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Trust lists

Trust lists are the foundation of the EUDI Wallet ecosystem's trust model. They publish trust anchors for authorized entities, enabling the Truvity EUDIW Connector to verify credential issuers across borders.

Trusted Lists and Lists of Trusted Entities​

The Architecture Reference Framework (ARF) distinguishes between two types of registries that serve different categories of entities in the EUDI ecosystem.

Trusted Lists use the ETSI TS 119 612 format and cover two categories of entity under different legal bases:

  • QEAA Providers: Qualified Electronic Attestation of Attributes Providers, listed under Article 22 of the eIDAS Regulation as qualified trust service providers.
  • PuB-EAA Providers: Public-sector bodies (or entities designated to act on their behalf) that issue attestations under a specific legal basis, listed under Article 45f of the eIDAS Regulation after passing a conformity assessment.

Lists of Trusted Entities (LoTEs) cover entities that are not trust service providers but still require published trust anchors:

  • PID Providers: Government agencies authorized to issue Personal Identification Data.
  • Wallet Providers: Organizations that provide EUDI Wallet solutions.
  • Access Certificate Authorities: Entities that issue access certificates to Relying Parties.
  • Providers of registration certificates: Entities that issue registration certificates describing an organization's registered scope.

Both Trusted Lists and LoTEs serve the same purpose: publishing trust anchors so that ecosystem participants can verify each other. However, they have different legal bases and governance requirements.

note

There is no Trusted List or LoTE for Relying Parties. RP registration is a separate legal mechanism under Article 5b of eIDAS 2.0—member states maintain national RP registers for transparency and data protection purposes, not for trust-anchor publication. Instead, Relying Parties are authenticated through access certificates issued by Access Certificate Authorities whose trust anchors are published in a LoTE. See certificates for details on access certificates.

Discovery through the Commission's trust infrastructure​

The European Commission maintains a common trust infrastructure that enables any entity in the EUDI Wallet ecosystem to discover all Trusted Lists and LoTEs. Each member state's Trusted List or LoTE Provider signs and publishes its lists, then makes the URLs available through this infrastructure.

This federated model respects national sovereignty while ensuring EU-wide interoperability. Each member state maintains its own lists, and the Commission's infrastructure provides a single discovery point for all of them.

Trust verification​

When your app receives a presentation through the connector, the trust verification follows these steps:

  1. The Relying Party discovers the relevant Trusted Lists and LoTEs through the Commission's common trust infrastructure.
  2. The Relying Party obtains trust anchors for PID Providers and Attestation Providers from these lists.
  3. When verifying a credential, the Relying Party uses the trust anchor to verify the Provider's signature, possibly through intermediate certificates in the chain.

Verification paths by attestation category​

The trust verification path differs depending on the type of attestation:

  • PIDs and QEAAs: The Relying Party verifies the Provider's signature using trust anchors obtained directly from a LoTE or Trusted List.
  • PuB-EAAs: The credential's certificate chain includes a QTSP-issued qualified certificate as an intermediate. The Relying Party verifies the full chain up to the PuB-EAA Provider's own trust anchor published on the national Trusted List, not against the QTSP's entry.
  • Non-qualified EAAs: The applicable Attestation Rulebook defines how the Relying Party obtains the relevant trust anchor. These attestations may use domain-specific trust mechanisms.

Automated verification​

The EUDIW Connector automates this verification process. When your app receives a presentation (for example, a PID or driver's license), the connector verifies the trust chain, confirms the issuer is authorized, and checks that the issuer's entry is active and not revoked.

The connector resolves trust dynamically from the EU LoTL hierarchy—fetching, verifying, and caching the trust lists to determine whether each credential's issuer is recognized for the category it claims to issue. For the full explanation of how the connector resolves trust per credential category, including verification paths and failure reasons, see LoTL trust verification.

Standards​

The trust list infrastructure in the EUDI ecosystem is governed by two ETSI standards:

  • ETSI TS 119 612 v2.4.1 defines the format, semantics, and access mechanisms for Trusted Lists. The current version (TLv6) has been mandatory since April 29, 2026.
  • ETSI TS 119 602 v1.1.1 defines the format for Lists of Trusted Entities, with dedicated annexes per entity category (PID Provider, Wallet Provider, Access Certificate Authority, Provider of registration certificates).

Further reading​