The European Accessibility Act, explained for small online sellers

General information, not legal advice. The Act is enforced by individual EU member states, and details vary — check your specific situation, ideally with a local adviser.

What happened on 28 June 2025

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is an EU directive that sets common accessibility requirements for key products and services across the single market. Member states had to transpose it into national law, and its requirements began applying on 28 June 2025. For online sellers, the headline item is that e-commerce services are in scope — the whole journey a consumer takes on your website, from browsing and search to checkout and payment.

"I'm not based in the EU. Does it reach me?"

The Act applies based on where your customers are, not where your business sits. If you sell covered services (like e-commerce) to consumers in the EU, the European Commission's guidance treats you as in scope regardless of where your business is headquartered. A US, UK or Canadian shop shipping to German or French customers should not assume it's exempt.

Who is exempt?

There is a specific exemption for microenterprises providing services — businesses with fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover (or balance sheet total) of no more than €2 million. If that's you, the Act's service requirements don't apply to your own services — though requirements on products, and obligations of the platforms or partners you sell through, may still matter. Larger small businesses are covered, with possible relief where compliance would be a "disproportionate burden" — a claim that has to be assessed and documented, not simply asserted.

What does "accessible" mean in practice?

The technical benchmark commonly used for websites is the European standard EN 301 549, which incorporates the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — in practice, websites are assessed against WCAG 2.1, levels A and AA. That means things like: text alternatives for images, sufficient colour contrast, full keyboard operability, visible focus, labelled form fields, and consistent navigation. Enforcement and penalties are set by each member state, and marketplaces and larger partners increasingly ask sellers for accessibility statements — many covered organisations must publish one.

What should a small seller do first?

  1. Check whether you're in scope (EU customers? over the microenterprise line?). When in doubt, assume you'll be asked about accessibility by a marketplace, a partner, or a regulator eventually.
  2. Audit what you have. Run an automated scan across your site — start with our free mini-audit on your homepage — and keep the report. Automated tools find only part of the picture (Deque estimates ~58% of WCAG issues are detectable automatically), so pair the scan with a manual checklist for keyboard use, forms and checkout.
  3. Do not rely on an overlay widget. European regulators assess your actual website, and the global evidence on overlays is damning — the US FTC fined the category's biggest vendor $1 million over compliance claims, and 700+ accessibility professionals have signed a statement that overlays don't make sites compliant. Our overlay guide has the record.
  4. Fix in order, publish a statement, and re-check. Prioritise the shopping journey (product pages, cart, checkout, account and contact forms), write an accessibility statement describing what you've done and how to contact you about barriers, and re-scan after redesigns.

Find out where your shop stands. Run the free mini-audit now, or reserve a Founding Audit of your whole site for $49 — payable only when your finished audit is delivered.

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