European Accessibility Act: What Your Website Must Do Now
The deadline passed in June 2025. The lawsuits started in November. 2026 is the first full year regulators are checking — and most small e-shops still haven’t heard of the law they’re breaking.
~5 min read
16.07.2026
There’s a category of law that arrives quietly and then all at once. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is one of them. It has applied since 28 June 2025, and 2026 is the first full year national authorities are actively supervising against it. The first lawsuits were filed in France in November 2025; Sweden and Denmark began contacting businesses about compliance last autumn. This is no longer a future obligation. A gap is now an active liability.
Who the European Accessibility Act covers
Broadly: if you sell products or services to EU consumers through a website or app, assume you’re in scope until you’ve confirmed otherwise. The EAA explicitly covers e-commerce, banking and financial services, e-books, ticketing, transport and telecom services — and it applies based on market presence, not headquarters, so a business anywhere selling to EU customers is covered.
There is one genuine relief valve: microenterprises providing services — under 10 employees and under €2 million turnover — are exempt. Many Czech studios and small service firms will fit through that door. But the exemption is narrow: it doesn’t cover products, and it evaporates the day you cross either threshold. And if you run an e-shop above those limits, you are squarely in scope.
What the law actually requires
Technically: conformance with EN 301 549, which incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA in full. In human terms, your website must be usable by the roughly one in four European adults living with some form of disability — around 87–100 million people. Concretely, that means:
- Meaningful alt text on images that carry information
- Full keyboard operability — everything reachable without a mouse
- Sufficient colour contrast and text that resizes without breaking
- Forms with clear labels and explained errors (the checkout is where lawsuits are born)
- Consistent, predictable navigation and a published accessibility statement
Two traps worth naming. Automated scanners catch only around 30% of issues — a green scanner badge is not compliance. And overlay widgets — those “accessibility toolbars” bolted onto broken sites — do not make a site compliant; regulators and courts look at the underlying code.
What non-compliance costs
| Country | Penalty range (EAA) |
|---|---|
| France | €5,000–250,000 + €25,000/yr missing statement |
| Germany | up to €100,000 per violation |
| Ireland | up to €60,000 (criminal provisions exist) |
| Sweden | up to ~€900,000 |
| Several jurisdictions | up to €3,000,000 |
Enforcement is national, so the price list varies: France fines €5,000–250,000 plus €25,000 a year for a missing accessibility statement; Germany up to €100,000 per violation; some jurisdictions reach €3 million, and Ireland and Cyprus theoretically include jail time. The realistic pattern for small businesses is gentler but real: complaints trigger investigations, and regulators issue remediation notices before fines — demonstrated effort counts heavily in your favour, indifference counts heavily against.
But the regulator may be the smallest of your three exposures. A single customer who can’t complete a purchase can file a complaint publicly. And accessibility has quietly joined GDPR on enterprise procurement checklists — inaccessible suppliers are becoming unbuyable.
The upside nobody markets
Here’s the part the compliance industry undersells: an accessible website is simply a better-built website. The same work — semantic HTML, labelled forms, alt text, logical headings, keyboard flows — is precisely what search engines and AI systems parse best. Accessibility, SEO and GEO are one build discipline wearing three hats. Add the customers themselves: a quarter of European adults, plus everyone on a cracked phone screen in sunlight, benefits. Few legal obligations pay this well.
The sensible sequence: audit your highest-risk journeys first (homepage → product → checkout → contact), fix the structural issues in code rather than with widgets, publish an accessibility statement, and document what you’ve done — documented good-faith effort is the strongest position short of full conformance.
Every website we build ships accessibility-first — EN 301 549 structure, not bolted-on widgets. See how we build websites.
FAQ
The European Accessibility Act (EAA, Directive (EU) 2019/882) is EU legislation requiring a wide range of consumer-facing products and digital services — including e-commerce websites and apps — to be accessible to people with disabilities. It has applied since 28 June 2025, with enforcement handled by national authorities in each member state.
If you sell products or services to EU consumers online, assume yes until confirmed otherwise. Microenterprises providing services (under 10 employees and under €2 million turnover) are exempt, but the exemption doesn’t cover products and disappears once you cross either threshold.
EN 301 549, which incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA: meaningful alt text, keyboard operability, sufficient contrast, resizable text, clearly labelled forms with explained errors, consistent navigation, and a published accessibility statement.
They vary by country — from roughly €5,000 up to €250,000 in France, €100,000 per violation in Germany, and up to €3 million in some jurisdictions. Regulators typically issue remediation notices before fines, and documented good-faith effort materially improves your position.
No. Overlays don’t fix the underlying code, and regulators and courts assess the code. Automated scanners also catch only about 30% of issues — real compliance requires structural fixes and manual testing.
Sources
- Level Access — EAA Compliance Overview & EU Requirements: https://www.levelaccess.com/compliance-overview/european-accessibility-act-eaa/
- Optimum Web — EAA Website Compliance 2026: https://www.optimum-web.com/blog/european-accessibility-act-website-compliance-2026/
- Accessibility.Works — EAA Requirements & Enforcement Tracker: https://www.accessibility.works/european-accessibility-act/
- Accessiway — EAA Legal Guidance (microenterprise exemption): https://www.accessiway.com/legal-guidance/european-accessibility-act-eaa
- Equalize Digital — EAA Guide for WordPress (penalties by country): https://equalizedigital.com/european-accessibility-act/
- AudioEye — EU Digital Accessibility (EN 301 549 / WCAG mapping): https://www.audioeye.com/post/eu-digital-accessibility/
