The digital euro: where the negotiations stand and what they mean for your account, including after you move away

Hardly any project of European monetary policy is fought over as passionately as the digital euro. Some see it as the end of cash and the first step towards monitored money, others as a public alternative to American card networks. Since the summer the project has been in its decisive phase: Parliament and Council are negotiating the final text of the law. What is already settled, what is open and what it means for you, whether you live in the eurozone, have left it or have never been part of it, can be read precisely from the documents of the two legislators.

Where the legislation stands

The European Commission presented its proposal on 28 June 2023, together with a second proposal on the legal tender status of euro banknotes and coins. The Council adopted its negotiating mandate in December 2025; the text is available as Council document 16695/25 of 17 December 2025.

Parliament took longer. The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee adopted its report on 23 June 2026 by 43 votes to 14 with one abstention and decided to open negotiations. The plenary confirmed this decision on 9 July 2026. Both are documented in Parliament's Legislative Observatory, as is the parallel procedure on cash. The rapporteur is the Spanish MEP Fernando Navarrete Rojas.

Since then the trilogue negotiations have been under way. According to Parliament's Legislative Train, last updated on 20 September 2026, the positions differ above all on the compensation model for banks and merchants and on details of distribution. The holding limits have not yet been negotiated at political level. So no final text exists. Everything that follows describes the legislators' positions, not law in force.

What the digital euro is meant to be

The digital euro would be central bank money in digital form, issued by the Eurosystem, with legal tender status like notes and coins. It is meant to work online and offline. Online, a payment runs through a payment service provider; offline, directly between two devices close to each other, much like handing over a banknote. Both legislators want it to complement cash, not replace it.

One point is unmistakable in the Council text: under Article 16(8) the digital euro bears no interest. It is meant as a means of payment, not as a form of saving.

The holding limit: who sets it and why

To stop customers moving deposits out of banks into digital euros on a large scale, there is to be a cap on how many digital euros one person may hold. Under the Council mandate the European Central Bank sets the holding limits, within a ceiling that the Council determines by implementing decision. The ECB must announce the planned date of first issuance at least two years in advance and present a technical report and a recommendation for this ceiling at least one year in advance. The ceiling is reviewed at least every two years.

Different limits may apply to natural and legal persons. The limit applies to online and offline holdings together, and anyone with several digital euro accounts must specify how their personal limit is divided between them. For joint accounts the holders' limits add up. Neither text contains a figure. How high the limit will be is open.

In practice this means nobody can hold more than the holding limit in digital euros. Under the recitals of the Council text, anything received above it in an online payment is to be passed automatically to a linked ordinary account, and conversely a shortfall when paying is to be topped up automatically from the ordinary account. Both apply only with your express consent. The digital euro thus replaces neither the current account nor the savings account; it sits beside them.

Fees: basic functions free of charge

Both legislators want consumers not to pay for the basic functions. Under Article 17 of the Council text, payment service providers may not charge consumers fees for the mandatory basic services. They may charge for additional services, as well as a reasonable fee for funding with cash or defunding into cash, which may not be higher than for an ordinary account of the same customer. Parliament phrases the principle similarly: free basic services, possible fees for extras.

Banks with payment accounts are to be required to offer the digital euro to their existing retail customers on request. For people without an account, member states are to designate providers that supply it, with support on site too for older people and people with little digital experience.

Who has to accept it

As legal tender the digital euro is in principle to be accepted. The Council text, however, makes broad exceptions. Private individuals acting in a purely private capacity do not have to accept it. Also exempt are businesses, the self-employed and non-profit organisations that accept only cash, ordinary credit transfers or direct debits and no digital payments at the till. Whoever already accepts cards, on the other hand, is to take the digital euro too. A merchant may refuse it in an individual case only for good reason, such as a power cut or a broken device. For customers this means: where a card works today, the digital euro is to work later. Where only cash is taken, that stays the same.

Privacy: offline differs from online

The question whether the digital euro can be monitored has two answers, depending on the type of payment.

Offline: under Article 37 of the Council text, neither payment service providers nor the ECB nor the national central banks may store the transaction data of offline payments. What is stored, however, are fundings and defundings of the offline storage: amount, device identifier, date and time, account numbers used. This data is available to the anti-money laundering authority on request. The Commission is also to set maximum amounts for offline payments or offline holdings.

Online: here payment service providers process the data as for other electronic payments, with the usual anti-money laundering duties. In its mandate Parliament stresses data minimisation, data protection by design and privacy-enhancing technologies.

Anyone looking for discretion in payments should therefore stay level-headed. Offline, the digital euro will be more cash-like than any card; online it is an electronic means of payment linked to an account. Which forms of privacy are legally possible in banking is set out in discreet banking: using financial privacy legally.

What applies after you move away

For anyone who has left the eurozone or plans to, Article 12a of the Council text is the most interesting provision. It governs who may use the digital euro at all and names six groups:

1. Persons resident in a euro country.
2. Persons who opened their digital euro account while still living in a euro country and have since moved away.
3. Visitors to the eurozone.
4. Persons in EU states without the euro, under conditions still to be agreed.
5. Persons in third countries, likewise only under special conditions and agreements.
6. EU citizens resident outside the eurozone when they exercise their freedom of movement in a euro country.

For our readers this sorts itself by country. If you live in Finland, a euro country, you belong to the first group, and if you open a digital euro account before moving away, the Council text would let you keep it; the ECB may, however, restrict access for this group and for visitors. Sweden and Denmark are EU states without the euro, so their residents fall into the fourth group, with conditions still to be agreed. The UK and Norway are third countries: their residents need special agreements first. The relationship with the bank thus follows the same logic as with an ordinary account: your residence decides what may be offered to you. Why that plays a role of its own for accounts outside the EU from 2027 is explained in CRD VI: it comes down to where you live. For people without a fixed residence the question of which address counts stays the same as today; nomad banking 2026 shows the solutions.

And cash?

In parallel, Parliament and Council are negotiating the legal framework for cash as legal tender. According to the Legislative Train, Parliament is calling for an obligation on euro countries to secure access to cash and to monitor its availability. For both sides the digital euro is to complement cash. When the negotiations on the cash procedure will be concluded is open.

The ECB's timetable

The European Central Bank completed its preparation phase on 30 October 2025. In its press release it names the condition for the further plan explicitly: if the regulation is adopted in the course of 2026, a pilot exercise and first transactions could take place from mid-2027, and the Eurosystem would be ready for a possible first issuance in the course of 2029. The ECB estimates development costs up to then at around €1.3 billion. The final decision on whether and when the digital euro is issued is taken by the ECB Governing Council only after the regulation has been adopted.

In the Legislative Train, Parliament mentions a pilot with 36 selected payment service providers, due to start in the second half of 2027 for twelve months. Its mandate also provides for a roll-out phase of at least 24 months after issuance is approved. Whether the timetable holds depends on the negotiations being concluded, and that had not happened by autumn 2026.

What this means for your banking

For the question of where you hold your money, the digital euro changes nothing in the short term. It will be issued in 2029 at the earliest, it has a cap, it bears no interest, and it is tied to a payment service provider in the EU. An account outside the eurozone, whether in pounds, kronor, francs, dollars or another currency, does a different job: it spreads your assets across jurisdictions and currencies.

Anyone following the debate should keep two things apart. One question is whether a public digital means of payment strengthens or weakens privacy; the answer depends on details such as the offline rules, which will only be fixed in the trilogue. The other question is how visible your assets already are today. Account registers and the automatic exchange of information have more influence on that than any new form of payment; what is stored there is shown in the EU account register: what is stored and who has access.

The same line holds for both: an account abroad is legal, and income stays taxable in your country of residence. If you want to set up your accounts so that they fit your residence and your plans, talk to us in the free consultation. You will receive a written assessment within 48 hours.