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| 1 | +# Support for Sole Trader Representation |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +**Authors:** |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +- Consortium Architecture Working Group AMS Track 4 |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +- Boris Lingl, boris.lingl@datev.de |
| 8 | +- Alexander Manecke, a.manecke@telekom.de |
| 9 | +- Ignacio Ripoll, ignacio.ripoll@corpme.es |
| 10 | +- Iris Speiser, iris.speiser@datev.de |
| 11 | +- Marlene Urbschat, marlene.urbschat@datev.de |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +## Context |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +The current PoA/PoR rulebooks focus primarily on legal persons and do not adequately represent sole traders and similar economic actors. |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +As a result, certain business structures cannot be represented consistently within the current model. |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +The core trade-off is between maintaining a legal-person-centric model and expanding the scope to support a broader set of economic actors. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +## Decision |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +The consortium will extend the rulebook terminology from "legal person" to the broader concept of an "economic operator." |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +The consortium will leverage the EBWOID initiative and use an EUID-like identifier approach to support identity representation for sole traders and similar actors. |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +Where necessary, existing implementations may continue to process legacy terminology during a transition period, provided that semantic interpretation remains aligned with the new rulebook concept. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +## Consequences |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +### What becomes easier? |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +- Inclusion of sole traders within the ecosystem. |
| 34 | +- Broader applicability of PoA/PoR use cases. |
| 35 | +- Improved alignment with real-world business structures. |
| 36 | +- Better consistency across participating jurisdictions. |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +### What becomes more difficult? |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +- Cross-border identifier interoperability remains challenging. |
| 41 | +- National registration systems may use incompatible identifiers. |
| 42 | +- Additional governance may be required for identifier mapping. |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +### How do we address the risks introduced by this change? |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +- Reuse existing EBWOID work wherever possible. |
| 47 | +- Define guidance for identifier mapping and interoperability. |
| 48 | +- Continue collaboration with relevant European initiatives addressing economic operator identification. |
| 49 | +- Define a migration approach for legacy terminology to avoid interpretation inconsistencies during rollout. |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +## Advice |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +- 2026-06-11: Consortium Working Group: The rulebook should support all relevant economic actors, not only legal persons. |
| 54 | +- 2026-06-11: Identity Domain Experts: Existing EUID-like approaches should be reused where possible. |
| 55 | +- 2026-06-11: Member States: Cross-border identifier harmonization remains an open challenge that requires further work. |
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