Can you e-sign a will?

Why e-signature laws don't cover wills

The ESIGN Act is the federal law that makes most electronic signatures valid. Its very first exception is for wills:

UETA, the model law most states adopted, has the same carve-out in section 3(b)(1). The result is that neither law helps or hurts a will. They simply step aside, and your state's probate code decides. Traditional wills statutes ask for a signed writing plus witnesses, and some add a notary for a self-proving affidavit, which is a sworn statement that lets the court accept the will without tracking down the witnesses later.

States with electronic will laws

A number of states now recognize electronic wills by statute. They don't all work the same way, and three examples show the range:

• Nevada (NRS 133.085). An electronic will must be created and kept as an electronic record and contain the date and the testator's electronic signature, plus at least one of: an authentication characteristic of the testator, the electronic signature and seal of an electronic notary applied in the testator's presence, or the electronic signatures of two or more attesting witnesses applied in the testator's presence.
• Florida (§ 732.522). An electronic signature satisfies the signing requirement. Witnesses can sign remotely only through audio-video technology during an online notarization session under chapter 117, supervised by a notary, and the witnesses must hear the testator say they've signed.
• Utah (Uniform Electronic Wills Act, Utah Code § 75-2-1405). The will must be readable as text when signed, signed by the testator, and signed by at least two people who witnessed it in the testator's physical or "electronic presence", which means communicating in real time as if they were in the same room.

New York has also passed an electronic wills law. It takes effect on December 12, 2027, and until then New York's e-signature act keeps wills out (State Technology Law § 307). See our New York page for the details, and check your own state's probate code or an estate lawyer before relying on any of these.

Why an e-signature app isn't the right tool

Even in a state that allows electronic wills, a normal e-signature workflow usually won't meet the statute. Contracts are typically signed one person at a time, from an email link, whenever each signer gets to it. Electronic will laws expect something else:

• Witnesses at the moment of signing. Utah requires witnesses who saw the signing, or the testator's acknowledgment of it, in physical or real-time electronic presence. Florida ties remote witnessing to an online notarization session.
• A notary or officer for self-proving. Utah lets an electronic will be made self-proving at signing through an acknowledgment and witness affidavits before an officer authorized to administer oaths (§ 75-2-1408).
• Revocation and custody rules. Utah's act lets an electronic will be revoked by a later will or by a physical act (§ 75-2-1407), which raises the question of which copy is the will. Some e-will statutes add rules about who keeps the electronic record.

A will that misses its state's formalities can fail entirely, and the estate may then pass under the default inheritance rules instead of the person's wishes. Some states have a harmless-error rule that lets a court accept a will despite a defect (Utah applies its rule to electronic wills in § 75-2-1406), but nobody should plan around it.

What to do instead

1. 1

   Follow your state's formalities

   Sign the will on paper, in ink, with the number and kind of witnesses your state requires, all present together. An estate lawyer will run the signing so nothing is missed.

2. 2

   Make it self-proving if you can

   Where your state allows, add a self-proving affidavit signed before a notary. It saves the executor a step in probate.

3. 3

   Use the statute's own process for an e-will

   If you live in a state with an electronic will law and want to use it, use a provider or lawyer whose process is built for that statute, including any notary or remote witnessing rules.

4. 4

   Keep the original where it can be found

   Tell your executor where the signed original is kept. A copy may not be enough to prove the will.

What you can sign electronically

Plenty of the paperwork around estate planning isn't a will and isn't excluded. An estate lawyer's engagement letter and fee agreement, an intake questionnaire, and the cover letter for a signing appointment are ordinary documents. New York's e-signature act, for example, expressly carves contractual beneficiary designations back in from its wills exception (§ 307(1)), though the plan administrator decides whether it accepts e-signed forms.

That's where SignMaster fits. It doesn't execute or witness wills, and we'd steer you away from using any e-signature app for one. For the surrounding paperwork, it collects signatures with an access code if you want one, and finishes each envelope with a certificate of completion recording who signed and when.