European Accessibility Act: what it means for your website

Since 28 June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has been in force across all EU member states, and in 2026 more and more countries — including the Netherlands — are starting active enforcement. If you offer a website, webshop or digital service to European consumers, this is no longer a distant concern: it directly affects how accessible your site needs to be for people with disabilities.

What is the European Accessibility Act?

The European Accessibility Act is an EU directive that harmonises accessibility rules for products and services across member states. The goal: removing barriers created by differing national rules. The directive covers phones, computers, banking services, e-commerce platforms and transport information, among others — in short, many of the digital services consumers rely on every day.

Who does the EAA apply to?

The scope is broader than many business owners assume. If you sell products or services online to consumers in the EU, you fall under the EAA in most cases — even if your company is based outside Europe. There are exemptions for micro-enterprises that only provide services (not for product sales), but a practical rule of thumb is: assume the law applies until proven otherwise.

WCAG as the technical benchmark

The EAA does not invent new technical rules from scratch. Its harmonised standard (EN 301 549) is built on the WCAG guidelines from the W3C, at level AA. In practice that means: sufficient colour contrast, full keyboard navigation, usable alt text on images, clear form labels and video captions. A new version of the standard, incorporating WCAG 2.2, is expected in 2026.

In practice that comes down to concrete, checkable items: a "skip to content" link for keyboard users, a visible focus indicator when tabbing through the site, captions or a transcript for video, and accessible PDF documents instead of scanned images of text. None of these are technically complicated — most simply get overlooked during regular testing on a mouse and a large screen.

What does this mean for your website?

For most small and medium-sized businesses, this comes down to the practical basics: can someone using only a keyboard navigate your site? Is there enough contrast between text and background? Does a screen reader work with your menu and forms? Because the vast majority of business websites run on WordPress, that is exactly where most of the impact — and most of the quick wins — lie: themes, plugins and built-in forms are often where accessibility issues originate.

Common WordPress-specific pitfalls: a theme with too little contrast between text and background, images added through Elementor or Gutenberg without alt text, and pop-up or cookie plugins that trap keyboard focus so visitors can no longer navigate further. This is exactly the kind of issue a generic overlay widget misses, since it knows nothing about the specific structure of your theme and plugins.

Enforcement has already started

This is no longer a theoretical discussion. The first EAA-related legal cases were already filed in France in late 2025, and the Netherlands is among the countries starting active enforcement in 2026. In a complaint or audit, what matters is not only whether your site is accessible, but whether you can demonstrate you are structurally working on it.

How you can get started today

A sensible first step is a real scan of your site — not an overlay widget that only adds a layer on top of the existing code without fixing the underlying issues. Regulators and lawyers are increasingly scrutinising that approach. With these three elements you build a track record that shows both visitors and regulators you take this seriously:

• A scan that actually looks at the code

• An audit log documenting your progress and effort

• Concrete, actionable findings instead of vague warnings

True Access Now was built for exactly that: a WordPress plugin that scans your site for real accessibility issues and keeps an audit log as evidence. Existing Vorlexa clients get 50% off automatically.