eIDAS qualified time-stamps · EU-wide legal validity
Qualified electronic timestamping
Bind your documents, signatures and data to a trusted, signed point in time. AlfaTrust issues eIDAS qualified time-stamps through a dedicated Time Stamping Authority (TSA), giving your records tamper-evident proof of existence that holds up across the European Union — for years to come.
What is trusted timestamping?
A trusted timestamp is cryptographic proof that a piece of data existed at a specific moment in time and has not changed since. A Time Stamping Authority (TSA) issues these timestamps following the IETF RFC 3161 and RFC 5816 standards, binding a hash of your data to an accurate, signed time value.
Because the timestamp is signed by the TSA and anchored to a UTC time source, anyone can verify later when a document was signed or received — even years afterwards, and even after the original signing certificate has expired or been revoked. This is what makes trusted timestamping essential for the long-term validation (LTV) of digital signatures, electronic archiving, copyright and intellectual-property protection, and notarization.
What makes a timestamp “qualified”?
Any TSA can produce an RFC 3161 timestamp. A qualified electronic time-stamp goes one decisive step further: it is issued by a qualified trust service provider (QTSP) under the eIDAS Regulation, so it carries a legal presumption of the accuracy of its date and time and of the integrity of the data it protects. That presumption applies automatically in every EU Member State — turning a technical proof into recognised legal evidence.
- Legal presumption of correct date, time and data integrity
- Recognised across all EU Member States
- Issued by an accredited, supervised QTSP
- Anchored to qualified certificates and accurate UTC time sources
Why trusted timestamping matters
A signed point in time is the foundation of trustworthy digital records. Common uses include:
- Qualified electronic signatures & seals — a qualified time-stamp completes a qualified signature or seal, anchoring exactly when it was applied
- Long-term validation (LTV / LTA) of digital signatures, so they remain verifiable long after certificates expire
- Electronic archiving with provable creation and preservation dates
- NIS2 audit evidence — tamper-evident timestamps on security logs and incident records, supporting cybersecurity reporting and accountability obligations
- DORA operational resilience — time-stamped ICT event logs, records and incident reports for the financial sector’s digital operational resilience requirements
- Regulatory audit trails & compliance — provable, ordered records that stand up to auditors across regulated industries
- Copyright & intellectual-property protection — prove exactly when a work existed
- Notarization and evidentiary records
- Invoicing & e-invoicing with a trusted issue and receipt time
Time Stamp Server for Adobe Acrobat & PDF signing
Add qualified timestamps to your PDF signatures directly from Adobe Acrobat. Once you point Acrobat to your Time Stamp Server URL, every signature is sealed with a trusted timestamp, producing PAdES-compatible documents suitable for long-term validation (LTV or LTA).
Standard compliance
Our service is a standards-compliant RFC 3161 Time Stamp Server. Clients request a time-stamp by sending an RFC 3161 request over HTTPS and receive a signed time-stamp token in return — the same protocol that Adobe Acrobat, signing applications and signature validators already speak, so it integrates out of the box.
The qualified time-stamps it issues embed directly into PAdES, CAdES and XAdES signatures, and the server is built for high-volume, bulk timestamping.
Start timestamping at qtsa.eu
Our qualified timestamping service has its own dedicated home at qtsa.eu — where you will find Time Stamp Server URLs, integration guides, bulk timestamp pricing and everything you need to start sealing documents with qualified time-stamps.