The European Accessibility Act (EAA, EU Directive 2019/882) is the EU law requiring many digital products and services to be accessible to people with disabilities. It has applied since 28 June 2025. For websites the practical question is simple: can a person using a screen reader, keyboard-only navigation or high-contrast mode actually use your site and complete a purchase?
The EAA itself does not name WCAG. It sets functional accessibility requirements, and services that meet the relevant harmonised standards are presumed to comply (Article 15). For websites the practical reference is the European standard EN 301 549, which incorporates WCAG 2.1 level AA. So \"EAA compliance\" for a website means, in practice, meeting WCAG 2.1 AA. That single mapping is the most useful thing to remember: when someone asks whether your site is \"EAA compliant\", they are really asking whether it passes WCAG 2.1 AA.
"},{"heading":"Does the EAA apply to your website?","content":"The short version: if you sell online to consumers (B2C) in the EU and you are not a microenterprise, it most likely applies to you. The scope is defined by what you sell and how large you are, summarised below:
| Category | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce, online banking, ticketing, e-books | Covered | Consumer-facing digital services |
| Service microenterprises | Exempt | Fewer than 10 persons and annual turnover or balance-sheet total up to EUR 2 million |
| Pure B2B sites | Generally outside scope | Line blurs once you also sell to consumers |
Transitional periods (Article 32): services may keep using products they lawfully used before 28 June 2025 until 28 June 2030, and service contracts agreed before 28 June 2025 may continue unchanged until they expire, but no longer than five years.
Enforcement and fines are set by each member state, not by the directive itself. The amounts and the responsible authority differ by country. For your specific exposure, confirm with a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction. We confirm the technical side in a free mini-audit.
"},{"heading":"What does \"accessible\" mean in practice (WCAG 2.1 AA)?","content":"WCAG is built on four principles: content must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust. For a typical business site or shop, AA compliance comes down to a concrete checklist rather than abstract theory:
None of this is exotic. It is mostly disciplined HTML and CSS, which is why a clean rebuild often costs less than retrofitting a messy template.
"},{"heading":"What are the most common accessibility failures?","content":"Most sites fail on the same handful of points, and most are cheap to fix once identified. These six issues are among the most common:
The pattern is consistent: the problems are in the markup and the styling, not in some special \"accessibility layer\". Fix the source and most of the failures disappear at once.
"},{"heading":"Why are overlay widgets not compliance?","content":"Overlay widgets do not deliver compliance. You have probably seen the floating \"accessibility\" button that promises instant conformance. It sits on top of the page and does not fix the underlying HTML. Accessibility advocates and several regulators have repeatedly warned against relying on these tools.
The risk is not only that overlays fail to help. Some have been the subject of lawsuits rather than a defence against them, so a widget bought for protection can become a liability. Real compliance means fixing the source: the markup, the contrast, the focus order and the form labels. That is what survives an audit and an actual user with assistive technology. There is no shortcut button for it.
"},{"heading":"How do you check your site?","content":"A useful check has two layers, because automated tools alone are not enough. Scanners catch the mechanical issues; a human catches everything that depends on real interaction:
The output you want is a prioritised list: what fails, which WCAG criterion it maps to, and the specific fix, not a generic score. Our own site scores 100/100 in the automated Lighthouse accessibility test (checked October 2026), and we run the same process on yours. The point is not a badge but a clear, costed path to conformance you can actually hand to a developer.
"},{"heading":"What a professional EAA audit includes — and what it costs","content":"An automated scan alone cannot check every WCAG criterion. A professional audit combines two layers: the automated scan (contrast, form labels, ARIA errors, alt attributes) and a manual expert review (full keyboard operation, screen-reader flow, whether alt texts actually describe images, focus order, touch targets). The deliverable is a report with violations mapped to WCAG 2.1 AA criteria, prioritised so a developer can start fixing the same day.
Our pricing: audit from 1 490 EUR (Poland: 2 900 PLN); remediation priced per project after the audit, from 2 900 EUR (Poland: from 6 900 PLN), with a re-audit confirming the fixes; ongoing monitoring incl. the accessibility statement 149 EUR/month (Poland: 399 PLN/month). We run the same methodology on our own site — nostressstudio.com scores 100/100 in the automated Lighthouse accessibility test. Details: EAA / WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit.
"},{"heading":"Where to start","content":"If you sell to consumers in the EU, the safe move is to know where you stand before someone else points it out. Start with a check: an automated scan plus a manual review, a prioritised fix list and a clear scope for remediation.
See our EAA / WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit for e-commerce, or open our services and pricing. We fix the source, not a bolted-on widget. The technical audit gives you certainty on the code; the final legal assessment of your specific obligations belongs to a qualified lawyer in your country.
"}],"faq":[["How much does an EAA audit cost?","Our audit starts at 1 490 EUR (Poland: 2 900 PLN): automated scan plus a manual expert review, with a prioritised WCAG 2.1 AA fix list. Remediation is priced per project after the audit (from 2 900 EUR), and ongoing monitoring incl. the accessibility statement costs 149 EUR/month."],["Does the EAA apply to me?","If you sell online to consumers in the EU and you are not a microenterprise, most likely yes. Service microenterprises (fewer than 10 persons and annual turnover or balance-sheet total up to EUR 2 million) are exempt. We confirm the technical side in a free mini-audit."],["We already added an accessibility widget — is that enough?","No. Overlay and toolbar widgets sit on top of the page and do not fix the underlying code, so they do not deliver conformance. Accessibility advocates and several regulators warn against relying on them. Real compliance means fixing the markup, contrast, focus order and form labels."],["Do you guarantee legal compliance?","We deliver a technical audit and remediation against WCAG 2.1 AA, which is the standard the EAA points to via EN 301 549. The final legal assessment of your specific obligations belongs to a qualified lawyer in your country."],["How long does an audit take?","The automated scan plus a manual expert review delivers a prioritised report typically within 48 hours. You get a list of what fails, the WCAG criterion each issue maps to, and the specific fix, rather than a generic score."]]}