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Freedom251 › Blog › cross-border services

What the EU’s Once-Only Principle Means for Businesses and Public Authorities

By Freedom251 Team · · 7 min read

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The EU’s once-only principle lets people and businesses request that an authority handling a covered cross-border procedure obtain relevant official evidence directly from another Member State’s authority, rather than ask them to submit the same document again. The Single Digital Gateway’s Once-Only Technical System (OOTS) enables that exchange, but it does not apply to every service, record or country-specific process.

What the once-only principle means in practice

The principle addresses a familiar cross-border problem: a business applying to an authority in one EU country may be asked for evidence that already exists in an official record held by an authority in another. Where the procedure and authorities are covered and connected, the applicant can request that the authority handling the case retrieve that evidence from its official source.

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That can spare a person or company from locating a document, downloading it and uploading or mailing it again. The exchange concerns evidence needed for a specific procedure; it does not transfer responsibility for making the application or remove the procedure’s substantive requirements. The authority still assesses the application under the applicable rules.

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The legal framework is the Single Digital Gateway Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2018/1724. It establishes the gateway and links the once-only principle to defined procedures and cross-border evidence exchange. The consolidated text of the Regulation sets out the legal framework, while the EUR-Lex summary provides an overview.

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What the Single Digital Gateway and OOTS each do

The Single Digital Gateway and OOTS are related, but they are not the same service. The gateway helps people and businesses find information, online procedures, assistance and problem-solving services through Your Europe and national portals. OOTS is the technical system for a narrower task: supporting requested exchanges of evidence between competent authorities in different Member States.

Put simply, the gateway helps a user find and access a public service; OOTS can help the authority administering an eligible procedure obtain relevant evidence from an official source in another country. The gateway’s broader information and procedure features do not mean that every linked service participates in OOTS. The Commission describes the gateway and its functions on its Single Digital Gateway page.

OOTS uses a decentralized architecture. It connects authorities and their systems through common interoperability components; it is not a single EU database in which all participating countries pool every document or record. The Commission describes the system as infrastructure for secure cross-border exchange between public authorities. Which evidence can be requested depends on the procedure, the source authority and the systems connected to the exchange.

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How an evidence request works

The process starts with a person or business applying for a covered procedure in one Member State. If the case requires evidence held by an authority in another Member State, and the relevant authorities are connected, the applicant can request that the handling authority obtain it through OOTS. The technical exchange takes place between the authorities, rather than requiring the applicant to act as the courier for the same official evidence.

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  1. Start the procedure. Use the relevant national portal or other official service for the application. Check its requirements; the existence of OOTS does not establish that the specific procedure offers an evidence request.
  2. Check whether evidence can be retrieved. If the service supports an OOTS exchange for the evidence needed, follow its instructions to request retrieval from the authority that holds the record.
  3. Review the information when prompted. The Commission describes a process in which the user has an opportunity to preview evidence before exchange. Union or national law may provide otherwise.
  4. Let the authorities handle the exchange. When the request proceeds, the handling authority can receive relevant evidence from the official source through the system. The applicant still completes the rest of the application and provides anything else the procedure requires.

The user remains involved: this is not a general permission for authorities to search across borders at will. The Commission’s explanation says retrieval is based on the citizen’s or business’s explicit request and an opportunity to preview the information, subject to exceptions under Union or national law. The Commission’s 20 July 2022 explanation of OOTS sets out that safeguard and the role of the system.

Which procedures and evidence are covered?

The once-only principle is scoped by law, not a universal rule for every interaction with government. The Regulation connects it to procedures listed in Annex II and certain procedures under other EU directives. The technical system is intended for automated evidence exchange between competent authorities in different Member States. It does not establish that every record, application or national administrative process is available through OOTS.

Coverage also depends on implementation. A procedure may fall within the framework while the particular authority-to-authority exchange a user needs is not available through the connected systems in practice. The Commission’s OOTS hub reports system coverage indicators, but those figures should not be read as a guarantee of equal, live availability in every country or for every applicant.

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The hub’s figures, last updated 8 June 2026 and accessed 13 October 2026, are:

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OOTS coverage indicator Reported count
Administrative procedures allowing users to request evidence from another Member State 232
Procedural requirements 60
Evidence items 372
Authorities 107

The European Commission OOTSHUB defines evidence as official documents or data retrieved by competent authorities in response to a citizen’s or business’s request. These are dated dashboard values, not a promise that every listed element is usable in every transaction. Consult the OOTS hub for its current figures and system overview.

A separate historical milestone can cause confusion: in 2022, the Commission described 21 procedures in Annex II as due to be made available fully online by December 2023. That was a statement about the planned milestone at the time, not the current total number of procedures shown by the OOTS hub.

What businesses can expect—and what they still need to do

For a company operating across borders, the practical benefit is less repeat handling of official evidence when a relevant procedure supports retrieval. This may reduce the time spent finding and submitting documents, but it does not guarantee that a procedure will be paperless end to end. Nor does evidence retrieval establish that the business qualifies for a permit, registration or other outcome: the authority still applies the relevant requirements.

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Before relying on the principle for a particular application, a business should:

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  • Find the official national portal for the destination country and the exact procedure.
  • Read the procedure’s evidence requirements and check whether it offers retrieval from the country and authority that hold the needed record.
  • Follow the portal’s instructions for making or confirming the request, including any preview step presented to the user.
  • Plan to provide other required information or evidence if it is outside the available exchange.
  • Allow for differences in national implementation, since connected systems and available procedures are not necessarily uniform.

The Commission identifies broader barriers that can complicate cross-border public services, including fragmented information, paper-only procedures and national technical requirements such as accepted phone numbers, postal codes or payment methods. OOTS addresses a particular evidence-exchange problem; it does not by itself eliminate these other barriers.

The Commission says it expects the Single Digital Gateway to save companies more than €11 billion per year. This is the Commission’s estimate of expected savings, not a measurement of savings already realized by every business or an estimate specific to an individual OOTS exchange.

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What implementation means for public authorities

An authority may need to act as an evidence requester, an evidence provider, or both, depending on its role in covered procedures. As a requester, it needs to support the process through which the user asks for evidence held abroad. As a provider, it needs to make relevant evidence available to an authorized requesting authority through the agreed technical framework.

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That is an implementation task as well as a policy obligation: authorities need to coordinate with national counterparts and connect relevant systems to the common interoperability framework. OOTS specifications and supporting technical documents govern how the exchange is implemented. The existence of that framework should not be mistaken for proof that all authorities have completed onboarding or that every national service is connected.

Authorities must also account for applicable data-protection and cybersecurity requirements. The principle is not a general license to disclose personal or business data: the system supports a defined, user-requested evidence exchange within the relevant legal and technical framework. Operationally, teams need to identify which procedures and evidence they handle, whether they must request or provide it, and which national connections and safeguards apply.

How to interpret progress and claims about OOTS

The Commission says the gateway’s core OOTS infrastructure launched on 12 December 2023. That launch marks the availability of core infrastructure, not the point at which every relevant public authority or cross-border evidence exchange became universally available.

When assessing an implementation claim, distinguish between infrastructure being in place, a procedure being included in scope, an authority being represented in system coverage figures, and a particular user being able to complete a specific exchange. Those are related but different conditions. For a business, the national procedure portal is the practical place to verify what can be requested for the application at hand; for an authority, the OOTS hub and applicable technical materials describe the shared system context.

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The useful measure of the principle is therefore not whether a country has “once-only” in the abstract, but whether the specific procedure, evidence source and authorities needed for a case are covered and connected. Where they are, the user-requested exchange can remove one repeat-document step. Where they are not, the procedure’s published requirements remain the guide.

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cross-border servicesEU digital policyOnce-Only Technical Systempublic sector technologySingle Digital Gateway

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