EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorPaymentsHeadquarters: GB

GoCardless: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

GoCardless runs a bank payment network. Businesses use it to collect domestic or international bank payments, such as recurring direct debits and Pay by Bank, and to gain secure access to bank account data through open banking. The service is delivered as a hosted platform and integrates with business software such as Xero, QuickBooks and Sage. GoCardless Ltd is regulated in the United Kingdom: it is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017.

GoCardless is headquartered in London, in the United Kingdom, which is not an EU member state. On 1 September 2026, Mollie completed its acquisition of GoCardless, which continues to operate as "GoCardless, a Mollie company". Mollie was founded in Amsterdam in 2004. According to the announcement, existing customers will see no immediate changes to services, contacts or contracts, and integration will proceed in phases. GoCardless does not state on its website where its data is hosted.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with GoCardless pre-selected
Sovereignty score
52 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-250
    Headquartered outside the EU (GB)
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    EU-only hosting
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
    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-630
    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 9, 2026
HeadquartersGB (OTHER)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent companyNLVerified by hand
EU adequacy decisionYes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingEUVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Hosting signalCLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
CategoryPayments
TypeProduct
Websitegocardless.com ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to GoCardless

The European alternatives to GoCardless come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 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 GoCardless

GoCardless is headquartered in GB, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor. The ultimate owner is based in NL, also within Europe.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so GoCardless scores best on data residency.

GoCardless 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 GoCardless 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 GoCardless?

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

Are there open-source alternatives to GoCardless?

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

Is GoCardless GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

GoCardless is headquartered in GB (OTHER) and hosts data in EU. 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 9, 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.

Also in this category

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8 European alternatives to GoCardless — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score