Guide · European Accessibility Act

European Accessibility Act Compliance: What Your Website Needs

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) deadline was June 28, 2025. If your business sells products or services online in the EU, your website must meet accessibility requirements — or face significant fines.

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The EAA enforcement deadline was June 28, 2025. Non-compliant businesses are now at risk of penalties. Check your status now — it takes 30 seconds.

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What is the European Accessibility Act?

The European Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882) is EU legislation that requires businesses to make their digital products and services accessible to people with disabilities. It covers websites, mobile apps, e-commerce platforms, banking services, transport ticketing, and more.

Unlike previous EU accessibility rules that only applied to public sector bodies, the EAA applies to all private businesses with more than 10 employees or an annual turnover exceeding €2 million — if they sell to consumers in any EU member state.

What does EAA compliance mean for your website?

The EAA requires websites to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the W3C. These guidelines are organized around four core principles:

Perceivable

All content must be presentable in ways users can perceive. Images need alt text. Videos need captions. Color can't be the only way to convey meaning.

Operable

All functionality must work via keyboard alone. No timing that prevents task completion. No content that causes seizures. Clear navigation.

Understandable

Content must be readable and predictable. Forms must have clear labels and helpful error messages. Language must be declared in HTML.

Robust

Content must work with current and future assistive technologies. Proper HTML semantics, ARIA roles, and name/role/value for components.

Which businesses are exempt?

Micro-enterprises (fewer than 10 employees AND annual turnover under €2 million) are exempt from the EAA's requirements for products and services they provide. However, this exemption has limits — member states may apply stricter rules, and public-sector procurement requirements may still apply.

Even if your business is exempt today, accessibility best practices improve usability for all users and protect against future regulation changes.

What are the penalties for non-compliance?

Risk exposure

Penalties vary by EU member state. Most member states have set fines ranging from €10,000 to €100,000+ per violation, with the possibility of injunctions requiring businesses to remove non-compliant services from the market entirely.

Beyond fines, non-compliance creates legal exposure under national disability discrimination laws, reputational risk, and exclusion from government procurement processes which often require EAA/WCAG compliance.

Most common EAA compliance failures

Missing image alternative text

Images without descriptive alt attributes are inaccessible to screen reader users. This is one of the most common and easiest-to-fix violations. Every image that conveys meaning must have a concise, accurate alt text describing what it shows.

Insufficient color contrast

WCAG 2.1 AA requires a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Low-contrast text is unreadable for people with low vision and affects many users in bright sunlight. This is extremely common on modern "minimal" designed sites.

Forms without proper labels

Every form field must have a programmatically associated label — not just placeholder text (which disappears when you type). Screen readers read labels to tell users what a field is for. Missing labels make forms unusable for blind users.

No keyboard navigation

All interactive elements — menus, modals, dropdowns, sliders — must be operable via keyboard alone. Custom JavaScript components often break keyboard access. Focus must be visible at all times.

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How EAAcheck works

EAAcheck scans your website URL and checks for the most common WCAG 2.1 AA violations that determine EAA compliance. Enter your domain, wait 30 seconds, and get a report showing:

Which accessibility issues were detected
Which WCAG criterion each issue violates
Why each issue matters for disabled users
What you or your developer needs to fix

The scan covers contrast ratios, missing alt text, form labels, ARIA attributes, language declarations, keyboard navigation structure, and more.