A relying party is a public or private service that asks an EU Digital Identity Wallet for data and relies on what it receives, such as a bank opening an account or a shop checking age. Under eIDAS 2.0 it has to register in the member state where it is established before relying on wallets.
Legal termReviewed 7 October 2026
On the relying party side, where data is requested and checked.
Issuer
Signs credentials: a member state, university, bank or employer
Issuance
EUDI Wallet
Belongs to the user, who decides what to share
Presentation
Relying party
The service that requests and checks the data
Trust layer: who is allowed to sign, and is it still valid?
Rules: the law and technical framework behind it all
In practice the relying party is the verifier. It sends a presentation request naming the attributes it needs, the user approves in their wallet, and the relying party checks the signed response: issuer signature, trust list, revocation status and device binding. Relying party is the legal role. Verifier is the usual name for the software component that does the checking.
Registration comes first. The relying party declares its identity, contact details and the data it intends to request, and Article 5b(3) forbids asking for anything beyond that. It then identifies itself to wallets with an access certificate, so the user can see who is asking.
For some services acceptance is an obligation rather than a choice. Public sector bodies that require electronic identification have to accept the wallet, and private services that are required by law or contract to use strong user authentication have to accept it from December 2027 when the user asks.
Defined in
Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 Art. 5b and 5f; Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2980 Art. 2; ARF Annex 1
If your service asks a wallet for anything, you are a relying party. The registration, data minimisation and verification duties stay yours even when a provider runs the technology for you.
Read next: EUDI Wallet integration guide →Build with it: Authbound documentation →
Authbound handles the protocols, formats, trust lists and revocation checks behind these terms. See what people build with them.
