Authored by Viky Manaila, co-authored by Chris Tullis
Introduction
All 27 European Union member states have a deadline of December 2026 to ensure that a European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet is available to their citizens. Meanwhile, European Economic Area (EAA) countries like Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway, have a one-year extension. Countries interested in EU accession countries, such as those in the Western Balkans region, share the 2027 deadline with the EAA.
The EUDI Framework Regulation is flexible about how these EUDI Wallets are provided: they can be developed by a Member State government directly, by a private provider under the mandate from a Member State, or independently, as long as they are appropriately certified and recognized by that Member State. With the deadline approaching quickly — just 18 months from now for such a complex ecosystem! — you may be curious about the status of various implementations across Europe. Are countries going to meet the deadline?
Many countries have already announced wallet project and pilots, and some have even rolled out production digital ID wallets at population scale. Other countries have begun work on these but have not yet made any public announcements. There is currently no single resource allowing a comprehensive overview of progress toward EUDI wallet rollout or attempting to track progress.
To help begin to fill this gap, we are providing an overview of what we know to date. This overview is based on a combination of public sources, non-public sources, and our own knowledge. Since all EUDI Framework implementing acts are not yet finalized, and the wallet certification modalities are not yet established, there is no such thing as a production EUDI wallet today. Instead, we have classified countries as having a wallet in production in cases where there is a digital ID app that is available to the general public and already implements a decentralized architecture, based standards such as W3C Verifiable Credentials or ISO mdoc. An additional category for certified production wallets may be added in a later iteration as we approach the 2026 deadline. Aspects not directly linked to the status of wallet implementation such as certifications, business models, sourcing strategies, and sustainability are intentionally excluded for the purposes of this analysis.
We want to emphasize that this list is not to be considered as authoritative or definitive. Since not all projects are publicly announced, not all announcements communicate technical details, and we are not omniscient, our assumption is that this overview is already out of date. Additionally, since this space is so rapidly constantly evolving, we encourage readers to provide feedback or share any additional information we may have missed, to allow us to crowdsource a comprehensive overview of this exciting ecosystem in real time.
EUDI wallet progress tracker
With all of that in mind, here is the current state of play as we see it today. Let’s take a closer look at who is leading and who is lagging, while exploring the reasons and challenges associated with such a complex implementation.
EU Member States with a digital ID wallet in production
As of today, we are aware of nine countries that have a digital identity wallet solution deployed on at national level: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal. In many cases, this rapid deployment time was facilitated by building on an existing digital ID app or other public service “super app”, adjusting it to integrate the required EUDI wallet capabilities.
Austria, for example, is building on two established apps, migrating both — along with their user bases — progressively to a EUDI wallet architecture. The first of these apps is eID Austria, a mobile digital ID app geared toward online use cases. The eID Austria app, which already has around 3 million users, already includes most EUDI wallet functions, including identification, electronic attestation of attributes (verifiable credentials), issuance and verification, qualified electronic signatures, and organizational (business) identity. The second of these existing apps is with eAusweise, a mobile app for driving licenses geared toward in-person use cases, which already has approximately 1 million users. To prepare for the migration of these two apps toward the EUDI wallet architecture, the Austrian Secure Information Technology Center (A-SIT), has developed an open-source wallet named Valera, already utilized for testing and implementation in the Large-Scale Pilots. It is anticipated that once these projects are completed, Valera will subsequently be migrated into production and integrated with eAusweise and eID Austria, allowing the users of these apps to enjoy a seamless migration to the EUDI wallet through a simple app store update. For those interested in learning more, additional resources are available here: https://a-sit-plus.github.io/.
Italy has developed the EUDI Wallet functionalities on top of the existing IO App, which serves as a platform for citizens to interact with the Italian public administration. With 11.8 million active users, 350.877 available services, and 15.899 connected service providers, the Italian Wallet has a very strong foundation. In less than one month since the initial launch of IT Wallet in December 2024, 5.2 million citizens have activated Wallet capabilities, and 8.6 million documents — such as health cards, driving licenses, and EU disability cards — have been issued into the Wallet. Additional resources for the Italian Wallet are available here https://developer.pagopa.it/ and here https://github.com/italia/eid-wallet-it-docs
EU Member States with a digital ID wallet under development
From what we know, thirteen additional countries have embarked on their journeys to develop a digital ID wallet: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. These countries all stand at different stages stage in this process — be it development, beta testing, or pre-production. Some are building on the Reference Implementation Wallet, developing a bespoke solution, or leveraging private sector providers.
For example, Germany has taken an innovative approach by launching a competition in 2024 — SPRIN-D FUNKE. This initiative funds several prototypes to inspire the creation of the Gov EUDI Wallet, which will progress through various stages: Person Identification Data design, Versatile Qualified Electronic Attestation of Attributes with great User eXperience, and Login, Qualified Electronic Signature, and Secure Customer Authentication. While these prototypes are developed independently of the official state wallet (Gov EUDI Wallet) they serve as valuable research tools that complement and enrich the broader development efforts.
“In the end, all future users will be the winners, as the Funke will provide important ideas for developing a concept for user-friendly, secure, and trustworthy EUDI wallets. The participating teams benefit in many ways: As part of the Funded Track, the participating teams are funded to work on an exciting and innovative topic. Teams from both tracks receive support from SPRIND. They can make their approaches known to a broad public and receive valuable feedback from experts from the jury and the Large Scale Pilot POTENTIAL. And last but not least, their work has an impact, as they provide ideas for designing the future EUDI wallet infrastructure in Germany (and beyond).” Bundesagentur fur Sprunginnovationen [1]
Importantly, the Funke Wallets will be utilized beyond the competition in a testing environment, allowing interested parties to experiment with their use cases in preparation for the actual production implementations. This experimental phase helps explore practical insights that may inform and support the official EUDI Wallet architecture in the long term.
In addition to the development of the wallet, OpenOnlineConsultation formats and workshops are also offered on a regular basis.
EU Member States with no digital ID wallet initiative to date
To our knowledge, four EU Member States have not started yet the EUDI Wallet initiative: Bulgaria, Croatia, Malta, and Romania. Various factors contribute to this delay, with delayed political decisions being a primary issue in some cases. Key considerations that may pose barriers include determining who will issue the Wallet at the national level, allocating the necessary budget, securing financial resources, deciding between in-house development or procurement of an external vendor, as well as the need to build institutional capacity to support such a complex project. These countries still have time to begin their initiatives, and they can benefit from the lessons learned from other implementations to make better decisions regarding their approach.
Third countries following the EUDI model
The EUDI wallet is already becoming an international benchmark, and countries beyond the EU look to align their approach to the EUDI Framework and pave the way toward future cross border recognition. Specifically, we are aware of six countries in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, and South Caucasus regions that are vying to be among the first to implement a national digital identity wallet based on the EUDI Framework. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine are all in the process of evolving their digital ID implementations toward the EUDI vision, with Moldova and Ukraine already having rolled out production digital ID wallets at population scale.
As the digital identity landscape continues to evolve, the integration of private wallet providers could be a key factor in ensuring a robust, secure, and user-friendly experience for all citizens. The continuation of this article will explore these providers and their contributions in greater detail. In the meantime, you can refer to the Open Wallet Foundation Overview for more information.
[1] https://cms.system.sprind.org/uploads/EUDI_Wallet_Overview_20240709_EN_ffaec3139d.pdf
