EU Data Residency Tool
Assess whether EU-only hosting would simplify your GDPR compliance posture and get personalized hosting recommendations.
After the Schrems II ruling invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield, cross-border data transfers became one of the most scrutinized areas of GDPR compliance. For small teams without dedicated legal counsel, the simplest path is often to host everything in the EU and avoid the transfer question entirely.
This tool helps you assess whether EU-only hosting makes sense for your situation. Answer questions about your current infrastructure, data types, and processing needs. The tool evaluates your transfer exposure and recommends whether full EU residency, partial migration, or your current setup is the best path forward, along with specific hosting providers that match your requirements.
Tell us about your current setup
Where are your users?
What type of personal data do you process?
Where is your data currently hosted?
What is your current platform?
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is EU data residency?
- EU data residency means storing and processing personal data exclusively within the European Union or European Economic Area. Under GDPR, transferring personal data outside the EU requires additional legal mechanisms (Standard Contractual Clauses, adequacy decisions, or Binding Corporate Rules). Hosting with an EU-resident provider eliminates the need for these transfer mechanisms for your infrastructure layer.
- Does EU hosting automatically make me GDPR compliant?
- No. EU data residency simplifies one aspect of compliance: data transfers. You still need lawful bases for processing, consent mechanisms, privacy policies, data subject rights procedures, and a processing register. However, EU hosting removes the cross-border transfer question entirely, which simplifies your compliance documentation and reduces risk.
- What about CDNs and edge caching?
- If you use a CDN with global edge nodes, cached content may temporarily reside outside the EU. For static assets (images, CSS, JS) this is generally acceptable since they do not contain personal data. For dynamic content or API responses containing personal data, configure your CDN to restrict caching to EU-only edge nodes, or use a provider with EU-only infrastructure.
- How do I verify my hosting provider stores data in the EU?
- Ask your provider for a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) that specifies data storage locations. Check their infrastructure documentation for data center locations. For cloud providers, verify the region configuration in your deployment settings. Some providers offer compliance certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) that include data residency attestations.