Forgery and Uttering in the US: Federal and State Penalties, and How to Spot a Fake Document

Forgery in the United States means making, altering or completing a document with intent to defraud, and uttering means knowingly presenting that document as genuine. Both are crimes in every state, and a long list of federal statutes adds penalties of up to 30 years when the forged document targets a bank, a federal agency or an identity check. At Koncile we build document fraud detection software, and every day we see pay stubs, bank statements and invoices that were edited after they were issued. This guide covers the law first, then the practical question that legal pages rarely answer: how you recognize a forged document in a loan file, a rental application or an onboarding flow.

One note before we start: this article summarizes statutes as they read on October 31, 2026. It is not legal advice, and the outcome of any case depends on the facts and the jurisdiction. Talk to counsel before you act on a specific file.

What is forgery under US law?

There is no single federal definition of forgery. Each state defines it in its penal code, and the definitions share the same three elements: a writing that is falsely made, completed or altered; an intent to defraud, deceive or harm someone; and a document that could have legal or financial effect if it were genuine.

New York is a typical example. Under New York Penal Law § 170.05, a person commits forgery in the third degree when, with intent to defraud, deceive or injure another, they falsely make, complete or alter a written instrument. Texas spells the conduct out in more detail: Texas Penal Code § 32.21 defines forging as altering, making, completing, executing or authenticating a writing so that it purports to be the act of someone who did not authorize it, or to have been executed at another time or place than it really was.

Uttering is the second half of the offense. It means passing, issuing or presenting a forged document as genuine, knowing it is false: submitting an edited bank statement with a mortgage application, sending a doctored pay stub to a landlord, filing a fake invoice for payment. Texas folds uttering and possession with intent to utter into the same definition of forgery; California Penal Code § 470 covers anyone who utters, publishes or passes a forged item as true. The person who edits the file and the person who presents it can be two different people, and both can be charged.

The medium does not matter. A paper check, a scanned ID and a PDF edited in a desktop editor are all writings. Texas law even says that a writing includes printing or any other method of recording information, which covers a document produced entirely by a generative AI tool.

Which federal laws apply to forged documents?

Federal law steps in when the forged document is used against a federally insured lender, a federal agency or an identity system. The table lists the statutes that come up most often for compliance, credit and onboarding teams, with the maximum prison term set by each text.

A few details matter in practice. Section 1014 applies to anyone who knowingly makes a false statement or overvalues property to influence lenders such as FDIC insured banks, credit unions and mortgage lending businesses: an inflated pay stub or bank statement in a loan file is the textbook case. Section 1344, bank fraud, covers the broader scheme to obtain a bank's money through false or fraudulent statements, with the same maximum of 30 years and $1,000,000.

Under section 1001, using a false writing in a matter within the jurisdiction of a federal body carries up to 5 years, and up to 8 years in the cases the text lists, such as terrorism. Section 1028 grades identification document fraud: up to 15 years for producing or transferring a document that is or appears to be federally issued, a birth certificate or a driver's license, 5 years for most other cases, 20 years when the offense facilitates drug trafficking or is connected to a crime of violence, and 30 years when it facilitates terrorism. Section 1028A, aggravated identity theft, adds a mandatory 2 years on top of the underlying sentence when someone else's identity is used during one of the listed felonies.

Finally, section 513 punishes making, uttering or possessing a forged security of a state or of an organization, such as a forged check drawn on a company account, with up to 10 years. Section 1546 covers forged visas, permits and other entry or employment documents: up to 10 years for a first or second offense, 15 years in other cases, 20 years when linked to drug trafficking and 25 years when linked to international terrorism.

How do states punish forgery?

Most forgery cases are prosecuted under state law, and states grade the offense by the type of document and, in some states, by the value at stake. Three large states show how much the penalties vary from one jurisdiction to the next.

In New York, forgery in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor, capped at 364 days under Penal Law § 70.15. Forgery in the second degree is a class D felony when the instrument is a deed, will, contract, commercial instrument or credit card, a public record, an official government instrument or a prescription; forgery in the first degree, for money, stamps, securities or interests in a company, is a class C felony. Under Penal Law § 70.00, the maximum term is 7 years for a class D felony and 15 years for a class C felony.

In California, Penal Code § 473 makes forgery punishable by up to one year in county jail or by a felony term under section 1170(h), which is 16 months, two or three years. Forgery of a check, money order or similar item worth $950 or less is generally limited to one year in county jail.

In Texas, section 32.21 makes forgery a class A misdemeanor by default, punishable by up to one year and a $4,000 fine under section 12.21. It becomes a state jail felony, 180 days to 2 years and up to $10,000 under section 12.35, when the writing is a check, contract, credit card, deed or other commercial instrument, and a third degree felony, 2 to 10 years under section 12.34, for government records, securities and money. When the forgery aims to obtain property or a service, Texas grades it by value instead, up to a first degree felony at $300,000 or more.

Which documents are forged most often?

In the daily work of a lender, an insurer, a property manager or an HR team, forgery is not exotic. The same handful of documents comes back again and again, because they unlock credit, housing or a job.

• Pay stubs come first in loan and rental applications: a gross pay raised by a few hundred dollars, a longer length of employment, a different employer name.
• Bank statements follow closely, with inflated balances, invented deposits or awkward transactions removed.
• Tax documents such as W-2 forms and tax returns are used to prove income, especially for self employed applicants.
• Proof of address, usually a utility bill, is often the easiest to tamper with, because nobody looks at it closely.
• Invoices are used for payment, refund and expense fraud.
• ID documents are forged to pass onboarding and identity checks.

On the technical side, our analyses sort forgeries into six families, and nearly half go through a PDF editor. The table shows the share of each family in the forgeries we detected.

Volume matters more than drama. On 150,000 bank statements analyzed by Koncile, 1.42% were falsified: a small share, but in a portfolio of thousands of applications every month, it is a steady flow of loans, leases and accounts opened on false information.

How can you tell if a document is fake?

Here is what we check, in order. A fake document detector runs these checks automatically on a file, but each one can also be done by hand on a suspicious document.

The software that created the file, and its metadata

Every PDF carries metadata: the software that created it, the one that converted it, the creation and modification dates. A bank statement comes out of the bank's own system, with a software signature of its own; a payroll provider's pay stub carries the provider's generator. 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. You can read these fields yourself with a pdf metadata viewer. 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, many editors append the changes to the end of the file without erasing what came before. You can then rebuild the before and the after. Two real cases, anonymized, from our analyses: a date moved from March 13 to June 13 to make a document look recent, and an invoice that shows 50,900 on screen while its copied text reads 50,400, because the visible layer was retouched and 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 deposits minus withdrawals, and a fake bank statement detector recalculates every running balance. On a pay stub, net pay follows from gross pay minus taxes and deductions, and year to date totals must grow from one period to the next: that is the core of pay stub verification. The name, address and employer must match everywhere in the file. For a scan, the text has to be read by OCR first.

Does the document look like others from its issuer?

A bank produces its statements the same way every month. By comparing a document with genuine copies from the same issuer, you can spot what does not fit: a font that never appears on real statements, a layout shifted by a few points, a template that matches no known version.

Some elements do clear a document: a valid digital signature with its chain of trust, or an exact match with the issuer, such as a verification of employment from the employer or a verification of deposit from the bank. Others never clear a document on their own, such as a review by a language model or a check of the editing software alone.

How do you prove that a document was forged?

You need to show that the document says something other than the truth. Three approaches complement each other. First, confirmation from the issuer: the bank, the employer or the agency confirms or not. It is the strongest proof, but it is slow. Next, an examination that compares the document with originals. Finally, analysis of the file itself. A PDF keeps a record of how it was made: the software that produced it, the dates, sometimes earlier versions of its content. On their own, these elements do not prove intent to defraud, which is for a court to decide, but they show that a file was altered after it was issued.

What should you do if someone hands you a fake?

First, do not accuse. A technical clue is not proof of intent, and calling someone a forger without evidence exposes you to a defamation claim. Stay factual: the document shows signs of modification after it was issued, and you need an original or a confirmation from the issuer.

Next, hold the application until the doubt is cleared, and keep the file exactly as received, with the email or upload that came with it. Do not open and save it again in an editor, which can change its metadata.

Then report it through the right channel. Banks and other financial institutions have their own obligations: under 12 CFR 21.11, for example, a national bank must file a suspicious activity report with FinCEN when it detects a suspected federal crime above the thresholds the rule sets. Outside regulated institutions, the usual routes are local law enforcement and, when the fake involves a stolen identity, the Federal Trade Commission's identity theft and fraud reporting service. Your counsel will tell you which applies.

How does Koncile check a document?

You upload a document, and Koncile runs more than 150 checks on the file, its metadata, its figures and its resemblance to genuine documents from the same issuer. It returns a score from 0 to 100 that adds up the clues, never a verdict: each clue is shown, with the before and after when an earlier version of the file exists. We say it plainly: making the reason for a suspicion readable for the person who supplied the document is still work in progress on our side.

Frequently asked questions

Is forgery a felony in the US?

It depends on the state and the document. In New York, forgery in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor, while forging a contract, a credit card or a public record is a class D felony. In Texas, the default offense is a class A misdemeanor, but forging a check or a contract is a state jail felony. Federal offenses such as bank fraud are felonies.

What is uttering a forged instrument?

Uttering means knowingly passing, presenting or using a forged document as if it were genuine, for example submitting an edited bank statement with a loan application. Many state laws, such as California Penal Code § 470 and Texas Penal Code § 32.21, include it in the definition of forgery.

How long can someone be prosecuted for bank fraud?

Most federal offenses must be charged within five years under 18 U.S.C. § 3282. For bank fraud and false statements on a loan application (sections 1344 and 1014), 18 U.S.C. § 3293 extends the limit to ten years. State limits vary.

Is an edited PDF a forgery?

Not necessarily. It becomes forgery when the edit alters the truth of a document that has legal or financial effect, with intent to defraud. Fixing a typo is not forgery; changing a salary on a pay stub submitted to a lender can be.

How do you check if a document is fake?

Check the software and dates in the file, look for earlier versions hidden in the PDF, redo the math, compare the document with genuine ones from the same issuer, and confirm with the issuer when the stakes are high.

Sources

• 18 U.S.C. § 1014, § 1344, § 1001, § 1028, § 1028A, § 513, § 1546, § 3282, § 3293 (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, read October 31, 2026)
• New York Penal Law § 170.05, § 170.10, § 170.15, § 70.00, § 70.15 (New York State Senate, read October 31, 2026)
• California Penal Code § 470, § 473, § 1170 (read October 31, 2026)
• Texas Penal Code § 32.21, § 12.21, § 12.34, § 12.35 (read October 31, 2026)
• 12 CFR 21.11, suspicious activity reports by national banks (read October 31, 2026)