European Accessibility Act: is your website compliant?
Since 28 June 2025 digital accessibility has been mandatory for many private companies too. Who is affected, what to check on your website and how to comply without starting from scratch.
If you sell products or services online to consumers in the European Union, since 28 June 2025 your website or app must be accessible to people with disabilities as well. This is required by the European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882), which extended to private companies obligations that previously applied almost only to the public sector. In practice your website must work with a keyboard alone, with a screen reader, at 200% zoom and with readable contrast, following the WCAG guidelines.
The topic is far from settled. According to the WebAIM Million 2026 analysis, 95.9% of the world’s most visited home pages still have WCAG errors that can be detected automatically. In Italy, for example, the implementing framework was completed in spring 2026 and since 11 March 2026 users can report inaccessible websites on a platform run by the national digital agency AgID. Let’s look at who is affected, what to check and how to comply.
Who must comply with the European Accessibility Act?
The law covers businesses that offer certain products and services to consumers, including:
- e-commerce: websites and apps used to sell online, from shops to subscription services;
- banking and payment services for consumers;
- passenger transport: online ticketing, travel information, apps;
- electronic communications, e-books and services giving access to audiovisual content.
Micro-enterprises providing services are exempt, meaning those with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet of up to EUR 2 million. The exemption does not apply to manufacturers or importers of covered products, and it does not protect you from customers who pick a competitor because they cannot use your site. The directive also applies to non-EU companies selling in the Union, and each country has transposed it into its own law: Italy with Legislative Decree 82/2022, the Czech Republic with Act 424/2023, Germany with the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG).
What does an “accessible website” mean in practice?
The technical reference is the European standard EN 301 549, which points to WCAG 2.1 level AA (now updated to version 2.2). The rules come down to four principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust, which means readable by assistive technologies too. Besides fixing the website, online sellers must explain in their terms of service, or in an accessibility statement, how the service meets the requirements.
10 checks to run on your website today
- Keyboard: can you use the whole site with Tab and Enter, menus and cart included?
- Visible focus: can you always see where you are while navigating with the keyboard?
- Contrast: does text have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against the background?
- Alternative text: do informative images have a meaningful text alternative?
- Headings: do pages have a tidy H1, H2, H3 structure?
- Forms: does every field have a label, and do error messages explain how to fix them?
- Zoom: at 200% zoom, is content still readable without horizontal scrolling?
- Video: are there captions and, where needed, transcripts?
- Language: is the page language declared so screen readers pronounce it correctly?
- Links and buttons: does the text say where they lead, without “click here”?
You can run a first check with My Access Check, our tool for testing page accessibility. Automated tests only find part of the issues, though: keyboard navigation, reading order and the quality of alternative text have to be checked by hand.
Are accessibility plugins and widgets enough?
No. Widgets that add an icon with “larger text” or “high contrast” do not fix the page code: if a button cannot be reached by keyboard or a form has no labels, it stays that way. They often even interfere with the screen readers people already use. Accessibility comes from fixing templates, components and content, and keeping it that way with every update.
What are the risks of not complying?
Market surveillance authorities can require companies to fix non-conformities and impose administrative penalties, and users can report inaccessible websites. The most concrete risk, however, is commercial: according to the European Commission, around 87 million people with disabilities live in the EU, plus older people and anyone browsing in difficult conditions, with one hand or in bright sunlight. A website they cannot use is a website that loses customers. Many accessibility fixes, such as ordered headings, alternative text and clean code, also improve SEO and speed.
How to make your website compliant without rebuilding it
- Audit: an automated scan plus a manual review of key pages (home, product pages, cart, checkout, contact).
- Priorities: start with the barriers that stop people completing a purchase or a request.
- Fixes: work on templates and components, so every page improves at once.
- Content: whoever updates the site learns to write proper alternative text, headings and links.
- Statement and monitoring: publish the accessibility statement and re-check with every release.
If your site is old or built on a theme that is hard to fix, rebuilding can be the better option: a new corporate website designed to be accessible from the start costs less than endless patches.
In short
The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025 and mainly concerns e-commerce and digital services for consumers. Complying means meeting WCAG level AA, removing the main barriers and keeping the site accessible over time. See how we work on web accessibility and online stores.
Want to know where your website stands? Contact PragaWeb for an accessibility check: we will tell you what to fix, in what order and at what cost.
