European Accessibility Act

Here's what you need to know

From 28th June 2025, under the European Accessibility Act, a wide variety of private sector products and services must be accessibility compliant. The European Accessibility Act became law in 2019 and with its lengthy lead time, this should be pretty indicative of the scale of the changes this Act brings in.

Now with the deadline rapidly approaching, enterprises may question if the EAA applies to them and how they can adhere to its standards.

First and foremost, EAA compliance is required to do business with customers within the European Union regardless of where that organisation is based. So whether you're a U.S.-based e-commerce business, or a UK-based financial institution selling to EU customers, you must adhere to EAA standards.

What are the requirements for EAA compliance?

To start businesses are expected to comply with the European standard of Accessibility requirements outlined in EN 301 549 .

However, just meeting these technical standards doesn't guarantee EAA compliance. Additionally, there are national laws that outline requirements for how accessibility is managed within an organisation. For instance, it is a common national requirement for product and service providers to implement accessibility training for employees, and monitor accessibility on an ongoing basis to account for changes in a product or service or within the accessibility standards.

Many EU nations also mandate that product and service providers publish an accessibility statement containing:

1. Information about the functionality of a product/service.
2. Documentation of a product/service’s technical accessibility specifications and design processes.
3. A description of how a product/service meets the EAA’s accessibility requirements.
4. The names of enforcement authorities to which users can file accessibility complaints.

How will it be enforced?

The law requires that EU nation nations establish processes for monitoring compliance. If your enterprise is found to be non-compliant you are liable to litigation and will face penalties.

These penalties include steep fines, the removal of products from the market, or even the suspension of an organisation’s right to do business.

The penalties also vary from country to country. In Ireland for instance, breach of compliance can result in fines and imprisonment of up to 18 months. Both companies and their directors, managers, secretaries, and other officers can be found guilty of an offence under the Regulations.

Next steps with Dev Ally

Tackling accessibility compliance takes time, and only increases in effort as your company grows, especially when managing multiple, complex products and services at scale.

Manually monitoring your accessibility and tracking the status of each website, web application and mobile app takes hundreds of hours away from your team every year.

Thats where we come in.

Thanks to Dev Ally, Enterprises can gain visibility into their accessibility posture and spend, ahead of this upcoming legislation.

1. Work with our team to identify which products or services in your portfolio are subject to EAA compliance.
2. With Dev Ally you can perform an audit of those products and services to gauge their accessibility posture.
3. We will generate a plan for fixing any accessibility errors, including outlining any additional support resources needed.
4. Establish accessibility monitoring for each product or service to flag any new accessibility violations that may be introduced with content or feature updates.