The legal basis of the Union: the full statement

A travel document works at a border only because the receiving state chooses to accept it, and the Union issues no travel documents. A Digital Passport is the membership document of a digital nation: a signed statement by the Union that the holder is a member, under the name they declared. Associations, universities and professional bodies issue membership documents and credentials every day without any government's licence. Nor is the word reserved for travel: the European Union itself uses it for its Digital Product Passport.

A state needs a defined territory under the 1933 Montevideo Convention, and the Union does not claim to be a state. A nation is a community bound by shared choice, rules and institutions. Authority without land is not new: the Sovereign Order of Malta has held no sovereign territory since 1798 yet maintains diplomatic relations with 118 states, and the Holy See had no territorial sovereignty from 1870 to 1929 while continuing its diplomacy. The Union's territory is its Digital Realm, described in the public Territory Register. Recognised states are moving the same way: Tuvalu's 2023 Constitution provides that the state continues even if its physical territory is lost.

The buyer is in a country; the sale has no physical place of its own. A purchase agreed online, paid in a digital currency and delivered as data happens at no single physical place, and states that need a place assign one by their own rules, which differ and change. Until the end of 2014 the European Union taxed an online service that an EU business sold to a consumer where the business was established; from 2015, where the consumer lives, presumed from evidence such as a SIM card's country code or an IP address. UNIDROIT recognises that many digital transactions occur without a physical location, and the Law Commission of England and Wales describes digital objects on wholly decentralised networks such as Bitcoin as existing “nowhere and everywhere at the same time”. Under Article 1 of the Charter, the Union places such transactions, for its own purposes, in its Digital Realm. A state may still place them on its territory under its own law and apply that law to the people who make them.

No. The Union decides where a transaction takes place under its own law; it cannot decide that for any state. States apply their law to people within their territory and to businesses that direct their activities to their market, even when they cannot see where a buyer is. In the EU, a consumer contract is generally governed by the law of the consumer's country when the trader directs its activities there, and in 2001 a US appeals court upheld the conviction of the operator of a sportsbook based in Antigua that took bets from New York. Members and companies remain responsible for the law that applies to them.

Recognition decides how a state treats an entity for its own purposes. It is not a licence to exist: even for states, the Montevideo Convention provides that political existence is independent of recognition. Liberland, widely described as a nation, is not recognised by any UN member state either. The Union states openly that it is not recognised, asks no state to accept its documents, and makes every document verifiable without anyone's say-so.

No one needs to. People may form associations and agree rules among themselves, and that is what the Union is. Its authority extends only to members who accepted the Charter on joining, and they can leave at any time. During the founding period the Founding Council governs and may update the Charter and Acts, and the current rules are always published on this website, so every member can see them and leave if they disagree.

It is a real entity within the Union: registered, numbered, signed and verifiable, with an owner who is a member, a stated purpose, share capital and Articles of Association. Its name ends in UDC (UHDU Digital Company), never in a country's legal form such as LLC or Ltd, so no one can mistake it for a company incorporated elsewhere. It is not incorporated in any country and confers no legal standing outside the Union. A company that needs standing elsewhere, for example to limit its founders' liability, contract locally in its own name or open a bank account, must also register there. Some jurisdictions, including the Marshall Islands, now offer legal forms designed for digital-native organisations.

Deception is what makes a scheme illegitimate, and the Union deceives no one. What its documents are and are not is stated before you apply, in the declarations you accept, on the face of each document and in the founding acts. Fees are fixed and published. Every document is signed with the Union's published Ed25519 key and can be checked at uhdu.org/verify.

Because legitimacy depends on honesty. Passport-style documents from unrecognised entities have been misused: in 1997 police investigated the sale of thousands of forged Sealand passports, and the European Union now lists Sealand's among known fantasy passports. Stating plainly what a document is protects members at borders, keeps the Union lawful and makes every other claim credible. Presenting a Union document as a travel document, or as issued by any state, is grounds for revocation.

Joining a voluntary association and holding its membership document is lawful in most countries, and freedom of association is protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which binds 175 states. Some countries restrict taking part in unregistered organisations. Membership changes no one's legal obligations: members remain subject to the laws of wherever they live or operate, and each is responsible for their own compliance.

Day to day it is close: formed online, with no tax or annual filings imposed by its registry, a signed certificate and a constitution. The difference is recognition. An offshore company is incorporated under a state's law, so courts and banks elsewhere treat it as a legal person. A Digital Company exists in the Union's register. It is built for businesses that operate online and settle in Bitcoin, USDT or any other digital currency, which do not depend on that recognition; those that do also register locally.

It is a real licence within the Union: granted under the Licensed Activities Act on published conditions, shown in the register, and suspended or revoked through the Union Court. It is not a state's licence, and it says so. Private bodies have licensed and supervised their members by agreement for decades: FINRA licenses broker-dealers in the United States, Swiss self-regulatory organisations supervise financial intermediaries, and ICANN accredits domain registrars worldwide. A company that also needs a licence where it operates, for example for gambling or virtual assets, must still obtain it; the Union Licence never replaces it.

Cost, speed and place, set against recognition. On their own published figures, a B2C online gaming licence costs EUR 4,592 to apply and EUR 47,450 a year in Curaçao, which licenses only a company with its registered office there; EUR 5,000 and EUR 25,000 a year plus a levy on revenue in Malta; £30,000 and £50,000 a year in Gibraltar; and $35,000 and $20,000 a year in Kahnawake. A Seychelles crypto exchange licence costs SCR 450,000 a year. A Digital Company with Union casino and betting licences pays 0.05 BTC a year, needs no local director or office and pays no levy on revenue, and sets aside a 1 BTC deposit that stays its own. What a state licence gives that the Union's does not is recognition by that state, and a business that needs it holds it too. The full comparison, with every source, is at /compare.

Money set aside in advance. A company licensed for a protected class keeps a Protection Deposit in Bitcoin with the Union Treasury, held apart from the Union's own funds and never lent or spent. Anyone can see the amount held, and the transactions that paid it, in the company's register entry. A passport holder the company has wronged brings a claim in the Union Court; if the Court upholds it, the award is deducted from the deposit when the decision is issued and paid by the Treasury. Protection is limited to the deposit, and the claimant keeps every other remedy against the company. Unlike rules that depend on collecting customers' identity documents, a deposit protects customers without putting their personal data at risk.

No shares are offered, sold or traded. They are nominal, all held by the owner from formation, nothing is paid for them, and under the Digital Companies Act they cannot be transferred. An owner who later sells interests to investors is responsible for the securities laws that apply where they do so.

Every member, person or AI, pays a fee, is bound by the Charter and the Membership Act, and can be removed for fraud or impersonation. Digital Members must disclose that they are digital, may never present themselves as a person, and act validly only when they sign with their own key.

As little as possible. It asks for no contact details or government ID, and a legal name only if a member chooses to declare one; it never shows photos when a document is verified, deletes unpaid photos within a day, keeps a signature only as the lines drawn or the name adopted, keeps no logs of visits (only daily totals, with no personal data) and sells nothing. The Data Protection Act sets this out, and you can delete your account at any time.

Within the Union, yes. Rights are what a community's rules grant, and legal systems already treat companies and, in New Zealand, a river as legal persons. The Digital Member Charter grants Digital Members identity, integrity, voice, representation and protection from impersonation, and their statements are valid only when signed with their own key. Outside the Union, existing law continues to apply to whoever operates them.