VSSA unfolds the implementation of the OOTS

In March, the State Digital Solutions Agency (VSSA) in Lithuania announced the implementation of the Once-Only Technical System (OOTS), which will allow Lithuanian public authorities to securely exchange official documents and data in cross-border administrative procedures. Thanks to this possibility, Lithuanian citizens will not have to collect, translate, notarise and submit documents to different institutions to access cross-border services any more, because their documents and data will be transferred directly from the public administrations following citizens’ requests. 

OOTS is the main deliverable of the EU project: Single Digital Gateway, the European digital infrastructure for public administration to share information in a trusted way. Regulation 2018/1724 established the Single Digital Gateway, the use of procedures by cross-border users, and mandated the European Commission to set a technical system for the automated exchange of evidence between competent authorities in different Member States under the ‘once-only’ principle. The Implementing Regulation 2022/1463 established that the architecture of the OOTS should, when technically feasible, rely on reusable and technology neutral solutions; and the European Commission should release their components under an open software licence to facilitate its reusability. This is the reason why the OOTS project is available in code.europa. 

The OOTS aims to cover 21 procedures in all EU Member States related to: birth, residence, studying, working, moving, retiring and business management. These procedures will be available to users fully online to complete online applications, provide evidence and sign applications. 

Lithuania focuses OOTS implementation in education and residence

Lithuania aims to make the OOTS system fully operational in the spring of 2026. The first solutions will focus on studying and residence procedures:

• From April 2025, the general admission service to higher education institutions (LAMA BPO) will be added to the OOTS system, therefore, citizens of other EU countries who want to study in Lithuania will no longer need to provide evidence of education manually. The documents will be automatically transferred from their country's registers directly to the Lithuanian admission system.
• Also from April 2025. The State Enterprise Centre of Registers will subtalogize the data of the population register to OOTS, which will make it faster and smoother to carry out cross-border administrative procedures related to the registration of residents, residence permits and other important documents.

With this update, Lithuania is technically ready and could move to the next level of the OOTS Acceleratormeter: First live transactions. If they connect at least one evidence requester or provider to the system and successfully test exchanging evidence with another Member State.