How to verify a UAE PASS or digitally signed document in the UAE

The United Arab Emirates has moved quickly to digital signing. Residents and citizens with a verified UAE PASS can sign documents digitally from their phone, government entities issue digitally signed documents, and licensed providers offer qualified signatures for business. Here is how to check a signed PDF you receive in the UAE.

The short answer

1. UAE PASS signatures: use the verification feature that UAE PASS offers in its app and on its website for the official check.
2. Any signed PDF: check integrity and changes after signing with Verify PDF Signature.
3. Other UAE certificates: confirm the issuer is a trust service provider licensed by the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA): the TDRA publishes the UAE Trusted List.

The legal background, briefly

• Federal Decree-Law No. 46 of 2021 on Electronic Transactions and Trust Services replaced the earlier 2006 e-commerce law. It covers electronic signatures, seals, timestamps and other trust services, and distinguishes simple, advanced and qualified levels. Its Executive Regulation followed in 2023, as Cabinet Resolution No. 28 of 2023.
• The TDRA licenses and monitors qualified trust service providers and issues and manages the UAE Trusted List. A provider and its qualified services appear on the list only after the TDRA has checked them against the national trust-services requirements.
• A qualified electronic signature under the law is generally treated as meeting signature requirements for the transaction, subject to exceptions set out in the law. Some matters (for example certain personal-status and real-estate transactions) have had special treatment; check the current rules for the specific document.
• The financial free zones: DIFC and ADGM: have their own laws on electronic transactions.

Step 1: UAE PASS documents

When someone signs through UAE PASS, the signature is created with a certificate issued to them through the national digital-identity platform. UAE PASS signs PDFs in the PAdES format, other files in CAdES and XML in XAdES, and it offers its own verification of signed documents.

How to use it:

1. Open the UAE PASS app, or sign in to the UAE PASS Self Care portal and choose the Sign & Verify tab. Use the app you installed from the official store, or the site you found yourself, not a link sent with the document.
2. Choose the verify option and select the signed document, exactly as you received it.
3. UAE PASS lists the signatures currently in the document and whether the document is valid.
4. Check that the signer's name is the person you expect, and that the number of signatures matches what you were told.

Government entities and businesses that integrate UAE PASS can also call its signature-verification service from their own systems, so an entity you deal with may verify documents for you as part of its process.

In general-purpose PDF readers, the signature may show as validity unknown if the reader does not trust the UAE PASS signing chain by default. That alone is not a problem. See Why Adobe says “Signature validity is unknown”.

Step 2: check integrity and changes

Upload the PDF, exactly as received, to Verify PDF Signature:

• Signature: Valid and Unchanged since [name] signed it: the signed content is intact.
• Changes after signing are listed page by page. On a tenancy contract, employment offer or company document, a page changed after signing is a warning sign; a second party's later signature is normal.
• Compare the changed pages and Download the version that was signed show you exactly what was signed.

Step 3: check the certificate

In Certificate details, look at:

• Issued to: the signer's name, and for organisational signatures, the entity.
• Issued by: for UAE PASS signatures, the UAE PASS signing infrastructure; for others, the licensed provider.
• Certificate chain: up to the provider's root.
• Revocation: Revoked is a red flag.

Our Trust row may show Not trusted because a UAE root is not on this service's list. That describes the list, not the signature. For formal assurance about a provider's licensed or qualified status, rely on the TDRA's UAE Trusted List or a validator that uses it.

Common real-life situations

An employer or landlord sent a signed PDF

Check it as above. If the signature is a picture (no digital signature found), confirm the contents with the company through a number you already have, especially before paying a deposit.

A government certificate with a QR code

Many UAE government entities print a QR code or reference number on documents for verification on their own service. Use it: but check that the address the QR code opens is the entity's official site, because forgers print QR codes too. See How to verify a government certificate or university degree PDF.

A document signed abroad

A foreign qualified or advanced signature can still be intact and valid; whether it is accepted for a UAE purpose depends on the receiving entity and the law. Check integrity first, then ask the receiving entity what it accepts.

What our checker does and does not tell you

Verify PDF Signature checks integrity, what changed after signing, the certificate and chain, revocation, timestamps and whether long-term validation data is present, and gives you a PDF report. It does not determine whether a signature is qualified under UAE law or whether a provider is on the UAE Trusted List. Use UAE PASS's own verification and the TDRA's list for that.