Digital Signature and Digital Certificate in Peru: Which Procedures Are Really 100% Virtual?

Two questions people tend to mix up

When someone asks whether “everything can already be done with a digital signature in Peru,” they’re really mixing up two different questions. The first: does a digital signature carry the same legal weight as a handwritten one? The second, and the one that actually matters for figuring out what you can do without leaving home: which specific procedures can be completed today with no in-person step?

The answer to the first question is yes, and has been since the year 2000. The answer to the second depends on the procedure — and the gap between the two is where nearly all the confusion around this topic comes from.

Your digital signature counts like your handwritten one — with a limit the law itself spells out

Law N.º 27269, the Law on Digital Signatures and Certificates, states in Article 1 that its purpose is to “regulate the use of the electronic signature, granting it the same validity and legal effect as the use of a handwritten signature.” Article 3 technically defines a digital signature as one that “uses an asymmetric cryptography technique, based on the use of a unique key pair” — a private key that only you control, and a public key used to verify the signature is yours without anyone being able to derive your private key from it.

So far, a digital signature sounds like a master key for doing everything online. But the Regulation of that law, Supreme Decree N.º 052-2008-PCM, adds in its Article 3 the sentence that actually organizes this entire topic: the digital signature’s validity “does not exclude compliance with the specific formalities required for legal acts and for granting notarial certification (fe pública).”

In other words, the law separates two things that look like one. One is whether your signature is legally valid — and digital or handwritten, it counts the same. The other is whether the act itself needs, on top of a valid signature, an additional formality — such as a notary certifying that the act took place. Buying a house, forming a company, or granting a broad power of attorney are acts the law surrounds with that second formality, and no digital signature, however valid, removes it by itself.

Who oversees the system: INDECOPI as the Competent Administrative Authority

The same Supreme Decree N.º 052-2008-PCM designates, in its Article 57, “the Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y de la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual - INDECOPI as the Competent Administrative Authority” over the Official Electronic Signature Infrastructure (IOFE). In practice, this means INDECOPI accredits the entities that issue digital certificates, supervises the system, and sets the technical standards they must meet. RENIEC, by contrast, doesn’t set those rules — it’s one of the entities operating within that system, issuing digital certificates to citizens through the electronic DNI.

How you get your digital signature: the DNIe’s digital certificate

For an individual, the most common route to a valid digital signature is the digital certificate on the electronic DNI (DNIe). RENIEC says it plainly on its official page: “a DNIe is only legally valid if it has a digital signature issued under the Official Electronic Signature Infrastructure (IOFE)” — meaning the DNIe card by itself isn’t enough; you need the active digital certificate on it.

That certificate is valid for 4 years from issuance. After that, renewing it costs S/ 6.60, under tax code 00530 (“Emisión de nuevos Certificados Digitales en el DNIe”). With an active certificate, you can digitally sign contracts, sworn statements, and several online procedures with the same legal validity as if you’d signed them by hand.

What is genuinely 100% virtual today: SID-SUNARP and electronic filing with the registry

Where the digital signature produced a real, measurable change is SUNARP’s Digital Intermediation System (SID-SUNARP). SUNARP describes it as a “platform of services that lets you carry out the registration procedure through the electronic filing of documents,” with the “notary’s digital signature” on the documents filed.

This virtualizes, for example, filing a property sale, a power of attorney, forming a company, a vehicle transfer, or an intestate succession with the corresponding registry. The notary who authorized the instrument signs it digitally and sends it electronically to SUNARP, with no one having to carry physical paperwork to a counter. For powers of attorney registered in Lima, this filing is even mandatory through SID-SUNARP.

What is not yet 100% virtual: executing the notarial instrument itself

Here’s the distinction almost no one draws: SID-SUNARP virtualizes filing the document with the registry, not the moment that document is created. Executing the instrument — the step where you, as buyer, seller, or attorney-in-fact, appear before the notary to have the act authorized under the formalities of the Notarial Law — generally still requires appearing in person before the notary, with the paper notarial protocol.

Put differently: you can have an active digital certificate, the notary can have theirs, and the law still requires the act itself to be executed under the traditional formalities before the notary uses their digital signature to file it through SID-SUNARP.

What about signing a public deed by video call? Not today

Bill 5302/2020-CR was filed on 20 May 2020; its authors included then-congressman José Antonio Núñez Salas. Its official title is «LEY QUE MODIFICA EL ARTÍCULO 24 Y LA SÉTIMA DISPOSICIÓN COMPLEMENTARIA, TRANSITORIA Y FINAL DEL DECRETO LEGISLATIVO 1049, LEY DEL NOTARIO» (a law amending article 24 and the seventh complementary provision of Legislative Decree 1049, the Notarial Law). According to press reports, it sought to let public deeds be signed remotely with a digital signature (we did not read the bill’s text). The bill never left the Justice Committee. Congress’s official record shows, dated 17/08/2021: «Al Archivo - por Acuerdo del Consejo Directivo N° 19-2021-2022/CONSEJO-CR» (sent to the archive by agreement of the Board). As of 30 September 2026 we found no new bill on remote notarial signing in the Congress system.

So the general rule holds: your digital signature carries full legal validity, but executing a public deed still requires the in-person formalities the Notarial Law demands.