How does the European digital identity wallet use NFC?
At two moments. When the wallet is filled, where the national scheme behind it involves a card with a chip, and when an attestation is presented in person, where the standard lets a tap set up the channel. Everything between the two is protocol rather than radio.
What the wallet is
The wallet functionalities describes a wallet unit provided to a user by a wallet provider, holding person identification data and attestations, and it notes that the European Digital Identity Regulation defines the wallet as an electronic identification means.
The functions it lists are the ones that matter to this section: presenting attributes with selective disclosure and user approval, so that only necessary and approved attributes reach a verifier; authenticating verifiers so attributes go only to trusted parties; knowing whether a verifier is registered to receive what it asks for; and a transaction log the user can review.
None of that is about radio. It is what the wallet is for, and the radio appears twice at the edges.
Filling it
The same chapter describes onboarding with providers by leveraging existing electronic identification schemes. Where a member state's scheme rests on a card or a document with a chip, reading that chip is how the user proves who they are to the provider, and that read is the passport mechanism the passport page describes, with the same gate and the same signature check.
Where a scheme rests on something else, a national application or an existing online identity, no tap is involved at all. The framework does not prescribe the method, and this is the part that differs most from one country to the next.
So the honest statement is that NFC is a common enrolment path rather than a required one, and that what it does there is prove a document, not create the wallet.
Presenting in person
For proximity presentation the framework points at ISO/IEC 18013-5, which allows a wallet and a verifier to set up a channel using a QR code or NFC and then to communicate over Bluetooth Low Energy, NFC or Wi-Fi Aware, with the security mechanisms and verifier authentication that go with it. The licence page covers what that looks like in practice.
Remote presentation uses a companion standard instead, and no tap is involved, which is worth stating because most people meet the wallet online rather than at a counter.
The tap, where it appears, is doing what it does everywhere else on this site: making the choice of counterpart unambiguous.
What NFC does not decide
Whether a verifier may ask for something, whether it is registered, whether the attestation can be verified, and what the user approves are protocol and governance questions with answers in the framework and in the regulation behind it.
The radio carries bytes. It is the least consequential part of a wallet transaction and the part people ask about most, which is a pattern this site meets everywhere.
Which is also the reason this page names the framework rather than describing an implementation: the technology is settled, the deployment is national, and a page that listed countries would be wrong within a season.
Frequently asked questions
Does the wallet need NFC?
Not by definition. A tap is one way to set up a proximity presentation and one common way to prove a document while filling the wallet.
How do attributes get into the wallet?
Through providers, using existing electronic identification schemes. Where the scheme rests on a chip document, reading that chip is the proof step.
Does the verifier get my whole identity?
No. The framework requires selective disclosure and user approval, so only the necessary and approved attributes are presented.
Is remote presentation the same thing?
No. It uses a companion standard for transactions where nobody is present, and no tap is involved.