European Commission proposes a digital A1 certificate and a European Social Security Pass
The European Commission adopted its Fair Labour Mobility package on 15 September 2026: a Communication plus five legislative proposals, including a Regulation establishing a European Social Security Pass (ESSPASS), a Skills Portability Act, a Regulation strengthening the European Labour Authority, and two directives on the recognition of professional qualifications.
The ESSPASS proposal would let people request and receive social security documents entirely online and hold them in the EU Digital Identity Wallet. The Commission’s stated sequence is specific: the portable document A1 for posted workers goes digital one year after the ESSPASS Regulation enters into force, followed by the European Health Insurance Card and the remaining documents within three years. On qualifications, recognition of regulated professions would become mandatorily digital with a five-week target, against a current benchmark of around three months. The Commission estimates the package is worth an estimated €5 billion in benefits by 2040, including €1 billion in simplification gains, and cites 14 million Europeans living in another EU country in 2024.
Why this matters
If you work remotely for an employer in one EU country while living in another, the A1 certificate is the document that proves which country’s social security system you belong to. Today it is a paper-and-portal process that routinely takes weeks, and the delay is one of the practical reasons employers refuse cross-border remote arrangements. A digital A1 sitting in your EU Digital Identity Wallet, verifiable by an administration in seconds, removes a specific and well-documented obstacle rather than a general one.
The timing matters as much as the mechanism. The A1 is first in the queue, and the clock starts one year after the Regulation enters into force, not one year from now. Nothing in this package is law yet, so if you are planning a cross-border arrangement for 2027 you should assume the current paper process still applies.
Context
Five separate proposals now have to clear both the European Parliament and the Council, where scope and deadlines can change. The Commission expects the European Labour Authority changes to land in the 2028 to 2030 window, which gives a sense of the realistic timetable for the package as a whole.
This sits alongside the existing framework agreement on cross-border telework, which lets workers in participating states spend up to 49.9% of their working time in their country of residence while staying in the employer’s social security system. That agreement runs to 30 June 2028 with automatic renewal, and the A1 is the document that evidences it. For the wider picture, see our guide to social security for remote workers in Europe.
What to watch
The €5 billion figure appears as €6 billion on a second Commission page covering the same announcement. The DG EMPL press release is the one to quote. Parliament’s first readings will be the next concrete milestone.