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Who must comply with the EAA (and who's exempt)?

Who must comply with the European Accessibility Act, which products and services are covered, and which microenterprises are exempt.

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Pavel Charkasau

If you sell a covered product or provide a covered consumer service to people in the EU, you must comply with the European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882), and it has applied since 28 June 2025. The law reaches four kinds of business: manufacturers, importers, distributors, and service providers. It does not matter where you are based. A company in the US, the UK, or anywhere else that sells into the EU market is in scope for that market. The scope is specific, not universal: the EAA names a defined list of products and services, mostly consumer-facing digital ones, rather than every website that exists. The main carve-out is for microenterprises that provide services, those with fewer than 10 staff and turnover or a balance sheet of €2 million or less. There is also a case-by-case relief where compliance would fundamentally alter the product or place a disproportionate burden on the business, but that has to be assessed and documented, not assumed. This guide walks through who is covered, who is exempt, and how to tell which side of the line you sit on.

Who must comply with the EAA?

The EAA places obligations on "economic operators," which it splits into roles. For products, that means the manufacturer, the importer who brings the product into the EU, and the distributor who sells it on. For services, it means the service provider. Each role carries its own duties, but the headline is simple: if you make, import, distribute, or provide something the law covers, the obligation is yours (European Commission).

Two points trip people up. First, the services in scope are those "provided to consumers." A purely business-to-business service, an internal tool, or something never offered to the general public sits outside the EAA. Consumer-facing retail banking is in; a back-office system your staff use is not. Second, location is about the market, not the head office. Selling to EU consumers from outside the EU puts you in scope for those sales, so "we're not an EU company" is not an exemption on its own.

What products and services does the EAA cover?

The EAA does not apply to the whole web. It lists specific products and services in Article 2. Read the list against what you actually sell before assuming you are in or out.

Products covered:

  • Computers and their operating systems, including laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
  • Self-service terminals: ATMs, ticketing machines, check-in kiosks, and payment terminals.
  • Consumer terminal equipment for telephony and audiovisual media, such as routers, modems, and set-top boxes.
  • E-readers.

Services covered:

  • E-commerce (selling products or services to consumers online).
  • Consumer banking services.
  • Electronic communications services.
  • Passenger transport services by air, bus, rail, and water, including websites, mobile apps, e-tickets, and real-time travel information.
  • Access to audiovisual media services, such as the websites and apps used to reach streaming content.
  • E-books and the dedicated software used to read them.

If your business is an online shop selling to EU consumers, you are almost certainly caught through the e-commerce limb, whatever you sell. The product you ship may sit outside the EAA, but the act of selling it online to consumers is the covered service. Our EAA overview breaks the scope down sector by sector if your case sits near the edge.

Who is exempt from the EAA?

There are three real exemptions, and they are narrower than the headlines suggest.

Microenterprises that provide services. This is the main one. A microenterprise is a business with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of €2 million or less. Both conditions have to be true at the same time. If you meet that definition and you provide a covered service, the EAA's accessibility requirements do not apply to you. Recital 70 of the directive states the requirements "should therefore not apply to microenterprises providing services within the scope of this Directive" (Directive (EU) 2019/882).

Disproportionate burden or fundamental alteration. Under Article 14, you do not have to do something that would fundamentally change the basic nature of your product or service, or that would impose a disproportionate burden, judged against the criteria in Annex VI (the cost of compliance set against the benefit to people with disabilities, and against your turnover). This is not a blanket opt-out. You have to carry out the assessment, document it, and keep the results for five years, repeating it when the service changes or at least every five years. An undocumented "it's too expensive" does not qualify.

Specific content carve-outs. The law also excludes certain narrow categories, such as some pre-recorded media and archived content published before the application date. These are edge cases, not a route out for a live commercial site.

Notice what is not on the list: there is no general small-business exemption beyond the microenterprise threshold, and no exemption for being based outside the EU.

Are microenterprises that sell products exempt too?

No, and this is the most common misreading of the law. The microenterprise exemption covers microenterprises providing services. It does not extend to microenterprises that manufacture, import, or distribute the products the EAA covers. A two-person company that makes e-readers still has to meet the product accessibility requirements (CCPC, Ireland).

There is one piece of relief for small product businesses. A microenterprise dealing with products is exempt from the requirement to document a disproportionate-burden assessment. The accessibility duty itself still applies; only the paperwork is lighter. And if a market surveillance authority asks, the business has to provide the facts behind its assessment anyway (Directive (EU) 2019/882, Article 14).

So the line runs through what you do, not just how big you are. Small and selling a covered service: likely exempt. Small and making a covered product: in scope, with lighter documentation.

How do I know if my business is in scope?

Work through three questions in order.

  1. Is what I offer on the list? Match your product or service against Article 2. An online shop selling to EU consumers is in through e-commerce; a B2B-only SaaS tool with no consumer offering generally is not.
  2. Am I a microenterprise providing a service? Fewer than 10 staff and turnover or balance sheet of €2 million or less, both at once, and you provide a service rather than a product. If yes, the service requirements do not apply, though watch the thresholds: the exemption falls away the moment you grow past either limit.
  3. Which national law applies to me? The EAA is a directive, so the rules you actually answer to are your member state's transposition. Member states set the enforcement body and penalties, and some have narrowed the exemptions or added requirements. Check the version in the country where you operate.

One caution on member-state variation: a few countries can also require that the built environment connected to a covered service be accessible, where they chose to apply that option. The directive sets the floor; national law can sit above it.

What if I'm in scope? What does compliance actually involve?

Being in scope means meeting the technical requirements, and in practice that means EN 301 549, the harmonised standard the EAA relies on. Its current referenced version incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web content, so WCAG 2.1 AA is the working bar today. Meeting the relevant clauses gives you a presumption of conformity with the EAA.

You will also need an accessibility statement: in-scope service providers are expected to publish information on how the service meets the requirements. And you need to know where you actually stand, which takes two layers of testing. Automated tools catch the high-frequency, machine-detectable problems fast, but only a share of the total. Deque's analysis of more than 2,000 audits found automation identified about 57% of issues by volume, while estimates based on the share of WCAG success criteria put it nearer 30% (Deque). Either way, a real gap remains that only manual review closes. No scanner, and no overlay widget, makes a site compliant on its own. The US Federal Trade Commission's $1 million order against the overlay vendor accessiBe, for claiming its product could make any site WCAG compliant, is the cautionary tale here (FTC). Our WCAG checklist covers the manual part so the share a scanner can't judge doesn't get skipped.

Frequently asked questions

Who has to comply with the European Accessibility Act?

Manufacturers, importers, distributors, and service providers that place a covered product on the EU market or provide a covered consumer service to people in the EU. It applies regardless of where the business is based.

Does the EAA apply to businesses outside the EU?

Yes. If you sell a covered product or provide a covered consumer service to customers in the EU, you are in scope for that market even if your company is based elsewhere.

Are small businesses exempt from the EAA?

Only microenterprises that provide services are exempt, meaning fewer than 10 employees and turnover or a balance sheet of €2 million or less, both at once. There is no general small-business exemption, and microenterprises that make or sell covered products are not exempt from the product requirements.

Is my online shop covered by the EAA?

Almost certainly, if it sells to consumers in the EU. E-commerce is a service named in the EAA's scope, so the obligation attaches to the online selling itself, whatever physical product you ship.

What is the disproportionate burden exemption?

It lets you skip a specific requirement where compliance would fundamentally alter the product or service, or impose a disproportionate burden measured against the Annex VI criteria. You must assess and document it (microenterprises dealing in products are relieved of the documentation) and keep the results for five years.

Find out where you stand

If you think you might be in scope, the useful next step is to see where your site actually is. Run a free scan to surface the machine-detectable issues on your key pages, then work through the manual checklist for what a scanner can't judge. You'll have a real picture to act on, and the evidence to write an honest accessibility statement rather than a guess.

Pavel Charkasau, founder, wcagc.com. Last updated 30 June 2026.

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