Qualified electronic registered delivery service (QERDS)

QERDS (qualified electronic registered delivery service) is the eIDAS-regulated delivery service with an EU-wide presumption of integrity and delivery.

QERDS (Qualified Electronic Registered Delivery Service) is the qualified variant of electronic registered delivery service (eIDAS Article 3(36)), defined in eIDAS Article 3(37) and Article 44. It must be offered by a QTSP and meets the requirements of Article 44(1)(a)-(f):

• the sender is identified with a high degree of confidence;
• the addressee is identified before the data is delivered;
• the sending and receiving of data is secured by an advanced electronic signature or advanced electronic seal of the QTSP, in a manner that precludes the possibility of the data being changed undetectably;
• any change to the data that is needed to send or receive it is clearly indicated to both the sender and the addressee;
• the moment of sending, receiving and any change of the data is indicated by a qualified electronic timestamp.

As with any electronic registered delivery service, the transmitted data must also be protected against loss, theft, damage or unauthorised alteration (Article 3(36)).

Compliance with these requirements is presumed when a QERDS meets the reference standards listed in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1944 of 29 September 2025 (Article 44(1a)). Because the addressee must be identified before delivery, QERDS is not a drop-in replacement for sending a message to any email address: the recipient typically needs to be identified through the service, for example by being registered with a QERDS provider, before delivery can take place.

The legal value follows from eIDAS Article 43(2): data sent and received through a QERDS enjoys a presumption of integrity, of sending by the identified sender, of receipt by the identified recipient, and of the accuracy of the date and time - and this presumption applies across all EU member states. That reversal of the burden of proof is what makes QERDS useful evidence for formal notices, contract terminations and other communications where proof of delivery matters, in a way that ordinary email or a plain ERDS cannot offer. This is an evidential presumption only: it does not by itself satisfy national legal form requirements that may apply to statutory deadlines or specific types of notice. eIDAS 2.0 (Regulation (EU) 2024/1183) allows QERDS providers to agree on interoperability with each other (Article 44(2a)), so that a message sent through one qualified provider can potentially be delivered to a recipient using a different qualified provider - though such interoperability is voluntary rather than a legal obligation.