What is a European Identity Wallet?
The European Digital Identity Wallet, or EUDI Wallet for short, is the app every EU member state will offer its residents. It carries their identity and other credentials on their phone, to share online or in person. The eIDAS 2.0 regulation defines it. UniMe, Impierce's open-source European Identity Wallet, is aligned with eIDAS 2.0 and lets people collect and share verifiable credentials today. We aim to have it certified as an EUDI Wallet in the future.
What does eIDAS 2.0 change?
eIDAS 2.0 gives every person in the EU a free digital identity wallet, and gives every organization a standard way to identify people and check their credentials in seconds. The regulation is Regulation (EU) 2024/1183, the successor of the eIDAS regulation that already governs electronic signatures and national eIDs.
Until now, every organization verified people in its own way: forms, document uploads, video calls and a different login for every service. With a European Identity Wallet, a person proves their identity, age, address, diploma or membership from the wallet, and the organization gets a signed, instantly verifiable answer. The wallet holds the government-issued identity, but also any other attestation an organization chooses to issue.
Who must accept the European Identity Wallet?
The regulation obliges a broad group of organizations to accept the wallet, each in a defined situation:
- Public services, online, wherever they ask for electronic identification: tax, benefits, permits, registrations and the like.
- Private services legally required to use strong user authentication, when a person logs in or identifies. That covers banks and payment providers, telecom operators, energy, transport, health and education.
- Very large online platforms under the Digital Services Act, when a user chooses to identify with the wallet instead of a platform account.
- Qualified electronic signatures. Every wallet lets the person sign documents, and every organization in the EU must treat such a signature as equal to a handwritten one.
Who can use the European Identity Wallet?
Any organization can use the wallet, not only those obliged to. A webshop can verify age or a delivery address in one tap. An employer can check a diploma at the source, and a university can enroll a student without paperwork. A venue can accept a ticket from the same app that holds the visitor's ID. The organization registers once as a relying party in its member state and states which data it asks for, so people see who is asking and why.
This is the opportunity: a Europe-wide, standardized way to prove things about people, with the person in control of what they share. Organizations that issue their own credentials into the wallet, such as diplomas, memberships, certificates and passes, make those credentials usable wherever the holder goes.
The European Commission fills in the technical detail through implementing acts, which it publishes on its EU Digital Identity Wallet site.
When do European Identity Wallets arrive?
European Identity Wallets are meant to arrive by the end of 2026, when every member state must offer at least one. Many countries are running significantly behind that date, including the Netherlands. Others are doing better, such as Germany and France, which expect a rollout in early 2027.
That timeline does not hold UniMe back, because UniMe is useful outside the realm of eIDAS 2.0 as well. People use it today to hold diplomas, micro-credentials, badges, memberships and passes from organizations. Those organizations issue and verify on the same open standards the European Identity Wallet uses. When government wallets arrive, your integration carries over.
Who does what in the European Identity Wallet ecosystem?
The ecosystem has four roles: the wallet provider, the wallet user, the issuer and the verifier. eIDAS 2.0 uses its own names for some of them, so the table maps both.
| Role | Name in eIDAS 2.0 | What the role does | In the Impierce suite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallet provider | Wallet provider | Builds and operates the wallet and gets it certified | Impierce provides UniMe |
| Wallet user | Wallet user, or holder in the credential model | Collects credentials and decides what to share | The person using UniMe. UniTrust and UniCore play the same role for organizations |
| Issuer | PID provider, or provider of electronic attestations of attributes | Signs credentials and delivers them to the wallet | An organization using UniTrust or UniCore |
| Verifier | Relying party | Asks the wallet for credentials and checks them | An organization using UniTrust or UniCore |
eIDAS 2.0 distinguishes three kinds of credentials a wallet holds:
- Person identification data (PID) is the core identity, such as name and date of birth, issued by the member state.
- An electronic attestation of attributes (EAA) is any other credential about the person, such as a diploma, a membership or a license, issued by any organization. Most credentials an organization issues to UniMe are EAAs.
- A qualified electronic attestation of attributes (QEAA) is an EAA issued by a qualified trust service provider supervised under eIDAS. It has the same legal effect as a paper attestation across the EU.
How does UniMe differ from a government wallet?
A government European Identity Wallet starts from a high-assurance identity: the person signs up with a national eID before the wallet holds anything. UniMe starts as a blank slate and builds trust by adding credentials over time. Impierce plans to certify UniMe as a European Identity Wallet, so both paths meet in one app.
| Aspect | Government European Identity Wallet | UniMe |
|---|---|---|
| Identity at setup | Person identification data issued by the member state | None required; the user starts with self-issued credentials and a verified email credential |
| First credentials | Government identity, then attestations from organizations | Any credential an organization issues, such as a diploma, micro-credential, badge or pass |
| Provided by | The member state, or a provider it mandates | Impierce, free and open source under Apache 2.0 |
| Where to get it | The member state's own channels, from its rollout date | App Store and Google Play today |
| Status | Certified before launch | Aligned with eIDAS 2.0, certification planned |
Most people need a wallet for a diploma, a training certificate or a ticket long before they need government-grade identity. Not everyone in Europe has a formal identity to build from either. Requiring a high-assurance identity at setup would exclude those people and block those everyday uses. UniMe starts from a blank slate so a credential from your organization can be the first one a user receives, while each verifier still decides which issuers it trusts.
What is the Architecture and Reference Framework?
The Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF) is the technical blueprint for the European Identity Wallet, maintained by the European Commission together with the member states and published on GitHub. It defines the roles in the ecosystem, the credential formats, the protocols for issuing and presenting credentials and the requirements a wallet must meet before it can be certified.
UniMe implements the ARF's protocols: OpenID for Verifiable Credential Issuance (OpenID4VCI) to receive credentials and OpenID for Verifiable Presentations (OpenID4VP) to present them. UniMe also supports SD-JWT, one of the ARF's credential formats. Support for the ISO mdoc format the ARF also requires is planned. An issuer or verifier that follows the ARF's protocols works with UniMe today.
What does certification of a European Identity Wallet mean?
Certification means an accredited assessment body has checked a wallet against its member state's certification scheme. Only a certified wallet counts as a European Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0, and only a certified wallet can hold the government-issued identity.
UniMe is aligned with eIDAS 2.0 and Impierce intends to certify it as a European Identity Wallet. Today, UniMe already works with any issuer or verifier that implements the open standards the regulation builds on.
What is the European Business Wallet?
The European Business Wallet is the organizational counterpart of the European Identity Wallet: a wallet in which companies and public bodies hold and present their own identity and credentials. It also lets them sign and exchange documents. The European Commission proposed it in late 2025, and it is not yet adopted.
UniTrust, Impierce's business wallet and credentialing platform, is built in the spirit of that proposal. It gives an organization a verified identity and lets it issue, hold and verify the credentials that people keep in UniMe.
FAQ
Is UniMe a certified European Identity Wallet?
Not yet. UniMe is aligned with eIDAS 2.0, and Impierce intends to certify it as a European Identity Wallet. UniMe is available today on iOS and Android and works with any issuer or verifier that implements OpenID4VCI and OpenID4VP.
Do I need a European Identity Wallet to receive credentials from an organization?
No. Any wallet that implements the open standards an issuer uses can receive its credentials, and UniMe does so today. A certified European Identity Wallet is required only where a law or a public service demands one.
Will an issuer built for UniMe work with government wallets?
Yes, as far as the protocol goes: UniMe implements the same OpenID4VCI standard the Architecture and Reference Framework prescribes. Each member state's wallet adds its own requirements, such as relying-party registration and specific credential formats, so check the ARF and your national scheme.
What is the difference between an EAA and a QEAA?
An electronic attestation of attributes (EAA) is any credential about a person that an organization issues to a wallet, such as a diploma or a membership. A qualified EAA (QEAA) is issued by a qualified trust service provider supervised under eIDAS and has the same legal effect as its paper equivalent across the EU.
Next steps
Read What is UniMe? to see what UniMe holds and how it works, or download UniMe to try it with your issuer or verifier.