The findings of the 2026 eGovernment Benchmark have been published. The annual study authored by Capgemini, in collaboration with Sogeti and IDC, tracks a wide range of digital government trends and developments, providing a barometer on digital public service delivery across all 27 EU Member States.

What does this year’s study tell us about the EU’s digital progress? How quickly is Europe advancing towards achieving the European Commission’s Digital Decade target (see FAQs, below) of ensuring 100% online accessibility of key public services by 2030?

The eGovernment Benchmark found that online provision of public services for citizens and businesses continues to grow across the EU Member States. This growth is comparable with previous years.

Despite the steady improvement, however, a slower pace can be seen in some areas of eGovernment. Armed with knowledge such as this, policy makers, experts and practitioners across the EU can focus on those online public services in most need of improvement.  

What are the key findings of the 2026 eGovernment Benchmark?

Progress is being made. Digital public services for citizens achieved a score of 84.6 out of 100, an increase from 82.3 in the previous year. Scoring even higher at 88.6, digital public services for businesses increased from 86.2 last year. 

These are positive, albeit small, improvements – and the gap between services for citizens and businesses is gradually reducing. However, it is not the same picture across other aspects of online public services.

Overall, the data continues to highlight a significant disparity between national and cross-border online availability. The eGovernment Benchmark reveals that, while digital public services are widely accessible within individual Member States, cross-border availability lags behind. Across the EU, 610 cross-border services need to be improved to reach 100% online delivery.

Across the EU, 610 cross-border services need to be improved to reach 100% online delivery.

Bridging this gap will be essential for delivering on the Digital Decade objective. However, this is complex. It will take interoperable eID and document validation, and provision in multiple languages, as well as much stronger collaboration between institutions.

Focus is also needed on those areas of eGovernment where progress appears to be stalling. For example, in previous years we saw progress in proactive services; those automatically provided based on information known to the government. Recently this has slowed.

Overall, while there is progress, EU Member States need to accelerate in order to meet the Digital Decade target – see “Which online public services need more attention?” below for more.

How does the eGovernment Benchmark measure progress?

An EU-wide network of Mystery Shoppers visited over 14,000 government websites in November 2025. They evaluated 96 key public services relevant to nine common life events – key moments in individuals’ lives – that require contact with the government (see FAQs, below, for more details of what is measured).

That’s not all. The eGovernment Benchmark specifically takes stock of the two Digital Decade Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the Digital Public Services dimension:

  • Digital public services for citizens
  • Digital public services for businesses

A further four complementary indicators provide insight into how easily and effectively users can access and operate online government services. This is how they scored in the latest study:

  • Pre-Filled Forms: scoring 75.6 – up from 70.9 last year
  • Transparency of Service Delivery, Design, and Personal Data: scoring69.6 – showing almost no improvement on last year
  • User Support: scoring 90.0 – indicating the wide availability of and comprehensive user assistance when interacting with public sector bodies online
  • Mobile Friendliness: scoring 97.4 – telling us that most government websites are responsive to mobile devices.

Which online public services need more attention?

As noted above, the need to improve cross-border availability of online public services for both citizens and businesses is a constant. The eGovernment Benchmark also identified other aspects of eGovernment service provision lagging behind.

For example, health and justice are two life events where citizen services still tend to be less digitally available. Nonetheless, there are signs of improvement. While the health life event records the lowest score among all life events in online availability (76.4), this is a year-on-year increase of 3.8%.

Health and justice are two life events where citizen services still tend to be less digitally available.

Regional variations and transparent service delivery

As with previous eGovernment Benchmark studies, there remain variations in the overall maturity of online public services across central, regional and local government. Central eGovernment performance for citizens (85.4) outranks regional (84.4) and local (82.8).

This disparity is even bigger when it comes to online public services for business. Central stands at 91.4, with local at 86.6 and regional lagging behind at 85.2.

Looking more closely at the four complementary indicators measured in the study, we can see that government performance on the Transparency of Service Delivery, Design, and Personal Data indicator is stagnant. Notably, the sub-indicator for Transparency of Service Delivery scored the lowest within this category at 60.8, although this was a 1.9% increase. This means that citizens and entrepreneurs lack clarity on how and when services are delivered, with administrations in the justice life event struggling the most.

What does the eGovernment Benchmark tell us about AI, cybersecurity and sovereignty?

Artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and sovereignty are three crucial priority areas for the EU’s digital government transformation. This year’s eGovernment Benchmark delves into these three areas in detail, with the assessment including pilot indicators for each.

Artificial intelligence (AI): New opportunities to improve the user experience

Many governments have introduced AI-powered chatbots to provide user support on their websites and apps. However, the eGovernment Benchmark found that the overall number of chatbots has plateaued.

The maturity of these chatbots is often low – scored at just 39.5 (out of 100). Few can currently guide users through multi-step processes, effectively summarize complex information, support multilingualism, or connect users to human support.

This low figure reflects the fact that many chatbots are still in development or had only recently been introduced at the time of the survey. This understandably has an impact on their maturity.

The eGovernment Benchmark recognizes that without more focus on quality, AI chatbots risk adding another layer of difficulty for people when interacting with government.

Cybersecurity: A need for safer eGovernment services

Promoting and ensuring compliance with cybersecurity standards and protocols across government portals remains important. However, most common security and modern internet standards are only met by half of government websites.

Raising cyber awareness among the wider public is essential to safeguarding sensitive information and maintaining trust in digital public services. However, fewer than one in four government websites use official government domain suffixes that visitors can easily recognized, such as “.gov”.

There is also room for improvement in the communication of cybersecurity on government portals. Currently, only about half raise phishing awareness, for example by actively guiding users in recognizing phishing attempts and explaining how to verify that a domain is legitimate.

Digital sovereignty: Ensuring public sector digital continuity

While digital sovereignty has become a priority at EU level, governments in EU member states have a notable dependence on foreign owned operators.

More than a third of government websites are run on servers that are controlled by operators whose ultimate beneficial ownership lies outside the EU. And more than half of incoming and outgoing government email domains depend on foreign-owned network operators.

More than a third of government websites are run on servers that are controlled by operators whose ultimate beneficial ownership lies outside the EU.

Reducing reliance on non-EU infrastructure may improve jurisdictional control, but this may involve trade-offs on performance, resilience and cost that must be actively managed in the next three years.

How can EU Member States accelerate eGovernment ambitions?

The eGovernment Benchmark 2026 insight report offers a series of EU-wide policy recommendations, possible actions and investment priorities.

Based on the latest study findings and conclusions, these urge EU Member States to:

  • Provide key public services fully online, with a focus on accelerating growth in digital public services for citizens
  • Upscale initiatives and programs for digitalizing public services for national users towards cross-border users
  • Actively support cooperation and pinpoint necessary reforms needed for regional and local authorities
  • Explore investing in common interoperable eGovernment solutions, especially for implementing national and cross-border authentication systems
  • Upscale eGovernment AI capabilities, including those for enhanced user support
  • Increase digital government sovereignty, by exploring investments for hosting government websites on servers from EU providers
  • Promote and ensure government compliance with cybersecurity standards and protocols.

Steady progress that now needs to accelerate

This year’s analysis shows the importance and potential of AI, cybersecurity and sovereignty for eGovernment, but also uncovers their current shortcomings.

We also note the importance of cross-border service availability as the EU strives towards seamless digital interactions within the Single Market. This aims to ensure that individuals and enterprises benefit from efficient and accessible public services regardless of their location within the EU.

On this latter point, the eGovernment Benchmark urges EU Member States to direct investments towards removing barriers, in particular for Europeans who need medical treatment, employment services, business permits and legal proof abroad.

To maintain the positive momentum achieved to date, Member States should also sustain efforts in digitalizing public services for businesses as well as for citizens moving, using (public) transport and studying.

Overall, progress is slowly but surely being made in the availability and quality of online public services across the EU. It is now time to accelerate efforts, especially in those areas still lagging behind.

Read the full findings in the eGovernment Benchmark 2026.