EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorPaymentsHeadquarters: US

Authorize.Net: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Authorize.Net is a payment gateway that lets merchants accept payments online, by phone and in person. It supports credit and debit cards, eChecks and digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal, and offers a virtual terminal, mobile payments, simple checkout buttons, digital invoicing, recurring billing, an Account Updater and fraud filters. According to its own site the service has existed since 1996 and is delivered as SaaS, including through resellers.

According to its website, Authorize.Net is a wholly owned subsidiary of Visa; Visa is a US company, so US law, including the CLOUD Act, applies. In its data processing agreement, Authorize.net acts as processor for its processor services and as controller for other permitted uses. The agreement relies on EU standard contractual clauses under Irish law and states that certain personal information is stored in the United States, including that of individuals in the EEA. Sub-processors are listed in the Merchant Interface. A European merchant should therefore plan for transfers to the US and may consider a gateway within the EU.

Sovereignty score
17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-30
    No hosting in Europe (US)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
    Key management with a non-European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 11, 2026
Headquarters
US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision
Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting
USVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
Type
Product
Website

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Authorize.Net

The European alternatives to Authorize.Net come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

99 European Payments vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Authorize.Net

Authorize.Net is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Authorize.Net hosts data outside the EU (US). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Authorize.Net is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Authorize.Net together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Authorize.Net?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Authorize.Net include Adyen, Alma and Autopay. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Authorize.Net?

Our list of EU alternatives to Authorize.Net is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Authorize.Net GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Authorize.Net is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 11, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Payments

Payments: Payment services, payment gateways, online payments and financial transactions. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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8 European alternatives to Authorize.Net — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score