The European Accessibility Act: What It Means for Your Website

Since June 2025, a swathe of businesses selling into the EU have had a legal duty to make their digital services accessible. The European Accessibility Act is now in force, and a year in, plenty of UK businesses still assume it does not apply to them. For many, it quietly does.

This is the practical version: who is actually caught, what "accessible" really means, and why it is worth doing even where the law does not reach you.

Does it apply to a UK business?

Not directly the UK is outside the EU, so the Act does not bind a purely domestic business. But the moment you sell goods or services to consumers in the EU, you can fall within scope, regardless of where you are based.

So an ecommerce store shipping to Ireland or Germany, or a SaaS product with EU customers, may need to comply even from Nottinghamshire. The safest assumption is to check whether any meaningful share of your customers sit inside the EU.

What counts as "accessible"

In practice it means meeting WCAG 2.1 at level AA — the same standard most accessibility work already targets. That covers things like sufficient colour contrast, keyboard operability, proper text alternatives for images, and content that works with screen readers.

None of this is exotic. It is the difference between a site that assumes everyone uses a mouse and perfect eyesight, and one built for how people actually are.

Who is exempt

There are carve outs. Microenterprises providing services broadly, fewer than ten staff and under €2m turnover are exempt from the services obligations, and some product categories sit outside the Act entirely.

But exemptions are narrower than people hope, and they do not exempt you from the UK's own Equality Act 2010, which has long expected reasonable accessibility. Leaning on an exemption is rarely the smart long-term play.

The cost of ignoring it

Enforcement varies by member state, but the risks are real: complaints, removal from market, and reputational damage. For most businesses, though, the bigger cost is quieter the customers who simply cannot use your site and leave without a word.

Roughly one in five people has a disability of some kind. An inaccessible checkout is not just a compliance gap; it is lost revenue you never see.

Why it is worth doing anyway

Accessible sites tend to be better sites. The same discipline that helps a screen-reader user clear structure, real text, sensible contrast also helps search engines, AI systems and everyone on a phone in bright sunlight.

We have written before about why accessibility matters in modern web design. The Act simply adds a legal deadline to what was always good practice.

Not sure where you stand?

If you sell into the EU, or just want to know how your site measures up to WCAG 2.1 AA, we can audit it and give you a clear, prioritised list of what to fix.

If you would like a straight answer on your exposure and what it would take to close the gap, contact us.