How to sign a permission slip on iPhone

A school sends home a permission slip for an activity, and it is due back — signed — usually the next morning.

You don’t need a printer, a scanner or an account for this. Below are both ways to do it on the phone in your hand — the free one built into iOS first, then Signed if you sign paperwork often enough that saving a signature and initials is worth it.

↓ Free: Apple Markup ↓ With Signed ↓ What this form asks for

Option A · free · already on your iPhone

Sign a permission slip with Apple’s built-in Markup

Markup ships with iOS. If this is a one-off, stop reading after this section — it does the job at no cost.

Open the file on your iPhone. Start from wherever the file already is — usually a photo of the paper slip in the school bag, or a PDF in a class email. Tap it in Mail, Files or Photos so it opens in the full-screen preview.
Tap the Markup button. In that preview, tap the Markup icon — the pen tip inside a circle, top right. A drawing toolbar slides up from the bottom of the screen.
Create your signature once. Tap the + at the bottom right, choose Signature, then Add or Remove Signature. Sign with your fingertip in the box, tap Done, and it drops onto the page.
Drag it onto the signature line. Move the signature over the signature line and pull the blue handles until it sits on the line rather than through the text underneath it.
Add the rest of the fields as text boxes. Tap + → Text once for each remaining field on a permission slip: your child’s name and class, the activity and date, emergency contact numbers, any allergy or medical note, parent signature and date. Every box has to be typed, dragged and resized by hand.
Save it and send it straight back. Tap Done, then use the share button to send the marked-up copy back by email or message from the same screen.

Where Markup gets slow. It holds one signature and no initials, so a document wanting initials on every page means drawing them again each time. Text boxes don’t snap to the form’s lines, there is no date shortcut, and nothing you place is flattened into the page — which is why a form with 5 fields to complete takes longer in Markup than the signature part suggests.

Option B · with Signed

Sign a permission slip with Signed

Same document, fewer taps — because the signature, the initials and the date are already saved and the fields are placed as objects rather than dragged text boxes.

Import the permission slip. Share the file into Signed from Mail, Files or Photos, or import it from inside the app. It stays on your iPhone — nothing is uploaded and there is no cloud copy.
Place the signature you already saved. Tap the signature line and drop in the signature you made once — drawn with a fingertip, typed in a real handwriting style, or generated with AI. You never redraw it per document.
Fill in every other field on the form. Add your child’s name and class, the activity and date, emergency contact numbers, any allergy or medical note, parent signature and date with the text, date, initials and checkmark tools. Today’s date fills itself in and saved initials are a single tap per page.
Export a flattened PDF and reply with it. Export the signed copy flattened, so the signature and every field become part of the page, then share it back to whoever asked for it.

5 on the App Store · free to download

What else you have to fill in on a permission slip

A signature on its own is rarely enough. On this one, expect to fill in:

your child’s name and class
the activity and date
emergency contact numbers
any allergy or medical note
parent signature and date

The bit people get wrong. The emergency contact and allergy lines are the ones teachers chase, and a slip that comes back without them is a slip that comes back.

It normally reaches you as a photo of the paper slip in the school bag, or a PDF in a class email — so the whole job can happen on the phone without the file ever touching a computer.

More school & family paperwork

field trip form school enrollment form media consent form registration form

Signing it in the app it arrived in

Permission Slip paperwork usually turns up as an attachment in something. These walk through getting the file out of that app, signed, and back again — most of them using Markup, which Apple ships free on every iPhone.

See every app you can sign in →

Sign something else on your iPhone

Sign a dental form Sign a model release Sign a delivery confirmation Sign a receipt Sign an eviction response Sign a non-compete agreement Sign a resignation letter Sign a settlement agreement

See all 73 document types → · looking for a different app instead? Compare the e-sign services →

Signed is a signing tool, not legal advice. Whether an electronically signed copy is accepted depends on the document, the counterparty and where you are — for anything high-stakes, check what your jurisdiction requires. Apple, Markup, iPhone and iOS are trademarks of Apple Inc.; this page describes how to use features Apple ships and is not endorsed by Apple.