The European Accessibility Act is coming: what it means for websites

Watch out: The four-year transition period for this Europe-wide accessibility directive ends on 28 June 2025. In this article, you will get a compact overview of the EAA, find out the background and get practical tips on what you should definitely pay attention to now.

Note: This article gives you a general overview of the Directive and the laws derived from it, especially with regard to websites. It does not constitute legal advice and does not claim to be exhaustive. If in doubt, please refer directly to the regulations or seek professional advice.

What is the European Accessibility Act (EAA)?

The basic idea of the EAA is to standardise the accessibility rules of the EU member states. In Germany, the EAA directive has been implemented with the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG). In Austria, it is the Accessibility Act (BaFG). This should ultimately make it easier for companies to operate in the European single market , as described in Article 1 of the Directive:

“The purpose of this Directive is to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by harmonising the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to accessibility requirements for certain products and services, in particular by removing obstacles to the free movement of products and services covered by this Directive caused by differences in accessibility requirements between Member States or by preventing the creation of such obstacles.”

Anyone who violates the requirements of the Accessibility Act after 28 June 2025 must expect expensive penalties – up to 100,000 euros in Germany. But more on this later.

What are the reasons in favour of implementing the EAA?

In addition to the penalties incurred for non-compliance, there are good reasons to optimise the accessibility of your own website anyway. Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about meeting legal requirements, but also about making your website accessible and easy to use for as many people as possible.

Examples of disabilities that can affect the usability of websites:

• Blindness, visual impairment, colour blindness
• Deafness, hearing impairment
• Motor restrictions
• Reduced cognitive abilities

At the same time, we are talking about a not exactly small target group: according to the European Commission, more than 80 million people in the EU have a disability. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, 7.9 million people in Germany alone live with a recognised severe disability, i.e. 9.3 percent of the total population.

From this perspective, ignoring the needs of these people has always been a bad idea. Not least ethically and morally wrong. Now the legislator is using additional pressure to ensure that more companies realise this.

In the end, many people will benefit from this. After all, easy-to-use and easy-to-understand websites are a plus for everyone.

Who is affected by the EAA?

The European Accessibility Act focuses on numerous products and services that are particularly important from the legislator’s point of view and should be made more accessible for people with disabilities. The products include, for example, computers, cash and ticket machines and e-book readers. However, “e-commerce services” are also affected. According to Article 3, paragraph 30, these are defined as follows:

“Remote services provided via websites and mobile devices, electronically and at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract;”

For the term “service”, the EAA refers to Directive 2006/123/EC, which defines it as “any self-employed economic activity normally provided for remuneration”. This means that online shops, but also websites that offer paid services (e.g. consultations, subscriptions, downloads), fall under the EAA’s regulations.

Ultimately, the Accessibility Act applies to websites if the contract is concluded via them. If a company instead only offers an enquiry option and the actual contract is only concluded later, this should no longer fall under the Accessibility Act.

What exceptions and special regulations are there?

As described above, the Directive is about commercial activities aimed at consumers. Conversely, this means two things:

1. A purely private website is not affected. However, caution is advised at this point, as the line between private and business offerings is quickly crossed.
2. Offers aimed exclusively at companies (B2B) are also excluded. Here too, however, it must be absolutely certain that the target group does not actually include consumers.

In addition, services provided by “micro-enterprises” are not covered by the EAA. This refers to companies that employ fewer than ten people and either have an annual turnover of no more than €2 million or an annual balance sheet total of no more than €2 million (Article 3, paragraph 23). But beware: micro-enterprises that offer relevant products must still organise them in accordance with the EAA. However, anyone offering services via a website or app is exempt.

The Accessibility Act also grants exceptions in certain cases:

This applies, for example, if compliance with the requirements requires either a “fundamental change” to the offer in question (Article 14, paragraph 1, letter a) or represents a “disproportionate burden” for the website operator (Article 14, paragraph 1, letter b). This requires clear evidence, including documentation. Article 14, paragraph 2 states that companies should “assess” whether these points apply to their own offering. They must record this, keep it for five years and present it on request. This is stated in Article 14, paragraph 3:

‘Economic operators shall document the assessment referred to in paragraph 2. Economic operators shall keep all relevant results for a period of five years after the last making available on the market of a product or after the last provision of a service, as applicable. At the request of the market surveillance authorities or the authorities responsible for verifying the conformity of services, they shall provide the authorities with a copy of the assessment referred to in paragraph 2.”

Incidentally, Annex VI of the EAA contains specific criteria for assessing the “disproportionate burden”.

Further exceptions can be found in the EAA under Article 2, paragraph 4, which mentions “recorded time-based media published before 28 June 2025″. This should include webinar recordings, for example. The list also includes “content from third parties that is neither financed or developed by the relevant economic operator nor under its control”. This is likely to include embedded YouTube videos from others that you have neither commissioned nor paid for yourself.

There is also an exception for “content of websites and mobile applications that are considered archives, i.e. whose content will not be updated or revised after 28 June 2025″. It should be noted here that this only applies if the entire offering is no longer updated.

What needs to be done now and what requirements does the EAA place on websites?

Now that we know what it is about, who is affected and what penalties are threatened, the important question is: What do you have to do specifically? As a result of the EAA, many companies will have to look at the accessibility of their online offering for the first time and, if in doubt, improve it.

Tip in advance: You can use the BFSG check to determine whether your website falls under the accessibility regulations or not. It checks some of the points mentioned here.

It would go too far at this point to go into all these points and their implementation. Instead, I would like to give you a few key suggestions and examples along the way:

Perceptibility

All information and content must be perceptible to users, regardless of their sensory abilities.

• Contrast: Text and graphic elements must have sufficient contrast to the background to be easily legible and recognisable for people with visual impairments. EN 301 549 requires a contrast of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
• Text alternatives: All non-text content that conveys essential information requires text alternatives. This includes images, graphics, buttons and other interactive elements.
• Subtitles and audio description for videos: Videos with pre-recorded audio content must offer subtitles for deaf users and an audio description for blind users.
• Further requirements: EN 301 549 contains additional requirements for websites, such as flexible font sizes, the avoidance of flickering and animations and the ability to customise the display of content.

Usability

All website functions must be easy and intuitive to use, regardless of the user’s motor skills.

• Keyboard operation: All functions of the website must be operable exclusively via the keyboard, without the need for a mouse.
• Customisable time limits: Users must be able to customise or disable time limits for certain actions if they are used on the website.
• Further requirements: EN 301 549 defines additional requirements, such as sufficiently large click surfaces, simple navigation, a well-functioning search function and the avoidance of complex interactions.

Comprehensibility

The content and operation of the website must be understandable for all users, even those with limited cognitive abilities and language skills.

• Clear and simple language: The language of the website must be clear and simple and avoid technical jargon and complex sentence structures.
• Further requirements: The standard contains further requirements, such as a logical page structure, consistent navigation elements, helpful error messages and clear labelling.

Robustness

The content of the website must be programmed in such a way that it can be reliably interpreted by various browsers and assistive technologies.

Consequences of non-compliance

The Directive leaves it to the Member States to determine penalties for infringements. Article 30, paragraph 2 states that:

“The sanctions must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. In the event that the economic operator does not comply, these sanctions must also be accompanied by effective remedial measures.”

Paragraph 4 adds to this:

“Sanctions shall take into account the extent of the infringement (including its seriousness and the number of non-compliant products or services concerned) and the number of persons affected.”

In the case of the German BFSG, the specific provision on fines can be found in section 37, which has two levels:

1. Serious offences such as placing non-accessible products on the market or offering non-accessible services can be punished with fines of up to 100,000 euros.
2. For minor infringements, for example against the labelling or information obligations, it can be up to 10,000 euros.

In the Austrian BaFG, this information can be found in paragraph 36, which recognises more gradations than the German version:

1. Serious offences can be punished with a fine of up to 80,000 euros. For the smallest to medium-sized companies, the maximum fine is 50,000 euros.
2. Less serious offences can be punished with a fine of up to 40,000 euros. For micro-enterprises and SMEs, the maximum fine is 25,000 euros.
3. Other offences, such as breaches of information obligations or obligations to cooperate with authorities, can be punished with a fine of up to 16,000 euros. Micro-enterprises and SMEs can expect a maximum fine of 10,000 euros.

In both Germany and Austria, the competent authority determines the amount of the fine.

Conclusion

The EAA reminds me a little of the GDPR: There, too, the aim was to standardise regulations across the EU. There was also a transitional period of several years. At the time, it seemed to me that many companies were only reacting at the last minute. Don’t let it get that far with this topic and take care of it now.