Italy's eID Paradox: Advanced Stack, Analog Bottleneck [Analysis]

Italy Leads Europe on eID Adoption - The Numbers Say So

By most measures, Italy is ahead of every other EU member state on digital identity.

Over 61 million electronic ID cards (CIE) are in circulation against a population of 66 million. The national digital wallet - IT Wallet, built into the IO app by PagoPA - crossed 10 million activations in February 2026. The state has put €102 million per year behind it, funded through PNRR, across 2024-2026.

But the most telling indicator is actual usage.

According to SimilarWeb data, the IO app drew approximately 7.7 million monthly active users across iOS and Android in May 2026 - up 41% year-on-year from 5.5 million in May 2025.

That is not a pilot. That is a national-scale eID deployment that works.

What IO App Usage Data Reveals About Italy's Digital Identity Rollout

The SimilarWeb data tells a more granular story about how the infrastructure is holding up in practice.

IT Wallet Launch: 72k Downloads in a Single Day

When IT Wallet opened to all Italian citizens on December 4, 2024, the IO app recorded 72,359 downloads on Google Play in a single day - its highest on record. Monthly active users on Android jumped 55% in December alone, from 3.5 million to 5.4 million.

MAU Growth: From Spike to Steady State

After the launch surge, MAU held firm and continued climbing. By March 2026 the combined figure across both stores reached 7.9 million. New installs settled at roughly 300,000-370,000 per month through early 2026 - not spectacular, but consistent.

Android Accounts for 86% of Active Users

In May 2026, Android accounted for 86% of monthly active users against iOS at 14%. This tracks Italy's broader device split and has practical consequences: the IT Wallet experience is primarily an Android story. Friction on Android is friction for most users.

Daily Stickiness: 9.1% DAU/MAU

The DAU/MAU ratio averaged 9.1% between October 2025 and May 2026. Social apps run above 50%; banking apps around 20-30%. For a government services app, 9% is reasonable - roughly one in eleven registered users opens it on any given day, which points to genuine utility rather than post-onboarding abandonment.

The data describes a digital identity product that genuinely works at scale. Which is exactly what makes the June 16 news worth examining.

Why Italy Still Missed Its eIDAS Deadline

On June 16, the Italian Council of Ministers approved a decree extending the validity of paper identity documents past the August 3 cutoff set by EU Regulation 2019/1157.

The reason, stated plainly in the official release: municipalities were unable to process the remaining paper cards fast enough before summer.

The Interior Ministry had flagged the problem months earlier.

Registry offices reported a 42% week-on-week spike in CIE renewal requests. Many local offices had already run emergency open days to clear backlogs.

With the deadline falling in the middle of the Italian summer - when staff numbers drop and millions of citizens travel - the government concluded a crunch was unavoidable.

The decree allows paper cards that have not yet expired to remain valid until their natural expiry date, for domestic use and dealings with public administration. Paper cards still lose their validity as travel documents on August 3 as scheduled under EU rules.

This is not a story about Italy failing at digital identity.

It is a story about the gap between a working digital infrastructure and the physical layer that feeds it.

The Last-Mile Problem That eIDAS 2.0 and EUDI Wallet Cannot Fix Alone

The EUDI Wallet deadline is December 2026 for all 27 EU member states.

Most are well behind Italy.

And Italy - with 61 million eIDs issued, a functioning national wallet, and years of sustained investment - still could not retire paper documents on schedule because local registry offices ran out of appointment slots.

The bottleneck was not the wallet.

It was not the chip.

It was not adoption.

It was the moment a citizen has to show up in person at a municipal office to get the credential that everything else depends on. No amount of API coverage, ARF compliance, or eIDAS 2.0 alignment closes that gap if the issuing infrastructure cannot keep pace.

There is also an open question Italy shares with every other member state: the relationship between national wallets and the EUDI Wallet.

IT Wallet was designed as a precursor to EUDI - built on compatible standards, open source, interoperable in principle.

But how and when it becomes a certified EUDI Wallet, or operates alongside one, is still unresolved.

That will matter as December 2026 approaches.

What the eIDAS 2.0 Transition Actually Means for KYC Compliance

For regulated businesses - fintechs, banks, gaming operators, telcos - the Italy situation is a useful reality check on what the eIDAS 2.0 transition looks like on the ground.

Italy is the best case.

61 million eIDs issued, a wallet with nearly 8 million monthly active users, over €100 million in annual public investment - and the country still could not fully retire paper documents on schedule.

Paper cards, CIE, SPID and IT Wallet will coexist in Italy for years.

Multiply that across 27 member states, each at a different stage, each with its own national eID scheme, and the fragmentation is structural - not a transitional blip.

The businesses that handle this well are not the ones rebuilding their verification flows every time a deadline shifts or a new wallet format enters the picture.

They are the ones running a single integration that covers every valid method in every market - and stays current as the landscape moves underneath them.

Not sure where your organisation stands on EUDI Wallet readiness?

Download 20 questions that help banks and financial institutions identify gaps before the December 2027 deadline.

App usage data in this article is sourced from SimilarWeb (data range May 2023 - May 2026, downloaded June 18, 2026). SimilarWeb figures are estimates based on panel data and should be treated as directional indicators, not official statistics. Official activation figures (10M IT Wallet activations, 61M CIE issued) are sourced from the Italian Department for Digital Transformation and IPZS respectively.