The European Digital Identity Wallet is a secure digital app that allows EU citizens, residents, and businesses to store, manage, and share identity data and official documents entirely online. It is the centerpiece of the updated eIDAS 2.0 regulation, which came into force in 2024 and requires all EU Member States to offer a wallet to their citizens. The sections below answer the most common questions about how the EUDI Wallet works, what it contains, and when you can expect to use it.
How does the European Digital Identity Wallet actually work?
The EUDI Wallet works by storing verified digital credentials on your device and allowing you to share selected pieces of that information with services that request it. Instead of handing over a physical document or re-entering personal data on every platform, you approve what gets shared directly from the app, and the receiving party gets cryptographically verified data they can trust.
The underlying technology is built on verifiable credentials, a standardized format that ties identity data to a cryptographic proof. This proof allows any accepting party to confirm that the data is genuine and has not been tampered with, without needing to contact the original issuer every time.
A key design principle is selective disclosure. If a service only needs to know you are over 18, the wallet shares that single confirmation without revealing your date of birth or any other personal details. This puts users in control of their own data and reduces unnecessary exposure of personal information.
The wallet connects to a broader ecosystem of issuers (such as governments and institutions that put credentials into the wallet) and relying parties (the services and organizations that accept them). The Architecture and Reference Framework, developed by the European Commission together with Member States, defines the technical standards that make this ecosystem interoperable across all EU countries.
What can you store and use the EUDI Wallet for?
The EUDI Wallet is designed to hold a wide range of official and personal credentials that you can use across both public and private services. At launch, the focus is on high-priority use cases, but the scope is intended to grow significantly over time.
Documents and credentials you can store in the EU digital wallet include:
- A national digital identity document (the mobile driving licence is one of the first planned credentials)
- Educational qualifications and diplomas
- Professional certifications and licenses
- Health data, such as prescriptions or medical records
- Bank account information for payment-related identification
- Travel documents
- Company registration data for business users
In practice, you will be able to use the wallet to log in to government portals, open a bank account, sign contracts with a qualified electronic signature, prove your age, access healthcare services across borders, and verify professional credentials when applying for a job. The goal is a single, trusted digital identity that works wherever you are in Europe, rather than a different login or document for every country or service.
For organizations in sectors like financial services or healthcare, the wallet opens the door to streamlined onboarding and compliance processes that no longer require customers to repeat identity checks from scratch.
What is the difference between the EUDI Wallet and existing digital ID solutions?
The key difference is scope, standardization, and user control. Existing digital identity solutions, such as national eID schemes, bank-based logins, or commercial identity apps, are typically limited to one country, one sector, or one platform. The EUDI Wallet is designed to work across all EU Member States, all sectors, and both public and private services under a single regulatory framework.
Most current solutions also operate on a centralized model: a central provider holds your data and shares it on your behalf. The EUDI Wallet shifts this toward a decentralized model where credentials are stored on your own device. You decide what to share, with whom, and when, without a third party acting as an intermediary for every transaction.
Another important distinction is legal recognition. Under eIDAS 2.0, credentials issued through the EUDI Wallet carry the highest level of assurance and are legally recognized across all EU Member States. A qualified electronic signature made through the wallet has the same legal weight as a handwritten signature throughout Europe. Existing solutions often lack this cross-border legal equivalence.
Finally, the EUDI Wallet is built on open, interoperable standards defined in the Architecture and Reference Framework. This means different national wallets can communicate with each other and with private sector services, something that fragmented national solutions have historically struggled to achieve.
Who is required to accept the European Digital Identity Wallet?
Under eIDAS 2.0, certain categories of service providers are legally required to accept the EUDI Wallet for identification and authentication. This obligation applies to a defined set of large-scale or regulated services across the EU.
The services required to accept the EU digital wallet include:
- Public sector services that require electronic identification for access, such as tax authorities, social security, and government portals
- Very large online platforms as defined under the Digital Services Act, which must offer wallet-based login as an alternative to their own authentication systems
- Regulated financial services, including banks and payment institutions, for customer identification and onboarding under KYC and AML obligations
- Telecommunications providers that require identity verification when issuing SIM cards or contracts
- Qualified trust service providers for issuing and verifying electronic signatures and certificates
Beyond the mandatory categories, many other organizations are expected to voluntarily integrate the wallet as it becomes widely adopted. For organizations in government and regulated industries, early preparation is important because acceptance obligations come with technical integration requirements that take time to implement correctly.
When will the European Digital Identity Wallet be available?
The EUDI Wallet is already in an advanced stage of development. The eIDAS 2.0 regulation entered into force in May 2024, and Member States are required to make a wallet available to all citizens and residents who wish to use one. The deadline set by the regulation is 2026, meaning national wallets are expected to be operational across the EU by this year.
Several countries have been running large-scale pilot programs, known as the Large Scale Pilots, since 2023. These pilots test real-world wallet use cases across sectors including travel, banking, education, and healthcare, involving hundreds of organizations and millions of potential users. The results from these pilots are feeding directly into the technical specifications and implementation guidance being finalized now.
In practice, the rollout will be gradual. Some Member States will launch earlier than others, and the range of supported credentials will expand over time. Organizations that want to be ready when the wallet becomes widely available in their market should begin their technical and compliance preparation now rather than waiting for full deployment. The regulatory timeline is firm, and the integration work required is not trivial.
For businesses, the relevant question is not just when the wallet arrives, but how ready your systems will be to accept and process wallet-based credentials when it does. Understanding the implementation approach early gives you a meaningful advantage.
How TrustTech helps with the European Digital Identity Wallet
Preparing for the EUDI Wallet involves more than following a regulation. It means rethinking how your organization verifies identity, handles compliance, and manages trust across digital interactions. That is exactly where TrustTech comes in.
TrustTech supports organizations across regulated sectors in building the infrastructure and processes needed to work with the European Digital Identity Wallet and eIDAS 2.0. Concretely, this means:
- Assessing your current identity and compliance infrastructure against EUDI Wallet requirements
- Designing and implementing wallet-ready onboarding and verification flows
- Integrating verifiable credentials and qualified electronic signatures into your existing systems
- Enabling cross-border interoperability so your services work with wallets from any EU Member State
- Supporting compliance with eIDAS 2.0, KYC, AML, and sector-specific regulations in a single coherent architecture
Whether you are in finance, healthcare, government, or another regulated sector, TrustTech brings the technical depth and practical experience to move from preparation to production. Explore our identity solutions or get in touch with our team to discuss what the EUDI Wallet means for your organization.