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
When 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 the exact UTC creation time, 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.
Recursive archive stamping (LTV) ensures the proof chain remains valid as cryptographic algorithms are deprecated over time.
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.
Anchor 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 proof is mathematically equivalent to a direct timestamp in terms of legal strength, but costs less than €0.001 per document instead of several cents.
How long is my proof valid?
The base proof is valid for the lifetime of SHA-256 and the TSA certificate chain — typically 30+ years. We also apply recursive archive stamping (Long-Term Validation / LTV per ETSI EN 319 102): before any algorithm in the chain is deprecated, we re-stamp the archive. Your proof remains valid indefinitely.
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. Proofs are stored for the lifetime of your account. We also recommend keeping a local copy of the proof bundle alongside the document you anchored.
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eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 · Art. 41 legal presumption · EU Trusted List QTSP