read from context and conduct, and a party can refuse the next one (§ 40-21-105). If you stop a recipient from storing or printing a record, it isn't enforceable against them (§ 40-21-108).

The federal ESIGN Act gives electronic signatures the same baseline nationwide (15 U.S.C. § 7001). ESIGN also has a consumer rule: to deliver legally required written information electronically, get the consumer's consent its way first (§ 7001(c)). Our plain-English guide covers how the two laws fit.

Remote notarization in Wyoming

If a law requires notarization, the notary's electronic signature and required details attached to the record satisfy it (§ 40-21-111). Wyoming's notary law (Title 32, Chapter 3; the older Title 34 notary sections were repealed in 2021) counts appearing through an electronic notarization system or other communication technology as personal appearance (W.S. 32-3-102). It provides for remote online notarization and remote ink acknowledgments, and a remote notarial act is treated as performed in Wyoming no matter where the signer is (W.S. 32-3-111). A notary must tell the secretary of state before their first remote act (W.S. 32-3-120(g)). See remote online notarization. SignMaster doesn't notarize documents.

Practical notes

• Write down the agreement. A clause saying both sides agree to sign electronically is solid evidence of agreement under § 40-21-105.
• Keep an accurate final copy. A retained electronic record must reflect the final document and stay accessible (§ 40-21-112).
• Be able to show who signed. Under § 40-21-109, the security procedure used is one way to prove it.

Wyoming won't enforce a record against someone you kept from storing or printing it (§ 40-21-108). SignMaster's completed PDF is downloadable by every signer and closes with a certificate of completion of timestamped events. Each signer agrees to sign electronically before signing, and the consent is filed with the disclosure version they saw.