Volkswagen EVs Can Now Use Your Phone as a Key Through Samsung Wallet

If you drive a Volkswagen EV and use a Samsung phone, you can now leave the physical key at home. Samsung and Volkswagen have switched on Digital Key support inside Samsung Wallet, letting a compatible Galaxy phone lock, unlock and start the car instead. It’s not entirely new territory for the VW Group though, since Audi has offered the same Samsung Wallet feature since late 2024, with mixed results.

What does my Volkswagen need to use this feature? Your car needs to have been produced on or after April 27, 2026, run ID. software version 6.0.1 or newer, and be fitted with the Preparation for Digital Key option package. Vehicles built before that date aren’t compatible.

The list covers seven models: the ID. Polo, ID. Cross, ID.3 Neo, ID.4, ID.5, ID.7 and ID. Buzz. Two of those, the entry level ID. Polo and the ID. Cross, are also Volkswagen’s newest and most price sensitive models, going up against a wave of similarly sized rivals I’ve already covered on this site. Here’s how support breaks down across the range:

The software version alone isn’t enough though. The car also needs to have been produced on or after April 27, 2026, and come fitted with the Preparation for Digital Key option package. Any VW built before that date won’t support it, regardless of model.

Once it’s set up, the phone does almost everything a physical key fob does. Ultra wideband (UWB) lets the car sense your phone is nearby and unlock automatically as you walk up, no tapping required. If your Galaxy model doesn’t support UWB, NFC covers the same job with a tap against the door handle. You can also pop the boot remotely through Remote Key Entry, and share access with someone else, a partner, a family member, or a valet, directly through the Wallet app, with your own permission level attached to each person you add.

Volkswagen frames this as part of a wider push toward smarter, software driven ownership, an effort that includes the work its CARIAD software division has been doing behind the scenes. Dr Axel Henrich, the brand’s senior vice president of concepts and innovation, described the Digital Key as “an important step toward a seamless and connected vehicle experience”, in Samsung’s own announcement of the partnership.

Does this work on iPhone or other Android phones? No. Samsung Wallet Digital Key only works on Samsung Galaxy phones, since it depends on Samsung’s own Wallet app. iPhone users and Android users on brands like Google Pixel or Xiaomi can’t use it. Volkswagen is reportedly preparing separate Apple Wallet car key support, but no models, regions or dates have been confirmed.

Samsung is leaning hard on the security side of this too. Every Digital Key is stored on the device itself and protected by Samsung Knox, meeting the EAL6+ certification standard, and the system follows the Car Connectivity Consortium’s UWB specification, which exists specifically to guard against the kind of relay attacks that have long troubled keyless entry systems. Lose your phone, and Samsung Find lets you remotely lock it down or wipe the key entirely, according to SamMobile.

The rollout spans 37 European countries, everywhere from Portugal to Poland to Croatia, and it went live yesterday (August 18). It’s an extension of an existing partnership between Samsung and Volkswagen Group, and it only works through Samsung’s own Wallet app, which means it’s exclusive to Galaxy phones. iPhone owners can’t use it at all right now, and neither can Android users on a Pixel, Xiaomi or OnePlus phone, since Samsung Wallet simply doesn’t run on non Samsung devices. Apple’s backend code was spotted in July, pointing to Volkswagen preparing its own Apple Wallet car key support, following brands like Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz that already offer it, but nothing has been confirmed: no models, no region and no date. For now, if you’re not carrying a Galaxy phone, you’re still reaching for the physical key.

Can I share my Digital Key with someone else? Yes. Digital Keys can be shared with other people directly through Samsung Wallet, with individual access permissions set for each person, which works well for family members or short term access like a valet.

None of this fixes the bigger inconvenience of losing your phone entirely, but for anyone who’s ever left a key fob in a jacket pocket or locked it inside the car by mistake, this closes one more everyday gap between owning an EV and living with modern tech. Small as it sounds, it’s exactly the kind of detail that decides whether a car feels properly up to date or just electric under the hood.

Audi’s Rocky History With the Same Feature

Audi’s run with Digital Key hasn’t been trouble free, and it explains some of the caution around this launch. Samsung switched the feature on for select Audi models, including the A6 e-tron, Q6 e-tron and A5, in November 2024. Within weeks, owners on an Audi e-tron enthusiast forum started reporting cars that wouldn’t unlock at all, key fobs going unresponsive alongside the Digital Key, and in some cases alarms triggering on their own. Audi paused the update and, according to those owner reports, restricted key sharing between multiple users starting around December 18, 2024. By several accounts on the same forum, that restriction was still in place as recently as September 2025. The underlying Samsung technology behind Volkswagen’s rollout is identical, so the teething problems from Audi’s launch are a reasonable thing to keep in mind, even though neither company has commented on it directly.

Featured Image: Volkswagen