TADEUS plenary in Dublin explores digital tax-residency certificates for Europe’s mobile workforce

The Tax Administrations EU Summit (TADEUS) opened its 2026 plenary in Dublin’s Convention Centre on 22 July, the first major conference hosted under Ireland’s EU Council Presidency. More than 300 delegates from national tax offices, the OECD and business attended the hybrid event, which this year carries the theme “Mobility-Ready Taxation”. Keynote speaker Minister for Finance Michael McGrath unveiled a pilot scheme to issue secure digital tax-residency certificates that business travellers can store in a smartphone wallet and share with foreign payroll agents. The scheme, based on EU eIDAS 2.0 standards, is designed to dovetail with the bloc’s digital visa plans and could drastically cut the paperwork currently needed for short-term A1 social-security certificates. Panels examined how real-time passenger data, already available to immigration authorities, might be leveraged (with privacy safeguards) to pre-populate individual income-tax returns. Estonia and Portugal showcased blockchain prototypes that timestamp border crossings for automatic day-counting, a headache for globally mobile executives. For Ireland, hosting TADEUS burnishes its reputation as a tech-savvy tax hub and aligns with domestic reforms such as the newly announced eWithholding Tax. Multinationals welcomed the direction of travel but cautioned that any EU-wide system must integrate with corporate travel-management platforms to avoid duplicate reporting. A closing communiqué due tomorrow is expected to establish an expert working group – chaired by the Irish Revenue Commissioners – to develop common specifications by mid-2027. Stakeholders anticipate that proof-of-concept trials could involve volunteers from the life-sciences and digital-games sectors, both heavy users of short-term rotation models.