Google is bringing digital ID passes to selected European Union countries by the end of summer 2026, allowing users to store a digital version of their passport on a smartphone for use in online identity and age verification.
The announcement was made on June 4, 2026 at Money 20/20 Europe in Amsterdam by P.J. Linarducci, Google’s Vice President of Product Management for Consumer Payments. The five EU countries named in the first wave are Spain, Italy, France, Ireland and Estonia.
The feature, called ID Pass, has already been launched in Brazil, India, Singapore, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. The European expansion follows Google’s pattern of rolling out digital identity tools progressively across geographies, building on a base it has developed in the United States, where state-issued credentials are supported across a growing list of states.
To activate the feature, users photograph the information page of their passport, scan the document’s NFC chip with their phone and complete a video selfie check. Once verified, the digital document is encrypted and stored locally on the device. Google has confirmed that the information is not stored in the cloud or transferred to company servers.
The system uses what Google describes as selective credentials, meaning it shares only the specific information a service actually needs. If a platform requires only confirmation that a user is over 18, it receives a yes or no response rather than the user’s full name, address or date of birth.
The first concrete banking use case in Europe involves Sparkasse Bank. The German bank, which has a network of more than 340 regional savings banks and over 50 million customers, has been named as the first national credential partner for EU age assurance. Sparkasse customers will be able to prove they meet an age requirement to a merchant or online service through Google Wallet without disclosing sensitive personal data.
Google also announced at the same event that Google Pay direct checkout is now available for select merchants using Airwallex, and that an updated Secure Payment Authentication feature cut authentication time by 50% and increased conversions by 3% in Google’s own testing. That feature is rolling out with Visa, Checkout.com, Autopay and Adyen in the United Kingdom and Poland.
The ID Pass rollout arrives as Europe prepares for its own more ambitious digital identity infrastructure. Under eIDAS 2.0, every EU member state is required to offer at least one European Digital Identity Wallet by November 2026. Google has said it does not rule out working with the EUDI Wallet framework in future, though the two systems remain separate for now.
Twenty-two public and private digital identity projects are currently active across Europe, 11 of them already in operation, though none has yet been certified as fully compliant with the new eIDAS 2.0 rules. Italy participates in two consortia, NOBID and POTENTIAL, and is working towards certification. Current Italian digital documents remain limited to in-person checks such as roadside police inspections.
Italy also operates a separate national digital identity system, the IT-Wallet on the IO app, which is distinct from Google’s offering. That system has surpassed 10 million activations since its experimental launch in 2024 and its general availability in December 2025, with more than 17 million digital documents uploaded. Those documents are not yet usable for online public services or air travel.
About 71% of Italian citizens already hold some form of digital identity tool, though only around half use digital wallets actively, primarily for payments rather than document storage. The arrival of Google Wallet ID Pass adds a new private-sector layer to a market that is still developing its digital identity infrastructure.
For travellers, the development points towards a future in which a physical passport may not always be needed for pre-trip or online verification processes. For now, Google’s ID Pass is a tool for selected digital checks and does not replace a physical passport where the law requires one, nor does it function as a travel document for border crossing or air travel boarding.
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