What does eIDAS 2.0 change for businesses?

eIDAS 2.0 is the amending Regulation (EU) 2024/1183, in force since May 2024, which extends the original eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014. Its centrepiece is the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet), which every Member State must offer to its citizens.

The centre of gravity shifts from the signature itself to user-controlled digital identity. Natural persons will be able to sign at qualified level directly from the wallet, free of charge for private use. For businesses this means the QES is moving from specialist tool to something contract partners simply expect.

Here's what changes in practice:

• Mandatory EUDI Wallet: Every Member State must provide at least one wallet, with mutual recognition across the EU. Availability is expected from the end of 2026.
• Signing from the wallet: Qualified signing becomes possible with no prior certificate order, because identity and authorisation come from the wallet.
• New trust services: Electronic attestations of attributes (EAA) and qualified archiving services are added as standalone qualified trust services.
• Obligation to accept: Very large online platforms and heavily regulated sectors must accept the wallet as a means of identification.
• Attribute proofs instead of full identity: Users disclose individual characteristics selectively — age of majority, power of representation — rather than the full identity document.
• Reduced in-house KYC: Organisations accepting wallet identities can drop many of their own video identification journeys.

What businesses should prepare now:

• Make journeys QES-capable: Onboarding, contracting and HR flows should be able to process and validate qualified signatures.
• Accept eIDs as an identity source: Anyone supporting ID Austria and the German national ID card today has already made the architectural move towards the wallet.
• Ensure long-term validation: Use PAdES signatures with LTV so documents stay verifiable across the full retention period.

primesign is designed to support future eIDAS 2.0 wallets and already enables instant signing with existing eIDs today — with ID Austria and the German national ID card, without prior user registration. Adopting that architecture now avoids a re-integration at wallet rollout, because from a process perspective the wallet is simply another identity source.