QEAA

A QEAA, Qualified Electronic Attestation of Attributes, is the qualified variant of an EAA: a verifiable credential issued by a qualified trust service provider under eIDAS 2.0, carrying the same legal weight as a notarised or certified paper document.

Any organisation can issue an EAA, an electronic attestation of attributes, but only one issued by a provider listed as qualified on a national Trusted List is a QEAA, and only a QEAA benefits from the legal presumption of accuracy eIDAS 2.0 grants it: a relying party can accept it as proof without further checks, the same way it would accept a notarised extract today. A lower-assurance, non-qualified EAA still carries useful evidence value, but without that legal presumption. To issue a QEAA, a provider must be audited and certified as a qualified trust service provider, meet the same supervisory and liability requirements as providers of qualified electronic signatures and seals, and be published on its member state's Trusted List so any relying party across the EU can verify the issuer's qualified status before accepting the attestation. Common QEAA use cases include professional qualifications, academic diplomas, company registration data and authority-to-represent attestations, all cases where the receiving party would otherwise need to contact a registry or notary directly. Because a QEAA carries the eIDAS 2.0 legal presumption, disputing its accuracy shifts the burden of proof to the party challenging it rather than the party relying on it, which is the same reversal of burden a wet-ink notarised document enjoys today, now available for an entirely electronic credential presented through a EUDI Wallet.

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