Persona supports France and Germany EUDI Wallets for secure, private identity verification
Across Europe, two major regulatory deadlines are arriving that will reshape the mechanics of identity verification for EU-regulated businesses.
By the end of 2026, eIDAS 2.0 will require organizations to accept EUDI Wallets for online services where electronic identification or authentication is necessary. That obligation covers state, regional, and local authorities; bodies governed by public law; and certain private entities that are required to provide public services.
Similarly, all banks, fintechs, and other regulated businesses will also be required to accept EUDI Wallets by the end of 2027. Regulated businesses that aren’t ready to accept EUDI Wallets by the 2027 deadlines will face regulatory penalties under both eIDAS 2.0 and the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR).
As the EU's digital identity framework moves from policy to reality, France and Germany have emerged as two notable pioneers of the wallet standard. Both countries have sandbox digital ID credentials that Persona can now verify in early access. This post covers what these credentials are and what the 2026-2027 timelines mean for your compliance program.
What is eIDAS 2.0?
The electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services 2.0 (eIDAS 2.0) is the legal and technical framework underlying Europe’s shift to digital identity. eIDAS 2.0 is a revised regulation; it was enacted in May 2024 and builds significantly on the original 2014 eIDAS regulation.
Notably, eIDAS 2.0 expanded Europe's digital identity framework from a government service into a requirement for the private sector. And by November 2026, every EU member state will be required to make a EUDI Wallet available to any citizen or resident who wants one. Certain categories of private-sector organizations (including banks, payment institutions, crypto-asset service providers, and gambling operators) will also be required to accept those wallets.
What are EUDI Wallets?
A European Digital Identity Wallet, or EUDI Wallet, is a mobile application that allows EU citizens to store and selectively share verified identity credentials. Every EU government supports its own official app.
All 27 EU member states are building their own EUDI Wallet implementations, with France and Germany among the furthest along. Each state must conform to a common Architecture Reference Framework (ARF) that ensures interoperability across the bloc.
For companies that use EUDI Wallets to verify customers, EUDI Wallets can provide stronger evidence of identity, less manual review, and a more robust audit trail. That’s because credentials stored in a EUDI Wallet are:
Issued at the highest eIDAS assurance level
Cryptographically signed by the government authority
Designed for selective disclosure so that a company can request only the specific identity fields it needs rather than a full document
What is France Identité?
France Identité is a government-issued application. Built on the NFC chip embedded in the French national ID card (the Carte Nationale d'Identité électronique orCNIe), it serves as France’s digital identity program.
France Identité provides a straightforward user experience:
First, a French citizen taps their physical ID card against an NFC-enabled phone.
Next, France Identité reads and cryptographically validates the chip. The government-issued credential is provisioned to the user’s device.
After that, any company verifying that user is simply checking a government-signed credential.
In June 2026, France Identité held the EUDIW Unfold Interoperability Session, a series of roadshow-style events for testing verification flows against EUDI Wallet standards. The session brought together member states, wallet providers, issuers, verifiers, relying parties, and technical teams building the European Digital Identity Wallet ecosystem. Persona joined as an early participating verifier to showcase a proof of concept and test the feasibility of the sandbox prior to its release.
After the testing week, France began a prototype testing phase dedicated to EUDI Wallet compliance. This testing phase will confirm whether France Identité is interoperable with ARF standards and could be accepted across all EU member states.
What is Germany's Personalausweis?
Personalausweis is Germany's national ID card. Millions of German citizens have already authenticated online using the AusweisApp. Since 2010, Personalausweis has carried an embedded eID chip.
Germany's challenge has been evolving its existing digital identity infrastructure into a fully ARF-compliant EUDI Wallet. That’s where SPRIND, Germany’s Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, comes into the picture.
SPRIND is leading the development of Germany's state EUDI Wallet on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernization. To inform that work, SPRIND ran the Funke Challenge, a 15-month prototype competition that produced multiple ARF-compliant wallet implementations and surfaced key design insights now being incorporated into the national wallet.
In December 2025, SPRIND also launched an official sandbox for relying parties as part of its work on the national wallet project. Its sandbox access matters because EUDI Wallet ecosystems require companies to register and complete sandbox testing before accepting live wallet credentials in production. Companies that complete the testing process now will have a clear path to production readiness when the AMLR and eIDAS deadlines arrive in 2027.
What are the 2026 and 2027 EUDI Wallet deadlines?
By the end of 2026, EU member states must have EUDI Wallets available to citizens and residents. By the end of 2027, eIDAS 2.0 requires specific categories of private-sector organizations to accept EUDI Wallets. The sectors currently in scope include:
| Sector | Sample of regulated activities |
| Banks and financial institutions | Customer onboarding, KYC, and account access |
| Telecom operators | SIM registration and account management |
| Large online platforms that meet Digital Services Act thresholds | Account creation and age verification |
| Healthcare providers | Patient identification |
| Transport operators | Ticketing and boarding |
| Utilities | Contract execution and account access |
The 2027 deadlines are a hard requirement. Regulated businesses must be ready to accept EUDI Wallets or face regulatory penalties under both eIDAS 2.0 and AMLR.
Based on the timelines seen in previous major EU regulatory transitions (e.g., GDPR, PSD2, MiCA), most companies should begin vendor evaluation and integration work in the 12-18 months before the deadline. Starting that process now means having tested, production-ready verification flows in place as more member states make wallets available through 2026 and into 2027.
Persona's EUDI Wallet coverage
Both France and Germany’s credentials operate at the same eIDAS “High” assurance level and conform to the same ARF standard. Across the two, the user experience is also similar: the customer first opens a government app and completes a secure authentication step. Afterwards, verified identity attributes are returned to the verification flow.
Where the two countries differ is in the technical infrastructure that ties each credential back to its government issuer. Persona's verifications handle both, so companies don't need to build and maintain separate implementations for each country.
Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, and Sweden are also building EUDI Wallet implementations, each on its own timeline but working toward the same end-of-2026 issuance mandate. Persona is participating in sandbox testing for France, Germany, and Italy. As other EU markets open their sandbox environments, Persona is tracking them for early access.
How Persona supports EU digital IDs
Persona is an end-to-end identity verification platform. Purpose-built for organizations with complex compliance requirements, Persona helps banks, fintechs, and other regulated enterprises meet compliance standards, fight fraud, and build trust throughout the customer life cycle. Persona was named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Identity Verification.
Persona verifies France Identité and Germany's EUDI Wallet credentials in early access and actively participates in both the France and Germany EUDI sandbox environments. Persona helps:
Reduce the likelihood of document fraud. Persona’s EUDI Wallet verification flows connect directly to government-issued cryptographic credentials, rather than document images or database lookups.
Provide a simpler user experience. By accepting EUDI Wallet credentials, Persona removes the friction of document uploads and image retries, making it easier for users to verify.
Persona’s broader European digital ID coverage includes existing eIDs such as ItsMe, MitID, and iDIN. Additional EU digital IDs will be onboarded as sandboxes become available.
If your organization is building toward EU market coverage or preparing for the 2027 EUDI acceptance mandate, early access to France and Germany digital ID verification will be available once wallet access is released to the public.
Contact us to learn more about what Persona is developing in the sandbox.