Does the European Accessibility Act Apply to Your Business?

The first question in every European Accessibility Act conversation is not "what do we have to fix?" It is "does this even apply to us?" The answer sits in a handful of articles in Directive (EU) 2019/882, and you can work through them in about five minutes. This guide takes them in order, with the exemptions as the directive states them.

It is general information, not legal advice. Where a business sits close to a line, that is a question for its lawyer, and this guide tells you which line.

The five-minute decision path

Ask these in order. Each points to the article that answers it.

Question	If yes	If no	Where it comes from
1. Does the business provide a listed service, or make a listed product, for consumers?	Go to 2	Out of scope	Article 2(1) and 2(2)
2. Does it provide that service, or offer it, to consumers in the EU?	Go to 3	Out of scope	Article 3, "service provider"
3. Is it a microenterprise, and is what it offers a service rather than a product?	Exempt from the service requirements	Go to 4	Article 3 and Article 4(5)
4. Is some content on the site one of the excluded kinds?	That content is out, the rest is in	All of it is in	Article 2(4)
5. Would a specific requirement fundamentally alter the service or be a disproportionate burden?	Assess, document and meet the rest	Meet it	Article 14

Step 1: the services and products the Act names

The Act does not cover every website. It covers a list. Article 2(2) names the services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025:

• E-commerce services. This is the one most websites fall under.
• Consumer banking services, such as consumer credit, payment services and accounts.
• E-books and the software used to read them.
• Electronic communications services, such as phone and messaging providers.
• Services providing access to audiovisual media services, such as the apps and guides used to find and watch TV.
• Air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport: their websites, mobile apps, e-tickets, travel information and self-service terminals. For urban, suburban and regional transport, only the interactive self-service terminals are covered.

Article 2(1) covers products placed on the market after the same date: consumer computers and operating systems, payment terminals, ATMs, ticketing and check-in machines, phones and TV equipment with interactive computing capability, and e-readers.

What "e-commerce services" means

Article 3 defines e-commerce services as "services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile device-based services by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract." Recital 43 adds that the obligations "should apply to the online sale of any product or service."

So the test is not what is sold: a candle shop, a gym selling memberships and a hotel taking bookings all qualify. Three things follow from the wording:

• A consumer is a person buying outside their trade or profession (Article 3). A site that only sells to other businesses is outside this definition as written. A site that sells to both is not.
• A site that concludes no contract, such as a brochure site with a contact form, is not an e-commerce service under this definition. It can still be in scope if the business provides another listed service, such as banking or passenger transport.
• The website and the app are both in, because the definition names "websites and mobile device-based services."

Step 2: selling into the EU from outside it

Being based outside the EU does not take a business out of scope. Article 3 defines a service provider as "any natural or legal person who provides a service on the Union market or makes offers to provide such a service to consumers in the Union." The test is where the consumers are, not where the company is registered.

The directive does not list what counts as making an offer to EU consumers. Useful facts to collect before you talk to a lawyer: whether the shop accepts orders and delivers to EU addresses, whether it prices in euros or other EU currencies, and whether it has EU language versions. Write down the answers. They are what the scope decision rests on.

Step 3: the microenterprise exemption, and what it does not cover

Article 3 defines a microenterprise as "an enterprise which employs fewer than 10 persons and which has an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 2 million or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million."

Read the "and" and the "or" carefully. Both parts must be true: fewer than 10 people, and one of the two financial limits. A business with 8 staff and EUR 5 million turnover qualifies only if its balance sheet total is no more than EUR 2 million. A business with 12 staff never qualifies, however small its turnover.

Article 4(5) then says: "Microenterprises providing services shall be exempt from complying with the accessibility requirements referred to in paragraph 3 of this Article and any obligations relating to the compliance with those requirements." Recital 70 gives the reason: demanding even the assessment from a microenterprise providing services "would in itself constitute a disproportionate burden."

What the exemption does not cover:

• Products. It is for microenterprises providing services. A microenterprise that makes, imports or distributes a covered product still has to meet the requirements, with lighter paperwork. Ireland's regulator, the CCPC, says so in its guidelines for microenterprises.
• The client's size, not yours. The exemption belongs to the business providing the service. A three-person agency building a shop for a retailer with 40 staff does not make that shop exempt.
• A business that grows. The definition is a set of thresholds. A business that passes them is no longer a microenterprise, so the status is worth checking again each year.

Step 4: content the Act leaves out

For an in-scope site, Article 2(4) excludes some content:

• Pre-recorded video and audio published before 28 June 2025.
• Office file formats, such as PDFs and documents, published before 28 June 2025.
• Online maps, if the essential information for navigation is given in an accessible digital way.
• Third-party content that the business neither funds, develops nor controls.
• Archives: content that is not updated or edited after 28 June 2025.

Be careful with the third-party exclusion. A checkout, a cookie banner or a reviews widget the business chose, pays for and configured is under its control. Treat it as in scope.

Step 5: disproportionate burden is not an exemption

Article 14 says the requirements apply only as far as they do not fundamentally alter the service or impose a disproportionate burden. It is often read as a way out. It is not one:

• The business has to carry out an assessment against the criteria in Annex VI and document it (Article 14(2) and 14(3)).
• It keeps the results for five years and gives a copy to the authority on request (Article 14(3)).
• A service provider renews the assessment when the service changes, when the authority asks, and at least every five years (Article 14(5)).
• A business that received outside funding to improve accessibility cannot rely on it (Article 14(6)).
• Recital 66 says "Lack of priority, time or knowledge should not be considered to be legitimate reasons," and that every requirement that is not a disproportionate burden still applies in full.

The dates that matter

• 28 June 2025: member states apply the rules from this date (Article 31(2)).
• 28 June 2030: the end of a transitional period in which service providers may keep using products they lawfully used before 28 June 2025 (Article 32(1)). The directive defines a product as a good produced through a manufacturing process, so read this as covering hardware such as terminals, not as a grace period for a website. Service contracts agreed before 28 June 2025 may continue unchanged until they expire, but no longer than five years from that date.

Which standard to build and audit to

The requirements themselves are in Annex I of the directive. A harmonised standard gives a presumption of conformity with them, and for ICT that standard is EN 301 549. As our guide to EN 301 549 v4.1.1 explains with the sources, no version of EN 301 549 is yet cited in the Official Journal under the EAA. Version 3.2.1 is cited under the Web Accessibility Directive, which covers the public sector. Version 4.1.1, published in September 2026, is the first written for the EAA, and for web content it points at WCAG 2.2 Level AA.

In practice, auditing to WCAG 2.2 AA is the strongest position you can document today. Our European Accessibility Act overview summarizes the rest of the law for websites.

An automated scan is a useful first pass, not a verdict. A free accessibility scan checks a page against WCAG 2.2 AA in a real browser and shows failures such as missing form labels or keyboard and focus problems on a checkout. Many criteria still need a person, so no scan can confirm that a site meets the Act. Our accessibility audit checklist covers the manual part.

What to put in writing

Whatever the answer, write it down. A short scope note protects everyone when the question comes back in a year. It should say:

1. The service. Which listed service the business provides, for example "online sale of goods to consumers," or why none applies.
2. The customers. Whether it sells to consumers in the EU, and the facts behind that: delivery countries, currencies, languages.
3. Microenterprise status. Headcount, turnover and balance sheet total, the date they were checked and who supplied them.
4. Exclusions relied on, such as archived content or pre-2025 documents, named specifically.
5. The standard. The audit target (WCAG 2.2 AA) and the fact that automated testing alone cannot confirm conformance.
6. Accessibility information. In-scope service providers must publish how the service meets the requirements, in the terms and conditions or an equivalent document (Article 13(2) and Annex V).

If you build sites for clients, who is responsible for what belongs in the contract as well. Our guide to accessibility clauses in client contracts has wording for that.

Next steps

• Run the five questions above for each site you own or look after, and record the answer and the date.
• For in-scope sites, run a free scan of the pages where people buy: product, cart, checkout and account sign-up.
• Fix the automated failures first, then test the checkout by keyboard and with a screen reader.
• Check microenterprise status again each year, and whenever the business grows.
• Publish the accessibility information Annex V asks for, and keep it honest about what still fails.
• Watch for EN 301 549 v4.1.1 being cited in the Official Journal.