Directive (EU) 2019/882

The accessibility rule with a penalty attached is a document, and you probably do not have it

There is no harmonised standard for this Directive. Every tool that tells you meeting WCAG 2.1 AA makes you compliant is describing a legal route that has never been opened.

The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025. Article 13(2) requires you to publish specific information about how your service meets the accessibility requirements, put it with your terms, and show that you monitor it. That is the part companies miss, because unlike a contrast failure you cannot see it by looking at the site.

In force 14 months ago28 June 2025

We check Annex V, not a score

Six things the Directive asks the statement to contain, checked one by one: how the requirements are met, a way to report a barrier, the national enforcement authority, evidence of monitoring, and whether a disproportionate burden is claimed without the assessment Article 14 requires.

The penalty that applies to you, not the headline

This is a Directive, so penalties are national. The same missing statement is worth EUR 7,500 in France and EUR 900,000 or one per cent of turnover in the Netherlands. The figure of EUR 25,000 quoted everywhere for France belongs to a different law.

We say what we did not check

The scan reads the HTML your server returns. It does not render the page, so contrast, keyboard operation and focus are not assessed and a clean result is not a clean bill of health. Anyone claiming full compliance from an automated pass is selling you something.

What it costs, country by country

Article 30 leaves penalties to each member state, so there is no European figure and anyone quoting one is inventing it. Below is what nine national transpositions actually say, traced to the statute. Where a figure could not be traced, it says so rather than filling the gap.

France: up to €7,500; Loi n° 2023-171, Décret n° 2023-931
Spain: €301 to €1,000,000; Ley 11/2023

By country

You may be exempt, and it is worth knowing precisely

Article 4(5) exempts microenterprises providing services. Both limbs have to be true, and three things about it catch companies that believe they are safe:

Fewer than ten people and turnover or balance sheet under EUR 2 million. Eight staff and EUR 3 million is not exempt.
Services only. If you manufacture, import or distribute a product the Act covers, the exemption does not reach you.
No grace period. The day you take on a tenth employee the exemption is gone, and several member states had private-sector accessibility law before this Directive that is stricter anyway.