European file sharing services, compared
If you need a file transfer service that is genuinely European, the first thing to check is not where the servers are — it is where the company is incorporated. A US-owned company storing your files in Frankfurt is still subject to US legal process, and that single distinction disqualifies most of the services people assume are fine.
This matters more than it used to, because "EU data centre" has become a standard marketing line while "EU company" has not.
The distinction that decides this
Data residency is where the bytes physically sit. Almost every large provider offers an EU region now.
Jurisdiction is which government can compel the company to produce data. That follows the company, not the disk.
A US-incorporated provider can be served with a legal demand for data it controls, wherever in the world that data is stored. Storing it in Frankfurt does not remove the company from US jurisdiction. The longer explanation is here, and it is worth reading before you evaluate anything on features, because it eliminates options rather than ranking them.
For most work this is theoretical. It stops being theoretical when you handle health data, legal files, public-sector material, or anything where a client's own compliance obligations flow down to you.
Also: the EU is not the same as Europe
Switzerland, Norway and the UK are in Europe and outside the EU.
For the UK and Switzerland, adequacy decisions mean transfers are generally straightforward. But if your requirement is written as "data must remain within the EU" — which is how a lot of procurement and public-sector requirements are literally worded — a Swiss or British service does not satisfy it on its face, whatever its privacy record.
This catches people with SwissTransfer in particular, which is an excellent service run by Infomaniak, a Swiss company. Excellent, and not EU.
The candidates
All figures from each company's own documentation on the date stated. No competitor prices appear on this site.
SwissTransfer — Swiss, free, generous
From Infomaniak's own getting-started guide, checked 1 August 2026: 50 GB per transfer, free, no account. Files are automatically deleted after 15 days, with an extension to 30 days offered to the sender by email on the twelfth day. Archives over 10 GB must be downloaded one file at a time.
The most generous free tier in the category, from a company with a serious privacy reputation. Swiss, so read the section above before assuming it meets an EU requirement.
WeTransfer — Dutch
Checked 31 July 2026: free tier 3 GB across a rolling 30 days, ad-supported, never-expiring transfers on the top tier only.
Founded and headquartered in the Netherlands, which makes it one of the few household-name options in this category that is European. If EU jurisdiction is your requirement and familiarity matters, it belongs on the list. Confirm the current corporate structure and sub-processors directly with them rather than taking a blog's word for it, including mine — ownership changes and this page cannot track it.
Yungle — mine
Free is 10 GB per transfer, unlimited transfers, 7 days, no account, no ads. Paid plans start at 250 GB of storage where nothing expires.
An EU company on one server in Germany, with backups in the EU and a DPA you can read before signing anything. Every file is encrypted at rest with its own key. It runs on renewable power, and a tenth of the profit goes to protecting rainforest.
Since this page is about being checkable rather than persuasive: verify all of that the same way you would verify anyone else's — ask where the company is incorporated, read the DPA, and check the sub-processor list. The answers should survive the questions below.
Filemail, Smash, Dropbox Transfer, Google Drive
Filemail and Smash are both worth evaluating on capability: Filemail Pro sends up to 250 GB per transfer with permanent availability, and Smash Pro reaches 250 GB too (both checked 1 August 2026). If jurisdiction is your requirement, establish incorporation and sub-processors with each of them directly.
Dropbox and Google are US companies. Both offer EU storage regions and both take security seriously; neither removes the jurisdictional question. Whether Dropbox is GDPR-compliant is a fuller answer than a one-line dismissal.
What to actually verify
Do not take a comparison page's word for any of this, including this one. Ask the vendor, in writing:
- Where is the company incorporated? Not where the servers are.
- Who are the sub-processors, and where do they operate? A European company running on US-owned infrastructure has moved the question, not answered it.
- Can we have a DPA? If the answer is a link to a marketing page, that is a no.
- Which country's courts can compel you to produce customer data?
- Where are backups held? Primary storage in the EU with backups elsewhere is a common gap.
Question two is the one that catches European resellers built on US cloud. It is not automatically disqualifying — plenty of compliant setups look like that — but you need to know, because it changes the analysis.
If you are filling in a compliance questionnaire
The order that saves time: establish jurisdiction first, get the DPA second, and only then compare features. Doing it the other way round means falling in love with a product you then cannot use, which is how people end up arguing that a requirement is unreasonable rather than meeting it.
And read what the GDPR actually requires before the questionnaire arrives. Most of what people believe it demands is not in it, and several things it does demand are routinely missed.