The European Accessibility Act is now in force. If your eCommerce store sells into the EU and isn't compliant, the fines are significant and enforcement has already begun.

The European Accessibility Act is in force. Is your eCommerce store ready?

A client of ours recently received an email out of the blue. It cited EU accessibility legislation, listed the potential fines for non-compliance, and threatened to escalate to the relevant authority if nothing was done. No warning. No prior contact. Just a legal threat landing in their inbox.

It cost them time, legal fees, and significant internal distraction, all before they had even established whether their site was actually non-compliant.

This is what enforcement looks like in practice. And it is happening now.

The European Accessibility Act (EAA), EU Directive 2019/882, came into enforcement on 28 June 2025. If your store sells to consumers in any EU member state, compliance is now a legal requirement. Not a future consideration. Now.

If you are UK-based and sell exclusively into the UK, the EAA does not apply directly. The UK's own obligations under the Equality Act 2010 cover much of the same ground, and the commercial case for accessibility is the same regardless of where you trade.

If your store is not accessible to people with disabilities, you face real financial and legal risk. You are also leaving a significant share of your potential customers to shop elsewhere.

What it requires

Your store must meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. That covers product listings, navigation, checkout, payment flows, keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility and properly labelled form fields.

The exemption is narrow: businesses with fewer than 10 employees and under €2 million in revenue are excluded. Everyone else must comply.

The cost of getting it wrong

Enforcement started the day the law came into force. Disability advocacy organisations issued formal legal notices to major retailers within weeks. Sweden and Denmark began contacting businesses about compliance shortly after.

The fines are not symbolic. Germany imposes a fine of up to €100,000 per violation. France up to €250,000, plus annual penalties for missing accessibility statements. In Spain and Sweden, fines can exceed €1,000,000. The per-violation structure is what catches businesses off guard. A store with 15 separate accessibility failures faces those numbers multiplied.

Beyond fines, authorities can order you to stop accepting orders from specific member states. For most eCommerce brands, that market restriction costs more than any financial penalty.

The commercial opportunity

Compliance is the floor. The opportunity sits above it.

24% of EU adults over 16 have some form of disability. That is 90 million people. 87% of them used the internet in the past 12 months. An inaccessible store turns them away before they reach a product page. Add the friends, carers and family members who actively choose accessible brands, and the addressable market is considerably larger.

The work required to meet WCAG 2.1 AA often surfaces UX improvements that benefit all visitors. Cleaner navigation, faster load times and simpler checkout flows are common by-products of a well-executed accessibility programme.

Three steps to get compliant

Commission an accessibility audit. Understand your current position against WCAG 2.1 AA before anything else.
Apply the fixes. Remediate by risk and commercial impact, built into your existing development programme.
Update your policy. Publish an accurate accessibility statement and keep it current.

The risk is live, and the opportunity is real. If you want to understand where your store stands and what it takes to get compliant, speak to our team.

Work with Velstar

If you’re unsure where to start or would like to speak to one of our eCommerce specialists to get the ball rolling, get in touch today.