UAT sign-off
UAT sign-off is the formal, recorded decision by the business owner or customer that user acceptance testing is complete and the software is accepted for release. It is a decision rather than a test result: it states who accepted, on which build, against which acceptance criteria, and which known defects are accepted as conditions rather than blockers. Without it, a passed UAT is an opinion.
The longer version
The sign-off closes UAT the way a signature closes a contract. The artefact is a short document or a ticket: the build or version under test, the acceptance criteria it was judged against, the result per scenario, the open defects the signer has agreed to accept, and the signer's name, role and date. The signer is the person accountable for the business outcome the software serves, typically a product owner on an internal project or the client's named sponsor on an agency delivery. Nobody on the delivery team can sign for them.
Sign-off is confused with two neighbours. A go/no-go decision is the release call, and it takes UAT sign-off as one input alongside operational readiness, so a signed UAT can still be followed by a no-go. Test closure is the test team's own report that testing is finished and what it found; it is written by QA, describes coverage and defects, and accepts nothing. Sign-off is the one moment where the customer's judgement is written down, and it is the document the team points at when acceptance is disputed later.
Silence gets treated as a sign-off: a UAT window expires with no reply, the team ships, and later discovers the client had never looked; a sign-off that names a person and a date prevents it. A signature with no scope is the other loss: a name on a build number with no list of what was tested and which defects were accepted, so that a bug found after release cannot be classified as accepted, missed or new. A sign-off that lists conditions is more honest than a clean one, and it is what a checklist exists to produce.
Common questions
Who signs off UAT?
The person accountable for the business outcome: the product owner, the business sponsor or the client's named decision-maker. The delivery team prepares the evidence and cannot sign, because the signature is the customer's statement that the delivery meets their need. Where several departments are affected, each names one signer and the sign-off carries all of them.
What is the difference between UAT sign-off and a go/no-go decision?
UAT sign-off is the customer's statement that the delivery meets their need, made once user acceptance testing ends. The go/no-go decision is the release call, made by the product owner or release manager, and it takes the sign-off as one input beside deployment readiness, rollback and support. A signed UAT followed by a no-go is normal: the users accepted the software and the team was not ready to ship it.
What happens if UAT ends without a sign-off?
Nothing has been accepted, whatever the test results say. The team either extends the window, escalates to the sponsor for a decision, or ships on its own authority with the missing sign-off recorded as a risk at the go/no-go. What it cannot do is treat silence as acceptance, because a dispute after release then turns on what the client never said. Open defects are not the obstacle: a sign-off can list them as accepted or as conditions.
Is a reply saying looks good a UAT sign-off?
A reply saying looks good names a person and a date and nothing else: no build, no scope, no list of accepted defects. Treat it as acceptance of whatever was in front of that person when they wrote it, and write that back the same day: the build, the scenarios covered, the open defects and their status, with a request to confirm. The confirmed reply is the sign-off; the original is an opinion.
Can UAT be signed off with open defects?
Sign-off with open defects is the normal case. The signer accepts the delivery with the listed defects either accepted permanently, because they are minor, or accepted on condition that named ones are fixed by a stated date and re-checked on the build that ships. What a signer cannot do is accept a build whose defects are unlisted, because a bug found later then has no classification as accepted, missed or new.
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