At Koncile, we build document fraud detection software, and every day we see pay stubs, bank statements and invoices that have been tampered with. Here, the law comes first, short and sourced, then detection.
What is forgery and use of a forged document in French law?
Everything starts with article 441-1 of the French Penal Code. Its text fits in two sentences (our translation):
"Forgery is any fraudulent alteration of the truth, liable to cause harm and carried out by any means whatsoever, in a written document or any other medium for the expression of thought whose purpose is, or whose effect may be, to establish proof of a right or of a fact having legal consequences. Forgery and the use of a forgery are punishable by three years' imprisonment and a €45,000 fine."
It sets out the elements of the offense: an alteration of the truth (a changed figure, a shifted date, a document made up from scratch), made knowingly, on a medium that can prove a right or a fact (pay stub, bank statement, certificate, invoice), and liable to cause harm, even if no actual harm occurred.
"By any means whatsoever": an edited PDF and a document generated by AI fall under the same text.
Forgery means making or altering the document. Use of a forgery means presenting it: in a loan application, to an insurer, to a landlord. These are two separate offenses, with the same penalties, and they can involve two different people.
What are the penalties in France?
The base penalty is the one in article 441-1: three years and €45,000, for forgery and for use alike. Then come specific forms of forgery, punished more heavily.
Forging a document issued by a public authority to establish a right, an identity or a status, or to grant an authorization, falls under article 441-2: five years and €75,000, and use is punished the same way. The penalty rises to seven years and €100,000 when the offender holds public authority or is entrusted with a public service mission and acts in the course of their duties, when the acts are committed habitually, or when they aim to facilitate a crime or to help its perpetrator escape punishment.
Possessing such a forgery is punished by article 441-3: two years and €30,000, or five years and €75,000 for several documents.
Forging a public or authentic record, or a record kept by order of a public authority, moves into a more serious category of offense. Article 441-4 provides for ten years and €150,000, and fifteen years of criminal imprisonment and €225,000 if the offender holds public authority or is entrusted with a public service mission and acts in the course of their duties.
Article 441-6 punishes with two years and €30,000 obtaining an administrative document one is not entitled to, or knowingly making a false statement to obtain an undue benefit from a public body. Article 441-7 covers inaccurate or falsified certificates and their use: one year and €15,000, or three years and €45,000 when the acts aim to harm the public treasury or another person's assets, or to obtain a residence permit.
Attempts count too. Article 441-9 punishes an attempt to commit the offenses in articles 441-1, 441-2 and 441-4 to 441-8 with the same penalties as the completed offense.
Companies can be prosecuted as well. For legal entities, article 441-12 provides for the fine set by article 131-38, which is five times the fine for an individual, so €225,000 for a forgery under article 441-1, and for the penalties in article 131-39, including a ban on carrying out the activity in which the offense was committed.
What about the US and the UK?
Outside France, the texts differ but the logic is close. A few federal and UK provisions, as a starting point rather than legal advice.
In the US, 18 U.S.C. § 1014 makes it a federal crime to knowingly make a false statement or report to influence a loan or credit decision by a covered lender, such as a bank whose deposits are insured by the FDIC, a credit union or a mortgage lending business. The maximum penalty is a $1,000,000 fine, 30 years in prison, or both. 18 U.S.C. § 1028 covers fraud involving identification documents, including producing or using a false identification document without lawful authority. Maximum prison terms range from one to 15 years in most cases, and reach 20 or 30 years when the offense is linked to drug trafficking, a crime of violence or terrorism.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 makes it an offense to make a false instrument (section 1) or to use one you know or believe to be false (section 3), with the intent that someone accepts it as genuine to their detriment. Each carries up to ten years in prison on conviction on indictment (section 6). The Fraud Act 2006 adds fraud by false representation (section 2): dishonestly making a false representation to make a gain or cause a loss, punishable by up to ten years in prison, a fine, or both (section 1). Neither text applies in Scotland.
Document forgery: the most common cases
In the day to day work of a bank, an insurer or a landlord, forgeries are very ordinary. The pay stub comes first in loan and rental applications: a net salary raised by a few hundred euros, a longer length of service. The bank statement follows closely, with inflated balances or awkward transactions erased. The tax notice is an administrative document: in France, forging it falls under article 441-2. The invoice is used for payment or refund fraud. Proof of address is often the easiest to tamper with, because nobody looks at it closely.
Market figures point the same way. According to a 2026 Ipsos study, 13% of decision makers have suffered a financial loss linked to document forgery.
On the technical side, our analyses sort forgeries into six families, and nearly half go through a PDF editor.
How do you prove forgery and use of a forged document?
You need to show that the document says something other than the truth. Three approaches complement each other. First, checking with the issuer: the bank, the employer or the authority confirms or not. It is the strongest proof, but it is slow. Next, an expert examination that compares the document with originals. Finally, more and more often, analysis of the file itself. A PDF keeps a record of how it was made: the software that produced it, the creation and modification dates, sometimes earlier versions of its content. On their own, these elements do not prove fraudulent intent, which is for the judge to assess, but they show that a file was altered after it was issued.
Then comes the criminal complaint. In France, it is filed with the police, the gendarmerie or the public prosecutor, and it must be filed in time: we cover the deadlines below.
How can you tell if a document is fake?
Here is what we check, in order. For a quick test, our fake document detector runs these checks on a file.
The software that created the file, and its metadata
Every PDF carries metadata: the software that created it, the one that converted it, the dates. A bank statement comes out of the bank's own system, with a software signature of its own. If the file points to a consumer PDF editor or an image editing tool, that is a clue. A modification date several days after the creation date is another. A clue, not proof: some issuers use legitimate conversion tools.
Hidden versions in an edited PDF, with the before and after
When an edit is saved, the editor often appends the changes to the end of the file without erasing what came before. You can then rebuild the before and the after.
Three real cases, anonymized, from our analyses. A date moved from March 13 to June 13, to make a document look recent. A no claims bonus coefficient (bonus malus) changed from 0.90 to 0.68 on an insurance claims history statement, which changes the price of the policy. And an invoice that shows 50,900 on screen, but whose copied text reads 50,400: the visible layer was retouched, not the text layer underneath.
In our corpus, one file in 150 carries edit traces of this kind: rare to the naked eye, costly at volume.
Consistent figures, dates and names
A forgery rarely holds up when you redo the math. On a bank statement, the closing balance must equal the opening balance plus credits minus debits. On a pay stub, net pay follows from gross pay and deductions. The name and address must match everywhere in the file. For a scan, OCR has to come first.
Does the document look like others from its issuer?
A bank always produces its statements the same way. By comparing a document with genuine copies from the same issuer, you can spot what stands out: a font that never appears on real statements, a layout shifted by a few points, a template that matches no known version.
On the other hand, some elements genuinely clear a document: a valid electronic signature with its chain of trust, the seal of a payroll software vendor, or an exact match with an official source such as a vehicle history or company register. Others never clear a document on their own, such as a check by a language model or an analysis of the editing software alone.
What should you do if someone hands you a fake?
First, do not accuse. A technical clue is not proof of intent, and calling something a "forgery" without demonstrating it exposes you to a defamation risk. The right wording is factual: the document shows signs of possible modification after issue, and you are asking for an original or a confirmation from the issuer.
Next, reject the document until the doubt is cleared, and keep the file as received, with the email it came with, without saving it again in an editor, which can change its metadata.
Depending on your sector, you may have to report it, for example to an industry antifraud body or to the financial intelligence unit you answer to. In any case, you can file a criminal complaint.
On timing, in France, article 8 of the Code of Criminal Procedure sets the limitation period for prosecuting misdemeanors (délits) at six full years from the day the offense was committed. For use of a forgery, the Court of Cassation holds that the period runs from each act by which the person relies on the forged document: each new use restarts the clock. For the forgery itself, the period in principle runs from the day it was made, and the Court ruled in 2004 that it is not postponed to the day of discovery. Since the 2017 reform, article 9-1 of the same code allows the limitation period for a concealed or hidden offense to start on the day it came to light, within a limit of twelve years after the acts for a misdemeanor. Whether it applies to forgery depends on the circumstances of each case.
Check a document in seconds
You upload a document, Koncile runs more than 150 checks on the file, its metadata, its figures and how closely it matches documents from its issuer, then returns a score from 0 to 100 that combines the clues. Not a verdict: a score with the clues found, and the before and after when an earlier version exists.
To be frank: making the reason for a suspicion readable and usable against the person who supplied the document is still a work in progress for us.
To go further, see how to detect forged documents at scale, or our guide to detecting a fake bank statement.
Frequently asked questions
How do you prove forgery and use of a forged document?
By checking with the issuer, through an expert examination, and through technical analysis of the file. Fraudulent intent is still for the judge to assess.
What are the elements of forgery and use of a forged document?
An alteration of the truth, made fraudulently, in a document or medium that can prove a right or a fact with legal consequences, and liable to cause harm (article 441-1 of the French Penal Code). Use means relying on the forged document.
How long do you have to file a complaint in France?
Six years from the offense (article 8 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure), and the period starts again with each new use of the forged document.
How can you tell if a document is fake?
Check the software and dates recorded in the file, look for earlier versions, redo the math, and compare it with documents from the same issuer.
Is an edited PDF a forgery?
Not necessarily. It is a forgery when the edit fraudulently alters the truth in a document that serves as proof and can cause harm. Fixing a typo is not forgery; changing the salary on a pay stub can be.
Sources
- Légifrance, French Penal Code, Book IV, Title IV, Chapter I "Des faux" (Forgery), articles 441-1 to 441-12, version in force on October 24, 2026
- Légifrance, French Penal Code, article 131-38
- Légifrance, French Code of Criminal Procedure, article 8
- French Court of Cassation, criminal chamber, January 19, 2000, no. 98-88.101
- French Court of Cassation, criminal chamber, May 25, 2004, no. 03-85.674
- Légifrance, French Code of Criminal Procedure, article 9-1
- 18 U.S.C. § 1014, Loan and credit applications generally (Cornell LII)
- 18 U.S.C. § 1028, Fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents (Cornell LII)
- Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, Part I (legislation.gov.uk)
- Fraud Act 2006 (legislation.gov.uk)
