A practical vision for the European Business Wallet

Executive summary  

DIGITALEUROPE welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to develop a European business wallet (EBW), as announced in the 2025 Commission Work Programme and to build upon the EU Digital Identity Framework. The EBW is intended to address long-standing fragmentation in the way businesses identify themselves, share credentials, and interact with public administrations and other economic operators across the EU. 

Today, reporting obligations and regulatory procedures for companies are handled through a mix of paper-based processes, disconnected portals and non-standardised formats. This creates duplication, legal uncertainty and unnecessary administrative overhead – particularly for SMEs and cross-border operators. Inconsistent national rules and technical infrastructures further exacerbate the problem, restricting access to services and slowing the uptake of digital solutions. 

The EBW aims to respond to these challenges by introducing a secure, interoperable and EU-wide identity solution for legal persons. It will enable economic operators to identify and authenticate themselves, receive official notifications and share verifiable credentials across borders – including permits, licences, certificates or VAT registration. The EBW is expected to support interactions across business-to-government (B2G), business-to-business (B2B) and government-to-government (G2G) contexts. 

To fully realise these objectives, DIGITALEUROPE encourages an in-depth discussion on making the Business Wallet mandatory for the public sector and for specific use cases. Voluntary uptake alone will not deliver the legal certainty, harmonisation or efficiency gains that the initiative sets out to achieve. A regulated, obligation-based model – grounded in interoperability with the EU Digital Identity Wallet and existing trust services – is essential to ensure consistent implementation across Member States and promote uptake amongst businesses of all sizes. 

To support the development of a practical and future-ready solution, this paper puts forward recommendations that call for: 

• Prioritising high-value, B2B and cross-border use cases beyond administrative simplification; 

• Introducing harmonised identity structures and mandate management; 

• Ensuring flexibility in implementation and openness to private-sector innovation; 

• Embedding security, fraud resilience and accountability from the outset; 

• Designing for international interoperability and scalable data standards; 

• Making the business wallet mandatory for the public sector and for specific use cases; and 

• Covering all types of legal organisational forms, economically active individuals, including self-employed individuals.