European Business Wallet: what it is and where it stands

The European Business Wallet (EBW) is a proposed EU digital wallet for companies, sole traders and public bodies. It would let a business prove who it is and who may act for it, sign and seal documents, and send and receive official documents through a secure channel that is legally recognised in every Member State. The European Commission proposed it on 19 November 2025 as a Regulation, and as of October 2026 the legislators are still negotiating it.

Why businesses need it

A company that operates in several Member States today deals with separate national portals, separate login methods and separate rules on who may represent it. Proving that a manager has authority to sign can mean certified copies of registry extracts, translations and postal delivery. The proposal targets exactly this friction: one trusted way to show company identity and authority, and one recognised channel for official correspondence.

What the proposal contains

The proposal is registered as COM(2025) 838, procedure 2025/0358(COD). It was published together with the Commission’s digital omnibus package and builds on the eIDAS framework that also created the EUDI Wallet (see eIDAS 2.0 explained). According to the Commission and summaries of the proposal, a European Business Wallet should support:

• Identification and authentication of companies and public bodies towards other businesses and authorities.
• Representation and mandates: showing who is authorised to act for a company and delegating legal actions to others.
• Signatures and seals: electronic signatures for people acting for the company and electronic seals for the company itself, with timestamps.
• Secure delivery and exchange: a channel to send and receive official documents with delivery confirmation and audit trails.
• Attested documents: sharing verified credentials such as licences, certificates or registry extracts. The standards behind this are the same family as in our guide to verifiable credentials.
• A European digital directory and a unified identification approach so wallets can find each other.

Legal effect is a central idea. The proposal says actions performed with a wallet should be treated as equivalent to their paper or in-person equivalents, while national procedural rules stay in place. For the signature side, see qualified electronic signatures.

How it differs from the EUDI Wallet

	EUDI Wallet	European Business Wallet
Main users	Natural persons	Companies, sole traders, public bodies
Typical content	Identity data, driving licence, diplomas	Company identity, mandates, licences, certificates
Main purpose	Proving identity and attributes, signing	Business identification, representation, signing and sealing, document exchange
Legal basis	Regulation (EU) 2024/1183	Proposed new Regulation
Status	Member States must offer wallets by the end of 2026	Proposal in legislative procedure

The two are meant to fit together. A person acting for a company could use a personal wallet to authenticate and a business wallet to prove the mandate. Our page on the EUDI Wallet covers the personal side.

Who would have to do what

According to summaries of the proposal, public sector bodies that require electronic identification would have to accept the business wallet within a set period after entry into force, in the order of two years, with transitional periods of up to three years for moving away from other secure communication methods. In legal terms, the public bodies and many private services become “relying parties”, a role explained in our page on relying parties. Wallet providers would be authorised and supervised by national authorities and would have to meet security requirements.

For businesses, the proposal is designed as optional. Estimates of the benefit are large: the Commission has cited cost savings in the order of billions of euros each year. These are projections tied to wide uptake and should be read as such.

Where the legislative process stands

The Commission adopted the proposal on 19 November 2025. Since then:

• Council. The Council confirmed its general approach on 9 June 2026. Its changes include a higher cybersecurity bar for authorising wallet providers, up to 60 days instead of 30 for national supervisory authorities to review provider applications, and a clearer message that the wallets should complement existing national business-to-business and business-to-government systems.
• European Parliament. The lead committee, Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), adopted its report on 10 September 2026. The next steps are a mandate for talks with the Council and the negotiations between both institutions.
• Data protection. The European Data Protection Supervisor published an opinion on the proposal in January 2026.
• Timeline. EU leaders asked in March 2026 for an agreement by the end of 2026. Even if that happens, the regulation would still need formal adoption and implementing rules, so no live business wallets should be expected before 2027 at the earliest.

The text can still change. Items under discussion include voluntariness versus obligations, how to avoid new parallel portals, acceptance by municipal and regional authorities, and the security requirements for providers.

What businesses can do now

1. Do not buy a product labelled European Business Wallet. None is certified yet.
2. Clean up your authority records. Know who can sign for the company and where this is registered.
3. Check your signature tools. A qualified signature or seal service is useful today and is likely to be compatible.
4. Follow the standards. Wallet interoperability will be built on open specifications, which is a reason to prefer vendors that implement them.
5. Watch the trilogue. If you operate across borders, the acceptance duties for public bodies matter more than the feature list.