The European Accessibility Act: who must comply, and by when?
Since 28 June 2025, digital accessibility has been a legal obligation for many businesses across the EU. Here is who the EAA applies to, which exemptions exist – and three things almost every guide gets wrong.
What is the European Accessibility Act?
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is Directive (EU) 2019/882. It requires all EU member states to introduce uniform accessibility requirements for a defined set of products and services. The goal is twofold: people with disabilities should be able to use digital products and services throughout the single market without assistance, and businesses should not have to navigate 27 different national rulebooks.
Being a directive, the EAA is not directly applicable. Each member state transposes it into its own law, and that is where the details you will actually be measured against live – the enforcement authority, the level of fines, and in some cases the length of transition periods. This article covers what the directive itself says and therefore holds everywhere. For the national implementing acts, the country table in The EAA across Europe lists them one by one.
Who must comply?
Article 2 of the directive contains two lists: covered products and covered services. Both are exhaustive. If your offering appears in neither list, the EAA does not apply to it – which is why the definitions matter more than the general talk about "accessibility for everyone".
Covered products are consumer general-purpose computer hardware systems and their operating systems, self-service terminals (payment terminals, ATMs, ticketing machines, check-in machines and interactive information terminals), consumer terminal equipment for electronic communications and for audiovisual media services, and e-readers.
Covered services supplied to consumers are:
- electronic communications services
- services providing access to audiovisual media services
- certain elements of air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport services – including websites, mobile apps, electronic tickets and real-time travel information
- consumer banking services
- e-books and dedicated software
- e-commerce services
For most websites, the last item is the one that decides the question. The directive defines e-commerce services as services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile-device-based services, by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract.
Read that definition closely, because two things follow from it that surprise people. First, a booking form is enough. You do not need a shop: if a consumer can request an appointment through your site with a view to a contract, that is an e-commerce service. Second, national guidance takes the obligation to cover the whole website, not only the transactional path. The German ministry's official worked example is a hair salon whose website offers appointment booking and sells a few care products; neither hairdressing nor hair-care products appear in the two lists, and the ministry's conclusion is nevertheless that the entire website including checkout must be accessible.
What matters is not where your company is based but whether your offering targets consumers in the EU. Businesses outside the EU that sell to EU consumers are in scope too.
Purely presentational websites – no booking, no ordering, no contract – are generally considered outside the definition, because the element of an "individual request of a consumer" is missing. It is worth being honest about the status of that statement: national accessibility bodies phrase it conditionally, and there is no case law drawing the line. Where a contact form, a call-back request or a configurator with a quote request sits is genuinely unsettled. The same conditional phrasing applies to the B2B boundary; where one website serves both business and consumer customers, the EAA applies.
Even on a website that is in scope, Article 2(4) excludes some content: pre-recorded time-based media published before 28 June 2025, office file formats published before that date, online maps and mapping services (where navigation maps must provide essential information accessibly by digital means), third-party content that you neither fund nor develop nor control, and archived content that is neither updated nor edited after that date.
The microenterprise exemption
Article 3(23) of the directive defines a microenterprise as
"an enterprise which employs fewer than 10 persons and which has an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 2 million or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million"
The structure is frequently misreported, including in official summaries. It is fewer than 10 persons and, in addition, either turnover up to EUR 2 million or a balance sheet total up to EUR 2 million. There is no alternative to the headcount condition; for the financial condition, one of the two suffices. Ten employees and EUR 1 million turnover is not a microenterprise, because "fewer than 10" stops at nine.
Three points are worth knowing:
- The exemption covers services only. Article 4(4) exempts microenterprises providing services. Microenterprises that manufacture, import or distribute covered products must meet the requirements in full.
- National bodies often advise for free. Several member states oblige their accessibility body to give microenterprises guidance at no cost; Germany does so by statute.
- The exemption does not protect you from the market. Barriers cost you customers, reach and visibility – regardless of whether the law applies.
Whether the thresholds are aggregated across affiliated companies is not settled by the directive. In group or holding structures, that is a question for a lawyer rather than a rule of thumb.
Deadlines – and the myth about 2030
| What | Rule | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Websites, online shops and apps in scope | Obligation since 28 June 2025 – no transition period | Art. 31 |
| Products lawfully used to provide a service before 28 June 2025 | may continue to be used until 28 June 2030 | Art. 32(1) |
| Service contracts concluded before 28 June 2025 | may continue unchanged until they expire, no longer than five years from that date | Art. 32(1) |
| Self-service terminals lawfully in use before the deadline | until the end of their economically useful life, no more than 20 years after entry into use | Art. 32(2) |
What are the actual requirements?
Annex I of the directive states its requirements functionally rather than by reference to a technical standard. Information must be provided through more than one sensory channel, presented in an understandable way, made available in text formats that can generate alternative assistive formats, and – for websites and mobile applications – be made perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Those four words are the WCAG principles, quoted without naming the WCAG.
For e-commerce services the directive adds specific requirements: information about the accessibility of the products and services being sold, and accessible identification, authentication, security and payment functionality. Your login and your checkout are not merely implied, they are named.
Article 15 provides for a presumption of conformity: products and services that comply with harmonised standards, or parts of them, whose references have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union, are presumed to comply.
In practice this changes little about the target and a lot about who carries the burden of proof. National accessibility bodies explicitly recommend EN 301 549 and the WCAG as the authoritative orientation until something else is published. Follow them and you are meeting the state of the art. Choose another route and you have to demonstrate equivalence yourself. So WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at Level AA is the practical benchmark – just not by force of a legal presumption.
For your website or shop this means, among other things:
- Sufficient colour contrast and resizable text
- Full keyboard operability
- Alternative text for images and captions for videos
- Understandable forms with clear labels and error messages
- Clean semantic structure that screen readers can interpret
- Accessible sign-in, authentication and payment
If you are building or rebuilding today, aim for WCAG 2.2 AA straight away. It includes almost all 2.1 criteria, and the forthcoming European standard is already pointing that way.
When compliance would be unreasonable: Article 14
The directive contains two exemptions that are not tied to company size and are therefore often overlooked.
Fundamental alteration. The accessibility requirements apply only in so far as compliance does not require a significant change that fundamentally alters the basic nature of the product or service.
Disproportionate burden. Relief is available where compliance would impose a disproportionate burden, assessed against the criteria in Annex VI. This is not a box to tick: the assessment must be documented, service providers must renew it at least every five years, the reliance must be notified to the relevant authority, and an operator that has received funding – public or private – to improve accessibility cannot invoke it at all.
In most cases, doing the work is cheaper than building a defensible case for why the work is unreasonable.
Market surveillance, fines and the rumoured wave of lawsuits
The directive leaves enforcement to the member states. Each designates its own market surveillance authority for products and its own authority for checking service compliance; each sets its own penalties. Article 30 requires those penalties to be effective, proportionate and dissuasive – and states expressly that penalties are not an alternative to actually complying. What that means in numbers differs by country, and the country table in The EAA across Europe is where to look for your market.
Two patterns are worth knowing regardless of country. The first is how checking is done. Authorities do not read every website by hand. Germany's joint authority, which took up work in September 2025, states in its published surveillance strategy that for web-based services it relies on automated pre-screening with technical testing software, because that covers far more of the market than manual review can. The first look at your site is a scan – the same class of errors a free accessibility scan will surface.
The second is that a demand to fix normally precedes a fine. The directive's compliance procedure, and the national procedures built on it, are escalating: the authority first requires corrective action within a reasonable period, then repeats the demand under threat of restriction or withdrawal, and only then orders the service to be discontinued. Where the operator demonstrates compliance, the order is lifted. Fines are a separate track, not a first step – though, to be precise, nothing in the law makes a fine conditional on a prior demand.
What you have to publish – and what you do not
Service providers in scope must include, in their general terms and conditions or an equivalent document, information explaining how the service meets the accessibility requirements. Annex V of the directive sets out what that has to contain: a general description of the service in an accessible format, the descriptions and explanations needed to understand how it operates, and a description of how the relevant accessibility requirements are met. National law adds to this – Germany, for example, requires you to name the competent market surveillance authority.
For the full set of mandatory items, model wording and the mistakes that appear in almost every version, see Accessibility statement: mandatory content, templates, common mistakes.
What accessibility overlays can and cannot do
Since we sell a tool in this space, this section belongs here. In March 2025 the German federal and state monitoring bodies for accessible information technology published a joint assessment of overlay tools. The core findings:
"At present, overlay tools are not capable of rendering a web presence that has barriers fully accessible. … Overlay tools can improve accessibility that is already present, for example by meeting additional WCAG Level AAA criteria. … Overlay tools themselves must be completely accessible and able to be switched off. … Embedding overlay tools must not create negative interactions."
Two qualifications. The assessment was issued under the public sector directive and is not legally binding on private businesses. But – and this is our conclusion, not an official finding – its reasoning rests on the same four principles that the EAA states verbatim for private services. It would be hard to argue that an overlay achieves under the EAA what it does not achieve under the public sector rules.
That draws the line clearly, and it is our line too: a complement to an accessible foundation, yes; a substitute for one, no. A control panel offering contrast, font size or read-aloud helps real users – but it does not make a site without keyboard operation, without alt text and without clean structure compliant. Anyone promising otherwise is selling you a risk.
Practical first steps
- Clarify whether you are in scope: check your offering against the two exhaustive lists in Article 2 and against the microenterprise exemption. For borderline cases – a purely presentational site, mixed B2B and B2C – legal advice beats a rule of thumb.
- Take stock: test your website for accessibility with automated tools, a keyboard test and a screen reader. The authorities' automated pre-screening finds the same class of errors.
- Prioritise: fix the barriers that lock users out completely first, such as missing keyboard support or unlabelled forms in the checkout. Sign-in, authentication and payment are named requirements, not afterthoughts.
- Embed processes: make sure editors and developers consider accessibility from the start – from alt text to component choices.
- Publish the required information: produce the Annex V information, add whatever your national law requires on top, and make the page reachable from a clearly visible link.
The most important advice: start now instead of waiting for perfection. The enforcement procedure is built around correction, not punishment. A website that removes its biggest barriers today and has a visible roadmap is in a far better position than one that sits the topic out.
Frequently asked questions
Does my website have until 2030?
No. Article 32 of the EAA covers physical products used to provide a service before 28 June 2025, unchanged pre-existing contracts, and self-service terminals. A website is none of those. For websites the obligation has applied since 28 June 2025 with no transition period.
Does a company website without a shop have to be accessible?
Generally not, because without ordering or booking the element of an "individual request of a consumer" is missing – but national bodies state this conditionally and there is no case law on where the line runs. As soon as an appointment booking, an order form or a contract conclusion is possible, the EAA applies, and official guidance then treats the whole website as in scope.
Is WCAG 2.1 Level AA legally required?
No. The directive states its requirements functionally – perceivable, operable, understandable, robust – without naming the WCAG or EN 301 549. Because no harmonised standard has been cited in the Official Journal under the EAA, the Article 15 presumption of conformity does not currently apply to websites. WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at Level AA is the practical benchmark and the officially recommended orientation; deviate from it and the burden of proof is yours.
How large are the fines?
The directive does not set amounts. Article 30 leaves penalties to the member states and requires them to be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. Germany, for example, works with two brackets, up to EUR 100,000 for certain offences and up to EUR 10,000 for the rest. See the country table in "The EAA across Europe" for your market.
Who checks compliance?
Each member state designates its own authorities – one for market surveillance of products and one for checking service compliance. Several of them have said they will start with automated pre-screening of websites before any manual review.
Is an accessibility overlay enough to comply?
No. The German monitoring bodies have found that overlay tools cannot render a site with barriers fully accessible, and that using one can even degrade access for assistive technology users. An overlay can complement accessibility that already exists, provided the tool itself is fully accessible and can be switched off. That assessment was issued under the public sector rules and does not bind private businesses, but its reasoning transfers directly.
Sources
- Directive (EU) 2019/882 on the accessibility requirements for products and services – in particular Articles 2, 3, 4, 14, 15, 30, 31 and 32 and Annexes I, V and VI
- Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/1339 citing EN 301 549 V3.2.1 under Directive (EU) 2016/2102
- ETSI: Final draft EN 301 549 V4.1.0 (June 2026), prepared under standardisation request M/587
- German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs: Guidelines on the application of the Accessibility Strengthening Act (German)
- German joint market surveillance authority (MLBF): Market surveillance strategy for EAA services, January 2026 (German)
- German federal monitoring body for accessible IT: Joint assessment on the use of overlay tools, March 2025 (German)
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