2026 State of the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EU DIW)

Expert Survey Report

Our Fourth Annual State of the EU DIW Expert Survey Report once again explores developments and progress in the EU DIW ecosystem. Together with Terrapinn, organisers of the Identity Week Europe conference, we invited over a 100 subject-matter experts were invited to participate, both from their network and our own, and almost 50 dedicated some of their time to do so.

As such, this report presents a valuable insight into their combined perspectives on the establishment of an ecosystem that can make the EU DIW useful, trusted, and adoptable at scale. Results suggest that wallet and technology and policy ambition are only part of the story; sustainable success of the ecosystem will depend on adoption, which will depend on the practical value participating in the ecosystem can offer, especially for those not legally obligated to do so.

With that, it seems that “why would parties join in?” is starting to matter just as much as “can and will it work?”

More specifically, we’re seeing that EU DIW conversation is shifting in three ways:

About the report

Survey themes

We structured the survey around four key ecosystem themes. Each theme reflects what organisations and policymakers are currently navigating:

• Who benefits (citizens, organisations, relying parties, governments)
• Adoption by ecosystem actors (factors of impact, responsible use)
• Business model (use cases, incentives, business case, funding)
• Challenges and risks (meeting deadlines, trust, ecosystem readiness)

These themes translate into the report structure. Please note: because of this structure, the survey does not explicitely ask experts for promising achievements across Member States. This does, of course, not mean that such achievements are not there! For example in LSPs delivering successful use cases, pilots being run, and many national initiatives.

Authors and contributors

Contributors (with permission): Ronny Khan, Ivan Marin, Jon Shamah, Sebastian Zehetbauer, Victor Asanmi, Annet Steenbergen, Henk Marsman, Jacoba Sieders, Ronny Khan, Jay Meier, Jon Shamah, John Erik Setsaas, Eric le Ven, Marnix van den Bent, Vincent Jansen, Poppe Wijnsma, Mike Alders, Victor van der Hulst, Dick Hardt, Steve Pannifer, Esther Makaay, Martin Sandren, Richard Oliphant, Priya Guliani, Shiv Aggarwal, Alexander van den Wall Bake.

The European Union aims to realise a highly secure, trustworthy, empowering solution for cross-border digital identification and data (attributes) sharing, for use in and across Member States. A key reason for this initiative is to support the further development of the European digital single market, and to give people greater control over when, where and with whom they share their data online. Deadlines are approaching quickly: EU Member States are expected to have their national wallet solutions available by the end of 2026, and many industries are required to accept data-sharing with these wallets by the end of 2027.