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A year of rules, and the first court order
EU accessibility law has applied to online shops since 28 June 2025. The European Accessibility Act requires e-commerce services to work for people with low vision, screen reader users, people who do not use a mouse and people who perceive colour differently. Each member state wrote it into its own law and named its own authority, so a shop selling across the EU answers to several regulators at once.
One year on, the first results are in. The Dutch consumer authority tested about a hundred of the largest online shops, and a French court ordered Carrefour to make its site and app accessible. Neither is a fine yet, but both show what enforcement looks like: someone tries to place an order with assistive technology, and the shop has to let them.
What the act asks of a shop
| Part | What applies |
|---|---|
| Since | 28 June 2025 |
| Covered services | E-commerce services to consumers, consumer banking, e-books, electronic communications and parts of passenger transport services |
| Running contracts | A service contract agreed before 28 June 2025 may continue unchanged until it ends, at the latest 28 June 2030 |
| Standard | Following the harmonised standard EN 301 549 gives a presumption of conformity; for websites it aligns with WCAG level AA |
| Information | You explain how your service meets the requirements, in a form that is itself accessible |
| Penalties | Set by each member state; they must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive |
The directive exempts micro-enterprises that provide services: fewer than 10 staff and at most 2 million euros turnover or balance sheet total. National laws do not all follow that. Belgium, for one, only delays the duty for them to 28 June 2030. If you are small but sell into several markets, check each one before you lean on the exemption.
Your existing shop gets no transition period. The 2030 date covers contracts that were already running before 28 June 2025, such as a subscription, and devices you already used to deliver the service. It does not cover your website. What the requirements mean for each part of a site is in our guide to the European Accessibility Act, and the short answer per situation in European Accessibility Act website requirements. Germany's version, with its own authority and exemptions, is in the German Accessibility Act.
Micro-enterprise with an online shop
Later
Fewer than 10 staff and at most 2 million euros turnover or balance sheet: exempt under the directive, though some countries only delay it.
Build a new shop accessibly anyway, so a stricter national rule never catches you out.
SME with a consumer online shop
Required now
An online shop is an e-commerce service: the requirements apply since 28 June 2025.
Test your checkout against EN 301 549 and publish how your shop meets the requirements.
Site without online sales
Not in scope
A site that only informs or collects quote requests is no e-commerce service.
Check you really sell nothing online, not even through a booking or payment module.
Shop selling into the EU from elsewhere
Required now
Selling to consumers in the EU brings you in scope, wherever you are based.
Meet the requirements in every language version you run.
Agency building shops
Check it
Your client carries the duty, but you deliver the code.
Hand over with a test and a statement, not just a design.
Enforcement is national: each member state names its own authority and sets its own penalties.
What regulators and courts did in year one
In the Netherlands the Authority for Consumers and Markets tested about a hundred of the largest online shops, plus the sites of the biggest telecom and energy firms. At 61 percent it was impossible to place an order using assistive technology. At another 33 percent ordering worked, but with serious problems. The authority is contacting the largest companies with the worst results, and those that do not improve risk enforcement. It published the figures on 24 March 2026.
In France, associations of blind and partially sighted people took grocery chains to court. On 4 June 2026 the court in Caen gave Carrefour six months to make its site and app fully accessible, under a periodic penalty. Carrefour argued that meeting 71 percent of the criteria was enough. The judge disagreed: accessibility is an obligation of result, so the site has to meet all the criteria.
Two lessons for any shop selling into the EU. Regulators test the way customers buy: they try to order. And "mostly compliant" is not a defence. A few unreachable buttons in your checkout lose the customer exactly where they want to pay.
Where online shops trip up most
- Images without textA product photo without alt text is invisible to a screen reader.
- Too little contrastLight grey text on white, or small text in a brand colour, misses the standard.
- An order button for mouse users onlyKeyboard users must be able to choose, fill in and pay. The Dutch test found it failing right here.
- A captcha with no way roundAn image puzzle a screen reader cannot read stops a blind customer at the last step.
- Pop-ups and chats that trapA window that grabs focus and cannot be closed with the keyboard.
Test it yourself in ten minutes
A full audit is a job for a specialist, but you can find the biggest problems yourself:
| Test | How | What you look for |
|---|---|---|
| Keyboard | Tab through a product page and checkout | Can you always see where you are, and reach payment without a mouse? |
| Zoom | Set the browser to 200 percent | Does everything stay readable, without overlapping text? |
| Screen reader | VoiceOver on iPhone or TalkBack on Android | Do you hear what a button does and what an image shows? |
| Form | Fill in a field wrongly | Does the error say what is wrong, in text and not only in red? |
| Contrast | Look at light grey text and buttons | Is everything readable in bright sunlight on a phone? |
A fast shop is usually a more accessible shop: fewer scripts stealing focus, fewer layers scrambling the reading order. Test speed with our website speed test and see why themes slow down in why is WordPress so slow.
Accessible and findable go together
Alt text, a logical heading structure, descriptive links and a fast page: what helps a screen reader helps Google too. That is why accessibility belongs in ecommerce SEO, not in a separate project afterwards. Planning a rebuild? Write it into the website brief, and weigh it when you choose between Shopify or WooCommerce. Two more EU rules reached shops this year: the withdrawal button and the ban on generic green claims.
What shops still ask a year later
What do I risk if my shop falls short?
Each country sets its own penalties. In Belgium they go up to 200,000 euros or 6 percent of annual turnover, and in France the first court order came with a daily penalty for every day of delay after the deadline.
Do I need an accessibility statement?
You must explain how your service meets the requirements, in a form that is itself accessible. A page with that statement, linked from your footer, is the usual way to do it.
My site sells nothing online, it only collects quote requests. Does the act apply?
A site without online sales is not an e-commerce service, so these rules do not apply to it. Building it accessibly still helps every visitor, and your search visibility.