Document Anchoring
Give every document a legally-presumed timestamp — provable in any EU court. One eIDAS qualified timestamp anchors thousands of documents per batch, at a fraction of direct TSA cost.
Anyone can backdate a file. What you need is proof that your document existed, in exactly this form, at a specific point in time — before a dispute, before a deadline, before a claim.
Free plan · 100 anchors/month · no credit card required
Every anchor preserved for 30 years — long-term preservationWhen the proof matters most
Three moments where a tamper-evident timestamp changes the outcome.
The contract is disputed
A client claims the contract they signed had different terms. You have the document you sent — but so do they, and theirs looks different.
Your hash was anchored the moment the contract was finalised. The eIDAS proof shows your version existed, unmodified, at that exact time.
The invoice is questioned
An auditor questions whether a high-value invoice was generated before or after a certain date. The document metadata can be changed. The filesystem timestamps cannot be trusted.
The qualified timestamp is independent of your systems. It proves the invoice existed at the stated time — not backdated, not reconstructed.
The design is stolen
You filed a patent application. Someone claims prior art — that their design predates yours. You need to prove your work existed before theirs.
You anchored the design file the day you created it. The court-admissible proof shows it existed at that exact time in UTC, before any third-party claim.
How it works
Four steps from your file to an irrefutable, court-admissible timestamp.
Hash your document locally
Your SDK or application computes the SHA-256 hash of your file. This happens on your machine — the file itself never leaves your system.
The hash is a 64-character fingerprint unique to the exact content of your document. One changed byte produces a completely different hash.
Submit the hash
The hash is sent to the TrustBeat API. You get a 202 Accepted with a tracking ID in milliseconds — your application is never blocked waiting for the batch.
Hundreds of hashes can be submitted in parallel. The ingestion queue decouples your application from the 10-minute anchor cycle.
Merkle-batched eIDAS anchor
Every 10 minutes, all pending hashes are assembled into a Merkle tree. The root is anchored with a single qualified eIDAS timestamp from an EU Trusted List QTSP.
One qualified timestamp — costing a fraction of a cent per document — covers thousands of documents simultaneously.
Inclusion proof — valid for 30 years
Your document receives its own Merkle path from its hash to the qualified timestamp root. This self-contained proof is verifiable offline with OpenSSL, today or in 30 years.
An RFC 4998 evidence record, renewed before the TSA certificate expires, keeps the proof verifiable for 30 years — designed to ETSI TS 119 511.
RFC 3161 (TSA) · Merkle tree · eIDAS Art. 41 legal presumption · ETSI EN 319 102 LTV
Use cases and legal basis
A qualified eIDAS timestamp is not just a convenience — it carries a specific legal presumption that is binding across all 27 EU member states.
| Use case | Covered |
|---|---|
| Contract management | |
| Intellectual property | |
| Financial records | |
| Legal discovery | |
| Long-term archiving |
eIDAS Art. 41 — Legal presumption
A qualified electronic timestamp shall enjoy the legal presumption of the accuracy of the date and time it indicates, and the integrity of the data to which the date and time are bound. This presumption applies automatically in all EU member states — no additional validation required.
Preserved for 30 years
Every document anchor gets an RFC 4998 evidence record that we renew before its timestamp certificate expires — designed to ETSI TS 119 511.
How long-term preservation worksAnchor a file in five lines
Five zero-dependency SDKs. One call. A legally-presumed eIDAS timestamp in your next batch.
$ npm install trustbeatimport { TrustBeat } from "trustbeat";
const tb = new TrustBeat({ apiKey: "YOUR_API_KEY" });
const job = await tb.anchorFile("contract.pdf");
console.log(job.id); // → 01JQ...Maximum privacy: The SDK methods above hash the file locally before sending. If you prefer to compute the SHA-256 yourself and submit only the hash, use tb.anchor(hash) instead. Either way, your file never leaves your system.
Common questions
Do you ever see my documents?
No. The SDK computes the SHA-256 hash locally on your machine and sends only the hash to TrustBeat. Your file content never leaves your system. If you prefer, you can compute the hash yourself and call the hash-only API endpoint — the result is identical.
What is an inclusion proof, and how is it different from a direct timestamp?
A direct timestamp (RFC 3161) issues one qualified timestamp per document — which means one TSA round-trip per document. We batch thousands of hashes into a Merkle tree and anchor the root with a single TSA call. Your document gets a Merkle inclusion proof: a path of sibling hashes from your hash to the qualified root. The path binds your hash to the qualified timestamp cryptographically — change one byte of your document and it no longer leads to the stamped root — and costs less than €0.001 per document instead of several cents.
How long is my proof valid?
Each document anchor is preserved for 30 years from submission, on every plan including Free. A timestamp alone is verifiable only while the TSA certificate is valid, so every anchor gets an RFC 4998 evidence record that we renew with a new qualified timestamp before the previous one stops being verifiable — designed to ETSI TS 119 511 (preservation of general data). You can validate the record yourself with EU DSS, without TrustBeat.
Can I verify the proof without TrustBeat?
Yes. Every proof bundle is self-contained: a Merkle path and a qualified RFC 3161 timestamp token. Our documentation includes a MANUAL_VERIFICATION.md guide with step-by-step OpenSSL commands. No TrustBeat account or service connection needed, now or in the future.
What if I lose the proof JSON?
You can retrieve it at any time via the API using the tracking ID returned when you anchored the document. We keep each document anchor's proof for 30 years from submission. We also recommend keeping a local copy of the proof bundle alongside the document you anchored.
Pronto ad ancorare il tuo primo documento?
Inizia gratuitamente. Nessuna carta di credito richiesta. I primi 100 hash sono gratuiti.
eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 · Art. 41 legal presumption · EU Trusted List QTSP