eIDAS 2.0 wallets are primarily designed for use within the European Union, but they are not strictly limited to EU borders. The European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) works wherever a relying party chooses to accept it, meaning non-EU services and organizations can technically integrate with the wallet framework if they meet the necessary requirements. This article unpacks where the wallet works today, what the regulation says about international use, and what organizations outside the EU need to know.
Where can an eIDAS 2.0 wallet actually be used today?
The EUDI Wallet can be used across all EU Member States for both public and private digital services. Any organization that qualifies as a relying party under the eIDAS 2.0 framework and registers accordingly under CIR (EU) 2025/848 at the national authority of its Member State of establishment can accept wallet credentials. In practice, this means the wallet works for services like opening a bank account, accessing government portals, signing contracts, and presenting professional qualifications.
The four Large Scale Pilots ran from April 2023 to 2025 and tested the wallet across real-world scenarios, including payments, healthcare prescriptions, mobile driving licenses, educational credentials, and social security. These pilots involved entities from across EU Member States, as well as Norway, Iceland, and Ukraine, which signals that use extended beyond strict EU boundaries in specific contexts. A second wave of pilots started in 2025, covering business wallets, payments, travel, ticketing, and vehicle registration.
Within the EU, Member States are legally required to make the wallet available to all citizens, residents, and businesses by 24 December 2026. That is the legal deadline for Member States’ wallet obligations. Practical interoperability and national rollout may develop in phases, and the level of maturity across individual national wallets will vary. The wallet framework is designed so that a certified wallet from one Member State can be used with an appropriate relying party in another Member State, but this does not mean that every use case will immediately be available in every Member State, or that sector-specific legislation and national registration requirements cease to apply.
Does eIDAS 2.0 have any provisions for use outside the EU?
eIDAS 2.0, which amends Regulation (EU) 910/2014, does not include a formal mechanism that automatically extends wallet recognition to non-EU countries. However, the regulation does allow the European Commission to establish equivalence decisions, similar to how the GDPR handles data transfers to third countries. Under such an arrangement, a non-EU country’s digital identity framework could be recognized as equivalent, enabling cross-border recognition beyond EU borders.
This is still largely forward-looking. No equivalence decisions for digital identity wallets had been formally adopted at the time of writing. However, the architecture of the EUDI Wallet is built on open standards, which means the technical groundwork for international interoperability is already in place. Countries and organizations that align with those standards are better positioned to integrate in the future.
It is also worth noting that eIDAS 2.0 governs how the EU recognizes identity, not how third parties outside the EU choose to use it. A non-EU service provider is free to accept EUDI Wallet credentials voluntarily, even without a formal equivalence decision, as long as they can technically connect to the wallet ecosystem and verify the credentials presented.
Can non-EU countries or services accept EUDI Wallet credentials?
Yes, non-EU countries and services can accept EUDI Wallet credentials, but they are not required to do so under eIDAS 2.0. Acceptance is entirely voluntary for organizations outside the EU. Any service provider, regardless of where it is based, can choose to integrate with the EUDI Wallet framework as a relying party if it has the technical capability to verify the credentials.
For a non-EU organization to accept EUDI Wallet credentials in practice, it would need to:
- Understand the technical standards underlying the wallet, particularly the Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF), which provides the technical elaboration of the legally binding requirements set out in the implementing acts adopted by the European Commission
- Build or integrate verification infrastructure that can process attestations in the formats the wallet supports, specifically mdoc and SD-JWT VC
- Ensure its data handling practices align with the GDPR where EU citizens’ personal data is involved
- Register or identify itself as a relying party in a way that the wallet ecosystem can recognize, in line with the applicable national registration framework under CIR (EU) 2025/848
- Communicate clearly to users which data they are requesting and why, and obtain approval for each presentation request through the wallet
In sectors like international finance, cross-border healthcare, and global education, there is growing interest in accepting EUDI Wallet credentials because they offer a high level of assurance. An attestation issued through the EUDI Wallet is tamper-evident and tied to a government-recognized identity, which is a strong foundation for trust even outside the EU. Verification involves checking the issuer’s signature against the relevant national trusted list, confirming revocation status through the issuer’s status information, and validating the wallet unit attestation to confirm the presenting wallet runs on a certified wallet solution.
How does eIDAS 2.0 compare to other international digital identity frameworks?
eIDAS 2.0 is one of the most comprehensive and legally binding digital identity frameworks in the world. While other regions have developed national or regional digital identity initiatives, few match the scale, legal enforceability, and interoperability ambition of the EUDI Wallet. The key difference is that eIDAS 2.0 creates a single, harmonized framework across 27 Member States with mandatory participation and high assurance standards.
By contrast, frameworks in countries like the United States, Canada, or Australia tend to be more fragmented, with identity systems varying by state, province, or sector. Some countries are developing national digital identity wallets inspired in part by the EU model, but these remain separate ecosystems without formal interoperability agreements with eIDAS 2.0.
The United Kingdom, following Brexit, developed its own digital identity framework under the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework. While it shares some philosophical similarities with eIDAS, it operates independently and does not automatically recognize EUDI Wallet credentials. Organizations operating in both the EU and the UK therefore need to consider both frameworks separately, though the underlying standards often overlap.
Internationally, bodies like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are working on standards for verifiable credentials and mobile driving licenses that underpin both eIDAS 2.0 and other frameworks. This shared technical foundation makes future interoperability more achievable, even where legal recognition is not yet in place.
What should organizations outside the EU know about eIDAS 2.0?
Organizations outside the EU are not directly subject to eIDAS 2.0 obligations, but they are affected by it if they offer services to EU residents or handle EU-issued identity data. If your organization allows EU citizens to authenticate, sign documents, or share identity attributes, you may need to accept EUDI Wallet credentials as part of your onboarding or verification flow, depending on how the regulation is applied to your sector.
There are several practical considerations for non-EU organizations:
- GDPR still applies: Any time you process personal data from EU residents, including identity data from an EUDI Wallet, GDPR requirements apply regardless of where your organization is based. Each presentation request requires the user’s approval through the wallet, and your organization needs its own GDPR legal basis for processing the data received.
- Sector-specific rules may trigger eIDAS alignment: Regulated sectors such as banking and financial services, healthcare, telecoms, energy, transport, education, social security, drinking water, postal services, digital infrastructure, and digital services may face requirements to accept high-assurance identity credentials, which in practice means EUDI Wallet compatibility. For qualifying private-sector organizations in these sectors, the acceptance obligation under Article 5f of eIDAS 2.0 applies from 24 December 2027, within contexts where strong user authentication is legally or contractually required. Very large online platforms with more than 45 million users in the EU fall under a separate provision of Article 5f: for those platforms, the obligation applies where the platform requires user authentication, on the voluntary request of the user and for the minimum necessary data. Note that this obligation applies within the scope defined by the implementing acts, and sector-specific legislation continues to apply alongside it. Micro and small enterprises, defined as organizations with fewer than 50 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total not exceeding 10 million euros, are exempt.
- Technical readiness is a strategic advantage: Organizations that build wallet-compatible verification infrastructure now will be better positioned to serve EU customers and partners as adoption grows. Given that national rollouts will develop in phases, building readiness progressively is more practical than waiting for a single European go-live moment.
- Equivalence decisions could change the picture: If the European Commission recognizes a third country’s framework as equivalent, cross-border recognition becomes much simpler, so monitoring these developments matters.
For organizations in financial services or healthcare with any EU exposure, understanding the eIDAS 2.0 landscape is not optional. Even where formal obligations do not yet apply, customer expectations and partner requirements are already shifting. Organizations that treat eIDAS 2.0 as a purely European concern risk being unprepared when their EU-based counterparts or customers expect wallet-based interactions as standard.
How TrustTech supports eIDAS 2.0 and international digital identity
The international dimensions of eIDAS 2.0 affect organizations across financial services, healthcare, pharma, and government, whether they are based inside or outside the EU. TrustTech’s ID Connector is an integration that lets relying parties accept every certified European wallet, whatever Member State issued it, for identification, login and qualified signing. EUDI Wallet acceptance comes first; the same interface also carries other IDs, such as national eIDs, bank IDs and identity documents, inside and outside the EU.
For organizations dealing with cross-border identity, the ID Connector handles:
- Wallet acceptance across Member States, so your organization can receive and process EUDI Wallet credentials from EU users regardless of which national wallet they hold
- Verification against national trusted lists, which are brought together in the EU List of Trusted Lists (LOTL), covering issuer signature checks, revocation status, and wallet unit attestation validation
- Attribute scope management, ensuring that only the attributes registered under your relying party registration are requested, in line with CIR (EU) 2025/848
- Qualified signing via a connected QTSP, for use cases where a qualified electronic signature is required
- Reuse of verified identity data, reducing repeated verification steps for returning users across your services
Whether you are a financial institution, a healthcare provider, or a global enterprise with EU operations, the ID Connector gives you a concrete path to EUDI Wallet acceptance. Find out what eIDAS 2.0 means for your organization: get in touch with TrustTech.