The EUDI Wallet cannot yet fully replace your physical passport or national ID card in all situations, but it is designed to function as a legally recognised digital equivalent for a growing range of identity use cases across the EU. Under eIDAS 2.0, which amends Regulation (EU) 910/2014, all EU member states are required to make a certified EUDI Wallet available to citizens, residents, and businesses by 24 December 2026. The sections below unpack what the wallet can and cannot replace today, how it works in practice, and where things are heading.
Which documents can the EUDI Wallet actually replace?
The EUDI Wallet is designed to store and present a wide range of official credentials digitally, including national identity credentials, driving licences, travel documents, educational qualifications, and health cards. While it does not replace every physical document in every context today, the scope is broad and expanding as pilots and legislation progress.
Based on the large-scale pilots that ran across EU member states from 2023 to 2025, the following documents and credentials were tested within the wallet:
- National identity credentials for accessing government services and verifying identity online
- Mobile driving licence for both online and physical interactions, such as roadside checks
- Travel documents such as passport data and visas for use at airport security and customs
- European Health Insurance Card and social security information
- Educational credentials including diplomas, degrees, and certificates
- Prescription details for use at pharmacies
- Organisational identity credentials proving you represent a legitimate business
The wallet is not intended to make your physical passport disappear overnight. It introduces a digital layer that works alongside existing documents and, in many cases, removes the need to carry them at all. For organisations in sectors such as financial services or healthcare, this shift has significant implications for how identity verification is handled in onboarding, compliance, and customer interactions.
How does the EUDI Wallet work for cross-border identity verification?
The EUDI Wallet framework is designed so that a certified wallet from one member state can be used with a relying party in another member state. Credentials stored in the wallet are digitally signed by trusted national authorities, such as qualified trust service providers or recognised issuers of Person Identification Data, and those signatures can be verified by a relying party in another country.
Verification is not a single cryptographic check. A relying party performs three distinct steps: first, verifying the issuer’s signature against the relevant national trusted list, which is part of the EU List of Trusted Lists (LOTL); second, checking the revocation status of the credential using the issuer’s status information; and third, validating the wallet unit attestation to confirm that the presenting wallet runs on a certified wallet solution. Only the first of these steps can be performed fully offline. The other two require a connection to the issuer’s status endpoint or the wallet provider’s attestation service.
This works within a trust framework established by eIDAS 2.0, which defines common standards for how credentials are issued, stored, and verified. The European Commission adopts implementing acts that set out legally binding requirements, while the Architecture and Reference Framework provides the technical elaboration of those requirements. Member states, national competent authorities, wallet providers, issuers, and relying parties each carry distinct responsibilities within this shared governance structure.
In practice, this means a Dutch citizen could use their EUDI Wallet to open a bank account in Spain, access healthcare in Germany, or prove their qualifications to an employer in France, without presenting physical documents or going through lengthy manual verification processes. This does not mean that every use case will immediately be available in every member state, that national registration requirements disappear, or that sector-specific legislation ceases to apply. The large-scale pilots that ran across 26 EU member states, Norway, Iceland, and Ukraine stress-tested exactly these cross-border scenarios to identify where additional alignment is still needed.
Is the EUDI Wallet legally accepted as proof of identity?
Under eIDAS 2.0, credentials stored in a certified EUDI Wallet carry the highest assurance level and are legally equivalent to their physical counterparts for the purposes of digital identity verification across the EU. Relying parties, meaning organisations that request identity verification, are subject to acceptance obligations that differ depending on whether they are public bodies or regulated private entities.
From 24 December 2026, public sector bodies are required to accept notified EUDI Wallets for online services where electronic identification is required. From 24 December 2027, Article 5f of eIDAS 2.0 extends acceptance obligations to regulated private sectors where strong user authentication is required by law or contract. Those sectors include banking and financial services, healthcare, telecoms, energy, transport, education, social security, drinking water, postal services, digital infrastructure, and digital services. Micro and small enterprises, defined as organisations with fewer than 50 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than 10 million euros, are exempt. Very large online platforms are subject to a separate provision under Article 5f: where a platform requires user authentication, it must accept the wallet on the voluntary request of the user and for the minimum necessary data.
Before a relying party can request wallet data, it must register with the national authority of the member state where it is established, as set out in CIR (EU) 2025/848 of 6 May 2025. Registration is per intended use, specifying which attributes and attestations will be requested. The wallet checks each presentation request against the registered scope.
Legal acceptance for physical, in-person situations such as border crossings or police checks is still being worked through at both EU and national levels. The wallet is primarily designed for digital interactions first, with physical use cases following as infrastructure and legislation develop.
Can you use the EUDI Wallet to travel within the EU?
The EUDI Wallet is being developed to support travel within the EU by storing digital travel credentials derived from your passport or national ID. The EU Digital Identity Wallet Consortium (EWC), one of the four large-scale pilot projects that concluded in 2025, specifically tested Digital Travel Credentials across member states, including use cases at airport security and customs.
In practical terms, this means travellers could eventually present their wallet at airport checkpoints instead of a physical passport, enabling faster and more seamless processing. The underlying data comes from your official travel document, but it is presented in a verified digital format that border authorities can check electronically.
This use case is still in the pilot phase. Full deployment at airports and border crossings requires alignment between national border authorities, aviation regulators, and EU-level standards. Progress is being made, but travellers should still carry their physical passport or national ID when travelling. The expectation is that digital travel credentials will become a reliable alternative as infrastructure and cross-border alignment mature over the coming years.
What are the security and privacy differences between a digital and physical ID?
A digital identity wallet like the EUDI Wallet offers several security and privacy advantages over a physical ID card or passport, while also introducing a different set of risks that need to be managed carefully.
On the privacy side, the EUDI Wallet is built on a principle called selective disclosure. This means you can share only the specific piece of information a service actually needs, without revealing everything on your document. For example, to prove you are over 18, you can confirm that fact by disclosing only the attribute “older than 18”, without sharing your exact date of birth, address, or any other personal data. A physical ID card does not offer this kind of control.
From a security perspective, credentials in the wallet are cryptographically signed, making them tamper-evident. Private keys for PID and attestations never leave the Wallet Secure Cryptographic Device, which means that if you switch to a new device, attestations must be re-issued rather than simply copied across. Lost or stolen physical documents are a well-known vulnerability. A wallet on your phone can be protected with biometrics, a PIN, and remote lock or wipe capabilities.
Digital identity systems introduce their own risks, including device compromise and phishing, and they depend on robust backend infrastructure. The EUDI Wallet architecture addresses many of these through certified security standards, but no system is risk-free. The digital approach shifts the nature of the risk rather than eliminating it. For sectors like healthcare or government, where data sensitivity is high, this distinction matters enormously. It is also worth noting that selective disclosure reduces the data exposed in any single interaction, but it does not eliminate all risk of tracking or profiling across multiple interactions.
When will the EUDI Wallet be widely available and usable?
Under eIDAS 2.0, EU member states are legally required to make a certified EUDI Wallet available to all citizens, residents, and businesses by 24 December 2026. This is a legal deadline, not a predicted launch date, and it is important to distinguish between the deadline itself and what it guarantees in practice.
Availability, certification, notification, operational interoperability, and acceptance by relying parties are separate steps that will develop at different speeds across member states. Wallets will be issued by national authorities, but the range of services and contexts where they are accepted will grow gradually. The four large-scale pilot projects that ran from 2023 to 2025 generated substantial real-world data to guide deployment, and their findings are being used to refine security, interoperability, and user experience across member states. A second wave of pilots started in 2025, with WE BUILD focusing on business wallets and payments, and APTITUDE covering travel, ticketing, vehicle registration, and payments.
National progress varies. Some countries are further along in their preparations than others, and the current status of any individual national wallet, whether it is live, in beta, certified, or notified, should be verified against current authoritative sources before drawing conclusions. It is also important to distinguish between an existing national digital identity system and a certified EUDI Wallet, as the two are not automatically the same thing. Businesses that rely on identity verification, such as banks, insurers, and public service providers, should be actively preparing their systems now.
The honest picture is that 24 December 2026 is a legal deadline for wallet availability and public sector acceptance. The private sector acceptance obligation under Article 5f applies from 24 December 2027. Widespread, seamless usability across all sectors and borders will take further time to mature. The legal foundation is in place, the implementing acts are being adopted, and the direction of travel is clear. Organisations that start preparing their infrastructure and compliance frameworks now will be significantly better positioned than those that wait.
How the ID Connector helps you prepare for the EUDI Wallet
The EUDI Wallet is a fundamental shift in how identity is verified, how data is shared, and how trust is established between organisations and individuals. For many organisations, translating that shift into concrete action is the real challenge.
The 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 organisations preparing for the acceptance obligations under eIDAS 2.0, the ID Connector handles the following:
- Wallet acceptance: Accepting every notified EUDI Wallet regardless of the issuing member state, so your systems are not tied to a single wallet provider
- Trust management: Verifying issuer signatures against national trusted lists consolidated in the EU List of Trusted Lists (LOTL), and checking revocation status via issuer-provided status information
- Wallet unit attestation validation: Confirming that each presenting wallet runs on a certified wallet solution before accepting the credential
- Attribute scope enforcement: Checking that each presentation request stays within the attributes and attestations registered under CIR (EU) 2025/848, so your organisation remains within its registered intended use
- Qualified signing: Connecting to a qualified trust service provider for qualified electronic signatures where transactions require them
The ID Connector is relevant across the sectors covered by the Article 5f acceptance obligation, including financial services, healthcare, pharma, and government. If your organisation needs to accept EUDI Wallet credentials, contact TrustTech to find out how the ID Connector fits into your identity infrastructure.