Can I sign a termination letter electronically?

No — not with a Simple Electronic Signature (SES), the kind SignSent creates. This page describes German and EU law specifically; rules differ elsewhere. Under German law, § 623 of the German Civil Code (BGB) explicitly requires terminating an employment relationship to be in statutory written form: the termination notice must be signed by hand, on paper, in the original. A scanned, digitally inserted, or tablet-drawn signature does not meet this requirement.

The legislator made § 623 BGB deliberately strict because termination is one of the most consequential unilateral declarations in employment law. The written-form requirement is meant to protect both sides against rash decisions and to provide clear proof, in a dispute, that the declaration genuinely came from the person terminating. § 126(3) BGB generally allows statutory written form to be replaced by electronic form — but § 623 BGB explicitly excludes exactly that for terminations. That rules out not just a Simple Electronic Signature but also a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) under eIDAS — for terminations, even the highest trust level of electronic signature does not help.

In practice, this means a termination letter signed via SignSent (or any other e-signature tool) is legally invalid. This applies to terminations by employers and by employees alike, and equally to mutual termination agreements ending an employment relationship — those also require a handwritten signature on paper under § 623 BGB. An employment relationship that was invalidly terminated legally continues to exist, even if both sides act as though it ended — which can cause serious problems months later (for example around wage claims or social-security questions).

What's required instead: print the termination letter, sign it by hand with ink, and hand it over in the original or send it by post. A Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) would be the only electronic alternative that § 126(3) BGB generally permits — SignSent does not currently offer QES, since it requires an identity-verified certificate provider and most everyday contracts (see below) don't need it.