eIDAS 2.0 affects virtually every sector that operates digital services in Europe. Financial services, healthcare, government, and telecommunications are among the most directly impacted, but the regulation affects any organization that verifies identities, handles sensitive data, or provides access to digital services. The sections below break down what the regulation means for each major sector and when compliance is required.
Which sectors are required to accept the EUDI Wallet?
Under eIDAS 2.0, a defined set of sectors is legally required to accept the European Digital Identity Wallet as a means of identification. These include banking and financial services, telecommunications, transport, energy, healthcare, public services, and large online platforms. Any organization in these sectors that currently requires identity verification must integrate EUDI Wallet support.
This is one of the most significant shifts introduced by eIDAS 2.0. Unlike the original eIDAS regulation, which focused primarily on cross-border recognition between governments, the updated framework extends mandatory acceptance to private sector organizations. In practice, this means that if you run a regulated service where users must prove who they are, you will need to accept wallet-based credentials.
The obligation applies specifically to relying parties in these sectors. A relying party is any organization that relies on identity data provided by another party to grant access or deliver a service. If your organization falls into one of the listed categories and currently runs identity checks as part of onboarding or authentication, eIDAS 2.0 directly changes what you are required to support.
How does eIDAS 2.0 change identity verification in financial services?
For financial services, eIDAS 2.0 introduces a new baseline for digital identity that reshapes how banks, insurers, and payment providers verify customers. Organizations in this sector will be required to accept EUDI Wallet credentials for customer onboarding, authentication, and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, replacing or supplementing existing manual and fragmented verification flows.
The practical impact is significant. Today, financial institutions often run their own identity checks from scratch every time a new customer applies for a product. Under eIDAS 2.0, a customer who has already been verified through a government-issued digital identity or a trusted wallet can share that verified data directly with a bank or insurer. This eliminates redundant checks and speeds up onboarding considerably.
There are also implications for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) under PSD2. EUDI Wallet credentials are expected to qualify as a high-assurance authentication method, which means financial institutions can use wallet-based authentication to meet SCA requirements. This creates an opportunity to simplify compliance while improving the user experience.
For compliance and risk teams in financial services, eIDAS 2.0 also means rethinking how KYC data is stored, reused, and shared. The regulation supports reusable identity, meaning a customer verified once can share that credential across multiple institutions without starting from scratch. This has direct implications for data architecture, AML processes, and regulatory reporting frameworks.
What does eIDAS 2.0 mean for healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations?
Healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations face meaningful changes under eIDAS 2.0, particularly around patient identity, prescription handling, and cross-border data exchange. The EUDI Wallet is being piloted specifically for prescription claims, allowing patients to present verified prescription data to pharmacies digitally, and for storing the European Health Insurance Card.
For hospitals, clinics, and healthcare providers, the regulation creates an opportunity to streamline patient onboarding and consent processes. Instead of collecting identity documents manually or relying on fragmented local systems, providers can accept wallet-based identity credentials that carry a high level of assurance. This reduces administrative burden and improves accuracy.
Pharmaceutical companies operating across borders have an additional layer of complexity to manage. Cross-border prescription fulfillment, clinical trial participant verification, and regulatory submissions all involve identity and trust. eIDAS 2.0 provides a common framework that can support these processes across EU Member States, reducing the friction that currently exists when national systems do not recognize each other.
For healthcare organizations preparing for these changes, the priority is understanding where identity verification currently sits in patient and staff workflows, and how wallet-based credentials can replace or complement existing methods. Organizations that handle sensitive health data also need to consider how eIDAS 2.0 interacts with GDPR obligations around data minimization and user consent.
How does eIDAS 2.0 affect government and public sector services?
Government and public sector organizations are at the center of eIDAS 2.0. Member States are legally required to issue EUDI Wallets to all citizens, residents, and businesses by 2026. Public services such as tax filing, passport applications, social security access, and driver’s license management are among the first use cases being tested and deployed.
For public sector organizations, the regulation has two dimensions. First, they are issuers: governments must provide wallets and ensure that official attributes such as national identity, address, and civil status can be stored and shared securely through those wallets. Second, they are relying parties: public digital services must accept wallet credentials as a valid form of identification.
The large-scale pilots already underway across Europe have demonstrated how this works in practice. Citizens can use their EUDI Wallet to access government portals, apply for benefits, or prove their identity at a public authority without presenting physical documents. For governments that have already invested in national eID systems, eIDAS 2.0 requires those systems to connect with the wider EU wallet ecosystem and meet updated interoperability standards.
Agencies responsible for digital public services should assess their current identity infrastructure against the new technical standards. The government sector also has a coordination role: ensuring that the wallets they issue are trusted, that citizens understand how to use them, and that cross-border recognition works reliably for EU residents moving between Member States.
Which industries face the biggest compliance challenges with eIDAS 2.0?
Financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications face the steepest compliance challenges under eIDAS 2.0. These sectors combine high regulatory complexity, legacy identity infrastructure, and large volumes of customer interactions that must meet strict security and data protection requirements simultaneously.
The challenges vary by sector, but several common themes emerge:
- Legacy systems: Many organizations built their identity verification processes years ago, often around document uploads, manual checks, or proprietary authentication tools. Integrating EUDI Wallet acceptance requires changes to existing infrastructure that can be technically complex and time-consuming.
- Overlapping regulations: Financial institutions must align eIDAS 2.0 compliance with GDPR, AML directives, PSD2, and upcoming AMLR 2027 requirements. Healthcare organizations face similar overlap with GDPR and sector-specific data protection rules. Managing these frameworks together demands careful coordination.
- Cross-border interoperability: Organizations operating in multiple EU countries must ensure their systems recognize wallet credentials issued by different Member States. This requires adherence to common technical standards and ongoing monitoring as national implementations evolve.
- User adoption: Even once the technical infrastructure is in place, organizations need to support users in transitioning to wallet-based identification. This includes customer communication, support processes, and fallback options for users who have not yet adopted a wallet.
Smaller organizations in regulated sectors may also struggle with the resources needed to implement and maintain compliant identity infrastructure. For these organizations, working with a trusted technology partner who already operates within the eIDAS framework is often the most practical path forward.
When do organizations need to be compliant with eIDAS 2.0?
The eIDAS 2.0 regulation entered into force in 2024, with Member States required to make EUDI Wallets available to citizens and businesses by 2026. Organizations in sectors required to accept the wallet must be ready to integrate wallet-based identity verification by the time wallets are widely available and the acceptance obligations take effect.
In practical terms, 2026 is the critical year. Member States are legally obligated to issue wallets to all citizens and residents, and the sectors listed under the mandatory acceptance requirement must have the technical capability to receive and verify wallet credentials. This means that organizations that have not yet started preparing are already behind the curve.
The timeline for compliance breaks down into several stages:
- Assessment (now): Identify which parts of your organization are affected, map your current identity verification processes, and determine where wallet acceptance needs to be integrated.
- Technical preparation (2025 to 2026): Update or replace identity infrastructure to support EUDI Wallet credentials. This includes API integrations, trust framework alignment, and testing against the technical specifications developed by the eIDAS Expert Group.
- Go-live (2026): Begin accepting EUDI Wallet credentials for relevant services, with appropriate fallback mechanisms for users not yet using a wallet.
- Ongoing compliance: Monitor updates to national wallet implementations, technical standards, and regulatory guidance. eIDAS 2.0 compliance is not a one-time project but an ongoing operational requirement.
Organizations that treat eIDAS 2.0 as a future concern rather than a current priority risk being caught out. The technical changes required are not trivial, and building compliant identity infrastructure takes time. Starting the assessment and planning process now gives organizations the best chance of meeting the 2026 deadline without disruption.
How TrustTech helps organizations prepare for eIDAS 2.0
Navigating eIDAS 2.0 across multiple sectors, regulations, and technical standards is a significant undertaking. TrustTech is built specifically for this challenge. The platform connects identity verification, reusable credentials, and qualified digital signatures into a single infrastructure that is eIDAS 2.0 ready by design.
For organizations in financial services, healthcare, government, and other regulated sectors, TrustTech provides:
- Wallet-ready identity infrastructure that supports EUDI Wallet credentials and meets the highest eIDAS assurance levels
- Reusable KYC and onboarding flows that eliminate repeated verification and reduce customer drop-off
- Qualified electronic signatures that are identity-linked, auditable, and compliant with eIDAS standards
- Cross-organization interoperability so that verified identity data can be trusted and reused across the services your customers interact with
- Sector-specific expertise for finance, healthcare, government, and other regulated industries facing overlapping compliance requirements
TrustTech sits between the parties that need to interact, providing a trusted layer without owning any of them. Whether you are preparing for your first EUDI Wallet integration or replacing a legacy identity system, the platform is designed to get you to production quickly and keep you compliant as regulations evolve. Contact TrustTech to discuss how your organization can prepare for eIDAS 2.0.