The European Accessibility Act, in plain English
A short, practical summary for businesses selling to customers in Ireland and across the EU.
What the EAA is
The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) sets common accessibility requirements across the EU for a defined list of products and services. In Ireland it is given effect by national regulations, with market surveillance authorities able to investigate complaints.
Who it applies to
Services sold to consumers in the EU, including e-commerce, consumer banking, e-books, ticketing and transport information, telecoms and audiovisual media services. Microenterprises providing services — fewer than 10 staff and under €2m turnover — are exempt from the service obligations, though accessibility is still expected of them commercially.
What it means for a website
The Act sets outcomes rather than a code checklist: information must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. In practice conformity is demonstrated against the harmonised standard EN 301 549, which adopts WCAG 2.1 / 2.2 level AA for web content. That is why we test against WCAG AA.
Dates that matter
The requirements have applied to new services since 28 June 2025, with transitional arrangements for some existing service contracts and self-service terminals. Enforcement is complaint-led, so the practical risk is a customer or advocacy group raising your site.
What good preparation looks like
Know where you stand with a technical audit, fix the blocking issues first, document your accessibility statement and the steps you have taken, and keep testing as the site changes. Monitoring matters most for sites that publish or change weekly.
See where your site stands
A free scan shows your score, severity counts and the first findings in under a minute.
Informational, not legal advice. We test a representative sample of pages using automated and AI-assisted checks. Automated testing typically catches around a third of WCAG issues, so our findings support your compliance work — they do not certify conformance with the European Accessibility Act or any national law.