Website accessibility and the European Accessibility Act: who it reaches
- The European Accessibility Act has applied to new products and services since 28 June 2025.
- Companies outside the EU are not covered directly — the requirement arrives with the customer who is.
- The technical yardstick is WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Not “a version for blind users”, but a description of a well-built site.
- Overlay widgets do not solve it: accessibility is built into the markup, not bolted on top.
The subject feels remote until an email arrives from a European partner asking you to complete an accessibility questionnaire about your website. Or until a tender is returned because there is no accessibility statement.
Why this is not only about the EU
The directive requires digital products to be usable by people with impaired vision, hearing, motor control or cognition. A Ukrainian business is not formally in scope. Its website often is — if you sell into the EU through it, or if your EU client is obliged to vet their own suppliers.
Exporters feel it first, along with service companies working for European brands, stores shipping to the EU, and anyone entering European tenders.
What is actually checked
| Requirement | What it means on the site | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Text contrast | Grey text on a light background is the most common failure | A few hours |
| Keyboard operation | Menu, form and modal can be used without a mouse | Hours to a few days |
| Alternative text | Every meaningful image has an alt | Scales with the site |
| Forms | Fields are labelled, errors are stated in words, not only in red | A day or two |
| Heading structure | One H1, then H2 and H3 by meaning rather than by size | Tidy markup |
| Video | Captions for anything that carries meaning | Depends on volume |
A word about the “accessibility button” widgets that float in a corner. They do not make a site accessible, and in European practice their presence tends to attract the attention of regulators rather than satisfy them.
What it costs
On a site that was built carefully, most requirements are already met: sensible headings, labelled fields, readable contrast — that is simply competent front-end work. It gets expensive when the site is assembled from a bought theme where everything rests on images.
For a 10–15 page company site, expect a few days to two weeks. For a store with filters and a basket, longer — there is far more interaction to fix.
Four things to try this week
- Move through your own site using only the Tab key. Reaching the “Send” button is already a good sign.
- Run the home page through Lighthouse in Chrome, Accessibility tab.
- Check whether focus is visible — the outline around the active element. It is often removed “because it spoils the design”.
- Check your form: if the error is only a red border, nobody but a sighted user will ever see it.
Those four steps will not make a site compliant, but they show the scale: a week of work, or a conversation about a redesign.
We will check your site against WCAG 2.1 AA and hand you a costed list of fixes — no general talk about inclusivity.