An international application may be filed electronically with the EPO as receiving Office.[R. 89bis; OJ EPO 2018, A45; A46; OJ EPO 2018, A25; OJ EPO 2020, A105; ]

The EPO offers the following free-of-charge electronic filing tools:

In addition, applicants may use ePCT, an electronic filing tool offered by WIPO.[OJ EPO 2014, A107; ]]]

The EPO no longer accepts international applications filed with it as receiving Office using the PCT-SAFE filing software. This has been the case since 1 July 2020.[OJ EPO 2020, A59; ]

Filings using the OLF software may be made online or on electronic data carriers accepted by the EPO. At present, the data carriers accepted are CD-Rs conforming to ISO 9660, DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs.[]

All the means of electronic filing, except for the Web-Form Filing service, allow applicants to fill in the PCT request form (PCT/RO/101) directly in the electronic document formats that are accepted by the EPO as receiving Office.

If the documents making up the international application have been prepared by conversion from a different electronic document format (pre-conversion format), the applicant may submit the documents in that format too, preferably together with a statement that the international application in electronic form is a complete and accurate copy of the documents in pre-conversion format. Each pre-conversion document must be in a format that fulfils the requirements stipulated in Special edition No. 3 of OJ EPO 2007, A.5. It is recommended that pre-conversion documents be submitted as ZIP files.[]