Guide · EU law
The European Accessibility Act islive, and being enforced.
Enforceable since 28 June 2025, the EAA reaches almost any business selling to EU consumers — wherever it is based. This guide covers who is caught, which standard actually applies, the deadlines that are real, and how the first court cases are already unfolding in France.
Last updated · Checked against EUR-Lex, EN 301 549, and enforcement reporting from national authorities and legal-industry sources. Reviewed by the FlexAccesses accessibility team.
This is educational, not legal advice
FlexAccesses is not a law firm. The EAA is transposed into 27 different national laws, each with its own enforcer, penalties and procedure. Use this to ask your counsel sharper questions — and confirm anything specific to your business against your national transposition law.
What the EAA actually is
The European Accessibility Act — formally Directive (EU) 2019/882 — is EU law that sets common accessibility requirements for a defined list of consumer products and services across all 27 member states. It was adopted in 2019, member states had to write it into their own national law by 28 June 2022, and it became binding on businesses on 28 June 2025. Its purpose is twofold: to give the EU's roughly 87 million people with disabilities genuine access to everyday digital services, and to replace a patchwork of national rules with one harmonised baseline so companies aren't building to 27 different targets.
Two things make the EAA different from the US picture. First, it is a real regulation with named technical requirements and hard dates — not a body of case law inferred from an older statute. Second, it reaches private businesses directly and broadly, including companies with no physical presence in Europe at all, as long as they sell to EU consumers.
Who the EAA covers — and the one real exemption
The EAA covers a specific set of products and services judged most important for people with disabilities. For most website owners, the services list is what matters: e-commerce, banking and payment services, electronic communications, audiovisual media access, e-books, transport (ticketing, information), and the devices that go with them — computers, smartphones, e-readers, ATMs, payment and ticketing terminals. It applies to both B2C and, in relevant cases, B2B, and its reach is extraterritorial: if you sell to consumers in the EU, your headquarters' location does not exempt you.
The microenterprise exemption is narrower than it sounds
There is one blanket exemption: microenterprises providing services — broadly, fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover or balance sheet not over €2 million. Three catches: it does not apply to products, only services; it does not stretch across borders, so a platform that crosses either threshold in any market is a microenterprise nowhere; and a separate "disproportionate burden" defence (different from the microenterprise carve-out) requires you to self-assess and document your reasoning, with the burden of proof on you. Assume you are covered unless your counsel confirms otherwise.
Which standard the EAA actually requires
The directive itself states essential requirements in plain terms; the practical way to meet them for digital content is to conform to the harmonised European standard EN 301 549, which in turn points to WCAG. The chain is worth seeing clearly, because vendors routinely collapse it:
The version cited in the EU's Official Journal today (EN 301 549 v3.2.1) references WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web content. A newer draft, v4.1.0 dated November 2025, updates the web, document and software clauses to align with WCAG 2.2 and is in ETSI's public-enquiry phase — but until a new version is formally cited in the Official Journal, it does not yet carry the presumption of conformity. The honest practical answer, exactly as with the ADA: build to WCAG 2.2 AA now. Because 2.2 is backwards compatible, it satisfies today's 2.1 requirement and leaves you ready when v4.1.1 is cited.
The deadlines that are real
The headline date — 28 June 2025 — is the one that matters for anything new, but it is not the only one. Here is the actual timeline, including the transition windows that some vendors quietly ignore.
17 Apr 2019
EAA adopted
Directive (EU) 2019/882 enters the EU statute book.
28 Jun 2022
Transposition deadline
All 27 member states had to write the EAA into national law. This is now complete.
28 Jun 2025
Enforceable — new products and services
Anything placed on the EU market from this date must comply immediately. This is where you are now.
28 Jun 2027
Service contracts and some categories
Service contracts concluded before June 2025, and certain product categories, must comply by this date.
28 Jun 2030
Transition period ends
Services using products lawfully placed on the market before 2025 lose their grace period. Self-service terminals in use before 2025 run to the end of their economic life or up to 2045.
Enforcement is not hypothetical
This is the part most guides written before mid-2025 get wrong: they treat the EAA as a future risk. It isn't. Within days of the deadline the first actions began, and by mid-2026 there is a court ruling on the books.
France
A court order against Carrefour
Disability organisations issued legal notices to four grocery retailers in July 2025 and filed emergency injunctions in November. In June 2026 a court ordered Carrefour to make its site and app fully accessible within six months, under a daily penalty for delay. A parallel case against Auchan was dismissed on procedural grounds — though the court accepted the site was inaccessible.
Court order issuedSweden
Regulator-led inspections
The Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) opened its first e-commerce cases in October 2025, reviewing each retailer's homepage, a product page and the search function, with inspections continuing through 2026. Maximum fines reach roughly €900,000, with market-ban powers.
Active surveillanceGermany
Private warning letters
Under Germany's BFSG, competitors and law firms began sending warning letters framing inaccessibility as unfair competition — meaning your exposure isn't limited to a regulator. This private-enforcement dynamic is distinctive to the German market.
Private claimsNetherlands · Norway
Audits and daily penalties
The Dutch ACM is actively auditing e-commerce and electronic-communications services. Norway — an EEA state that adopted the EAA — has issued daily financial penalties against a non-compliant health portal. Enforcement is broadening, not narrowing.
Active enforcementThe uncomfortable part for our own industry
The barriers named in these cases are the ordinary ones: screen-reader incompatibility, keyboard-navigation failures, missing alt text, inaccessible checkout flows. An accessibility widget does not fix those, and the European Commission has confirmed that no automated tool covers all of WCAG 2.1 AA. What enforcement authorities ask for is documentation and a genuinely usable service — not a badge or a script. Treat any "instant EAA compliance" claim as a reason to read the contract, not relax.
Penalties vary by country
Because the EAA is a directive, each member state sets its own penalties and enforcer, so there is no single EU-wide figure. A few reported national frameworks give a sense of scale — treat these as illustrative and confirm the current figures for your market against the national law, as they change.
Germany
Up to €100,000
Per violation, under the BFSG, enforced by the Federal Network Agency — plus the separate risk of private unfair-competition claims.
France
Up to €75,000 or 4%
Reported fines up to €75,000, or a share of annual revenue, with ARCOM and DGCCRF among the enforcers — plus court-ordered remediation with daily penalties, as in the Carrefour case.
Sweden
Up to ~€900,000
Maximum fines around SEK 10 million, with the PTS holding market-ban authority for continued non-compliance.
Where to start
The EAA rewards demonstrable, documented progress over last-minute perfection — regulators and courts look for evidence you are treating accessibility as a real operational priority. That makes a dated baseline your single most valuable asset, and it is exactly what a scan produces.
Scan against WCAG AA
A free scan against 2.1/2.2 AA — the EN 301 549 baseline — gives you a dated starting point in minutes.
Fix the transaction paths first
Enforcement clusters on checkout, search and product pages. Prioritise the flows a customer must complete.
Publish an accessibility statement
The EAA expects one. Describe your real state, the standard you target, and how to report a barrier.
Keep the paper trail
Re-scan on each release and keep dated records. If a notice arrives, evidence of ongoing effort is what protects you.
Common questions
When did the EAA become enforceable?
It was adopted in 2019, required national transposition by 28 June 2022, and became enforceable on 28 June 2025. New products and services must comply from that date; certain services already in use have a transition period to 28 June 2030.
Does the EAA apply to companies outside the EU?
Yes. The EAA applies where the service is offered, not where the company is based. Any business selling covered products or services to EU consumers is subject to it — including US or other non-EU companies. The reach is similar to the GDPR's.
Which standard does the EAA require?
The directive sets essential requirements, met in practice by conforming to EN 301 549. The version cited today references WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web content; a draft (v4.1.0) aligning it with WCAG 2.2 is in progress. Building to WCAG 2.2 AA now satisfies the current requirement and prepares you for the update.
Are small businesses exempt?
Only microenterprises providing services — broadly, fewer than 10 employees and turnover or balance sheet not over €2 million. The exemption does not cover products, and it does not stretch across borders, so a cross-border platform usually cannot rely on it. A separate disproportionate-burden defence exists but puts the burden of proof and documentation on you.
Has the EAA actually been enforced?
Yes. French disability organisations issued legal notices to four grocery retailers in July 2025 and filed emergency injunctions in November. In June 2026 a court ordered Carrefour to make its site and app accessible within six months under daily penalty. Sweden's PTS began inspections in October 2025, and the Netherlands, Germany and Norway are all active.
What are the penalties?
They are set by each member state, so they vary. Reported frameworks include up to €100,000 per violation in Germany and up to €75,000 or 4% of annual revenue in France, alongside market-ban powers and, in some states, daily penalties for continued non-compliance. Confirm current figures for your market against the national law.
Sources. Directive (EU) 2019/882 (EUR-Lex) (opens in a new tab); ETSI EN 301 549 (harmonised standard) and Draft v4.1.0 (November 2025); W3C WAI, WCAG 2 Overview (opens in a new tab); enforcement reporting on France (Auchan/Carrefour), Sweden (PTS), Germany (BFSG), Netherlands (ACM) and Norway from national authorities and accessibility-legal sources, 2025–2026. The EAA is transposed into 27 national laws; penalties, enforcers and dates vary and change — verify against your national transposition law. Educational only, not legal advice.
Sell to the EU?Know where you stand.
A free scan against WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA — the EN 301 549 baseline — with each finding labelled by who fixes it. The dated first step toward a defensible EAA record.