Compliance Checklist: Migrating Sensitive Workloads to the AWS EU Sovereign Cloud

Hook: If your regulated workloads must stay under strict EU control, a cloud move isn’t just a migration — it’s a compliance program

Moving sensitive services into the cloud in 2026 means solving two simultaneous problems: delivering modern speed, scale and developer ergonomics while satisfying hard EU sovereignty and regulator expectations. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud (launched in late 2025 / early 2026) provides physical and logical separation designed for those needs — but it does not remove your responsibility. This checklist maps EU sovereignty requirements to concrete technical controls and the contractual/legal steps you must take to migrate audited workloads with confidence.

Executive summary (most important first)

Use the checklist below as a playbook. For each EU sovereignty requirement you’ll find: the requirement, technical controls to implement on AWS European Sovereign Cloud, and contractual/legal actions to bind and evidence compliance. Implement these in parallel — architecture changes, contractual amendments (DPA/SCCs/assurances), operational processes, and audit evidence.

Key takeaways

• Design your cloud tenancy from day one for sovereignty: separate accounts, guardrails (SCPs), and region restrictions.
• Use customer-controlled keys and dedicated key policies; encryption defaults are not enough for audit evidence.
• Document legal assurances: DPAs, sovereignty clauses, and incident response commitments required by regulators and procurement teams.
• Prepare evidence: architecture diagrams, inventories (data mapping), DPIAs, logging retention, and penetration test reports.

The 2026 context: Why this checklist matters now

Late 2025 and early 2026 saw accelerated adoption of sovereign clouds across the EU. Governments and regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, telecoms, and public sector) now expect:

• Clear data residency and processing assurances
• Greater control over decryption keys and access
• Contractual guarantees for limited cross-border access
• Readiness for audits under NIS2 and strengthened EU procurement rules

Regulatory frameworks (GDPR, NIS2, sector-specific mandates) have been interpreted in recent EU guidance to require demonstrable, technical and contractual measures — not just statements. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud provides tailored capabilities and sovereign assurances, but your compliance posture depends on how you configure and contract with AWS.

Compliance Checklist: Mapping requirements to controls and legal steps

Each checklist item below shows the requirement, recommended technical controls (with examples), and contractual/legal actions + audit evidence to collect.

1. Data residency and physical segregation

Requirement: Data and processing remain inside EU sovereign boundaries.

• Technical controls:
  • Provision accounts only in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud regions.
  • Enforce region restrictions with AWS Organizations Service Control Policies (SCPs).
  • Use VPC endpoints and PrivateLink to avoid public internet egress.
• Contractual/legal:
  • Include a clear Data Processing Addendum (DPA) extension specifying European Sovereign Cloud regions as processing locations.
  • Obtain AWS sovereign assurances in writing — specifics about physical sites, partner access and subcontractor constraints.
• Audit evidence: Account configuration snapshot, SCPs, region usage reports, proof of DPA clauses.

// Example SCP to restrict API usage to EU sovereign regions
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "DenyOutsideEU",
      "Effect": "Deny",
      "Action": "*",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringNotEquals": {"aws:RequestedRegion": ["eu-sovereign-1","eu-sovereign-2"]}
      }
    }
  ]
}
  

2. Controlled access & identity

Requirement: Tight control of principals who can access sensitive data; separation of duties; minimal privileged access.

• Technical controls:
  • Use AWS IAM least-privilege policies + IAM Access Analyzer to validate policies.
  • Enforce MFA and hardware-backed FIDO2 for privileged accounts.
  • Adopt role-based access with short-lived credentials (AWS STS) and session policies.
  • Use AWS Identity Center or SAML federation with SCIM provisioning tied to HR systems.
• Contractual/legal:
  • Explicit support in contract for customer-controlled identity enforcement and notifications on provider privileged access.
  • Define permitted scenarios for provider support access and require customer approval + logging.
• Audit evidence: IAM policy snapshots, MFA logs, role-usage reports, access reviews.

3. Encryption and key control (cryptographic sovereignty)

Requirement: Customer must control keys and the ability to render data unreadable to third parties.

• Technical controls:
  • Use AWS Key Management Service (KMS) with customer-managed keys (CMKs) created in the sovereign region.
  • Prefer external key management (bring-your-own-key, BYOK) or AWS CloudHSM for highest control.
  • Set key policies to explicitly deny provider root access; require usage only from specified accounts and services.
• Contractual/legal:
  • Include specific clauses ensuring customer-exclusive control of keys and cryptographic materials unless court-ordered.
  • Require notification timelines for lawful access requests and provider obligations to contest overbroad requests where permitted.
• Audit evidence: KMS key policy exports, HSM certificate chain, BYOK transfer logs, key access logs.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "AllowCustomerAccounts",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {"AWS": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root"},
      "Action": "kms:*",
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "DenyAWSRoot",
      "Effect": "Deny",
      "Principal": {"AWS": "arn:aws:iam::aws:root"},
      "Action": "kms:*",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {"StringEquals": {"aws:PrincipalAccount": "123456789012"}}
    }
  ]
}
  

4. Cross-border transfers and lawful access

Requirement: Avoid unauthorized onward transfers and control responses to lawful requests.

• Technical controls:
  • Block egress with VPC routing and firewall rules; require all egress through approved gateways in the EU.
  • Audit and alert on any cross-region replication or export jobs.
  • Implement data classification tags and enforce transfer restrictions in code pipelines.
• Contractual/legal:
  • Insist on contractual commitments regarding notifications and challenge processes for third-country access requests.
  • Include explicit clauses on the provider’s obligations to limit transfers to subcontractors outside the EU and to obtain customer consent.
• Audit evidence: Data flow diagrams, replication configs, transfer logs, evidence of provider notifications.

5. Logging, monitoring and incident response

Requirement: Capture sufficient telemetry for breach detection, forensics, and regulator reporting (e.g., under GDPR breach timelines).

• Technical controls:
  • Enable region-localized logging: CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, S3 access logs, and KMS audit logs to a locked, immutable store (S3 Object Lock).
  • Forward logs to your SIEM/EDR in the EU (or via secure interconnect) with tamper-evident retention policies.
  • Implement automated detection rules (e.g., anomalous data egress, privilege escalation) and runbook integration with PagerDuty.
• Contractual/legal:
  • Define SLA for incident notification and evidence preservation; require provider cooperation in investigations.
  • Agree on forensic scope and allowed third parties for provider-led investigations.
• Audit evidence: Immutable logs, SIEM dashboards, runbooks, prior incident reports and timelines.

6. Data lifecycle, retention and deletion

Requirement: Implement lawful retention limits and reliable, auditable deletion for subject access requests and retention policies.

• Technical controls:
  • Use S3 Object Lifecycle Policies and Object Lock to enforce retention and WORM where required.
  • Use versioning and enforce secure deletion of encryption keys (crypto-shredding) for irrevocable deletion where permitted legally.
• Contractual/legal:
  • Ensure contractual commitments for deletion assistance and timelines, including deletion of backups and snapshots.
  • Map retention requirements to legal basis (GDPR) and record them in your records of processing activities (RoPA).
• Audit evidence: Lifecycle policy configs, deletion logs, RoPA entries, test deletions with attestation.

7. Supplier & subcontractor management

Requirement: Control and disclose provider subcontractors and their access to data.

• Technical controls:
  • Restrict service integrations that introduce third-party processors. Use allow-lists for partner services.
  • Implement labeling and telemetry to detect unexpected subsystems accessing data.
• Contractual/legal:
  • Require disclosures of subprocessors and written commitments that subcontractors will adhere to EU sovereign conditions.
  • Include right-to-audit clauses and periodic subcontractor attestations (ISO, SOC, or eIDAS/QS-certified).
• Audit evidence: Subprocessor lists, SOC/ISO reports, contractual addenda, audit results.

Operational playbook: Implementation steps & timeline

Operate this checklist as a project with parallel workstreams: Legal, Architecture, Security, and Ops. Below is a practical timeline for a six-week fast-track migration plan for a single regulated workload.

1. Week 1 — Discovery & legal: Complete data mapping, DPIA, and request DPA/sov-assurance clauses from AWS procurement.
2. Week 2 — Account & network foundation: Create Organization units, deploy SCPs, set up VPCs in EU sovereign regions.
3. Week 3 — Data & key controls: Deploy KMS/CloudHSM, configure bucket policies and lifecycle rules; test encryption.
4. Week 4 — Access and logging: Enforce IAM roles, MFA, enable CloudTrail and SIEM ingestion in EU-only channels.
5. Week 5 — Testing & compliance evidence: Run pen tests, runbook drills, and collect auditors’ evidence packs.
6. Week 6 — Cutover & post-migration audit: Migrate data using controlled pipelines, verify logs and key access controls, finalize legal sign-offs.

Example migration commands and verification

Quick examples to validate region and enforce bucket restrictions.

# Verify AWS CLI is targeting the sovereign region
aws sts get-caller-identity --region eu-sovereign-1

# Create an S3 bucket in the sovereign region and enforce block public
aws s3api create-bucket --bucket my-sensitive-bucket --region eu-sovereign-1 --create-bucket-configuration LocationConstraint=eu-sovereign-1
aws s3api put-public-access-block --bucket my-sensitive-bucket --public-access-block-configuration '{"BlockPublicAcls":true,"IgnorePublicAcls":true,"BlockPublicPolicy":true,"RestrictPublicBuckets":true}' --region eu-sovereign-1
  

Audit readiness: What to produce for regulators or internal auditors

• Architecture diagrams with region-residency labels and VPC flow paths.
• Data inventory & DPIA mapped to processing activities in the sovereign region.
• Exportable logs (CloudTrail, KMS, S3) with retention policy proof.
• Signed DPA amendments and provider sovereignty assurances.
• Pentest/Red Team reports, change logs and access review attestations.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

• Pitfall: Assuming region selection is enough. Fix: Enforce isolations with SCPs and network controls and validate replication settings.
• Pitfall: Default provider key usage. Fix: Use CMKs or HSM and export policies as audit evidence.
• Pitfall: Missing subcontractor commitments. Fix: Push for explicit subprocessor lists and right-to-audit contract language.

"Sovereignty is both technical and contractual. You need evidence for both." — Practical rule for 2026 migrations

Advanced strategies and 2026 trends to plan for

• Federated sovereignty models: Expect hybrid setups where nation-states require enclave-like account constructs and local operator oversight.
• Verifiable logs and attestations: Growing demand for cryptographic, tamper-evident proofs of data handling (timestamped ledger entries, verifiable audit trails).
• Zero-trust supply chains: Tight integration of procurement, SCM and runtime control to prevent unauthorized library-level data exfiltration.

Final checklist: Quick actionable items before you flip the switch

1. Sign or amend your DPA to assert AWS European Sovereign Cloud regions and sovereign assurances.
2. Configure AWS Organizations with SCPs that block non-sovereign regions.
3. Deploy customer-managed keys in-region (KMS/CloudHSM) and export key policy to evidence that only customer principals have key management rights.
4. Enable immutable logging and forward to EU-based SIEM with retention matching regulator expectations.
5. Run a tabletop incident response exercise and capture minutes and runbook updates.
6. Produce a compliance evidence pack: diagrams, DPIA, contract excerpts, logs, pen test report.

Closing: A practical call-to-action for IT leaders

Moving sensitive workloads to the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is a strategic win in 2026 — but only if you pair platform capabilities with tight controls, contractual guarantees and audit-grade evidence. Use this checklist as a working playbook: assign clear owners for Legal, Security, and Cloud Architecture, and run the six-week fast-track for each workload type.

Ready to operationalize this checklist with templates and automation? Contact our cloud compliance team to get an evidence pack (SCPs, KMS policies, DPA clause templates, and an automated audit dashboard) tailored for AWS European Sovereign Cloud migrations.

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