The European Accessibility Act for US Companies: Who It Covers and What to Do

Yes, the European Accessibility Act can apply to a US company. Since 28 June 2025 it has covered services sold to EU consumers, including e-commerce, consumer banking, e-books and passenger transport websites and apps, whoever provides them. Products such as computers, phones and payment terminals are covered too. Each EU country enforces it.

Many US businesses assume EU rules stop at EU companies. The Act does not work that way: it follows the customer. This guide covers who is in scope, the microenterprise exemption, the technical standard, what a service provider must do, how enforcement works, and a plan. All facts are taken from the Directive and the ETSI standard, linked in the sources. This is general information, not legal advice.

The short answer

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) has applied since 28 June 2025. It reaches US companies because it covers any "service provider" that provides a covered service on the EU market "or makes offers to provide such a service to consumers in the Union" (Article 3). Where your company is based does not decide it. What decides it is what you sell and to whom.

Everything in this article comes from the text of the Directive on EUR-Lex and the ETSI standard, both linked in the sources. Each EU country has its own law implementing the Directive, and those national laws are what get enforced, so the detail can differ from country to country. This is general information, not legal advice.

Does it apply to your US company?

Ask three questions. If the answer to all three is yes, assume the Act applies and get advice for the countries you sell into.

1. Do you sell to consumers? The services part of the Act covers services "provided to consumers" (Article 2(2)). A purely business-to-business service is outside that part, although business customers may still pass accessibility requirements down to you in contracts.
2. Is what you sell on the covered list? See the next section. For most US companies the relevant one is e-commerce.
3. Do you provide it to, or offer it to, consumers in the EU? Article 3 counts offers to EU consumers, not just completed sales.

What "e-commerce services" means

The Directive defines e-commerce services as "services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile device-based services by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract" (Article 3(30)). In plain terms: an online store or app where an EU consumer can buy from you. That covers far more than retailers. A US software company selling consumer subscriptions online, a direct-to-consumer brand, a ticketing site, or an online course seller could all fall within it.

The Directive does not give a checklist for when a non-EU business is "offering" to EU consumers. Practical signs that you are include shipping to EU addresses, pricing in euros, checkout that accepts EU addresses, or pages in EU languages aimed at EU buyers. How each country treats a particular set of facts is a question for local counsel.

The microenterprise exemption

Microenterprises providing services are exempt from the service accessibility requirements (Article 4(5)). A microenterprise is an enterprise that "employs fewer than 10 persons and which has an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 2 million or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million" (Article 3(23)). Both parts matter: you need fewer than 10 people and to be under one of the financial thresholds. Most US companies with real EU sales will not qualify. Note that the exemption for services does not apply in the same way to products.

Which products and services are covered

The Act lists what it covers in Article 2. Anything not on the list is outside it.

For e-commerce, the Act adds specific requirements in Annex I: providing the accessibility information about the products you sell when the responsible manufacturer supplies it, and making identification, security and payment functions "perceivable, operable, understandable and robust". In other words, the checkout and login have to work for disabled users, not just the product pages.

Content that is excluded

Article 2(4) excludes some website and app content, including pre-recorded video and audio published before 28 June 2025, office documents published before that date, certain online maps, third-party content you do not fund, develop or control, and archives that are not updated after 28 June 2025. New content you publish now is in scope.

The technical standard: EN 301 549 and WCAG

The Act sets out functional requirements in Annex I, written in the same four words WCAG uses: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. It does not name WCAG directly. Instead, Article 15 says that products and services that conform to harmonised standards published in the Official Journal of the EU are presumed to meet the requirements.

The harmonised standard for this is EN 301 549. Version 4.1.1 was adopted on 24 August 2026 and published in September 2026 under the Commission's standardisation request for the Act (ETSI EN 301 549 V4.1.1). Two points in its foreword matter:

• Its web, document and software clauses "have all been updated to align with the WCAG 2.2 recommendation".
• The presumption of conformity applies "once the present document is cited in the Official Journal of the European Union under that Directive". We could not confirm that citation had been published as of 20 October 2026, so check before you rely on the presumption.

The earlier version, V3.2.1, is built on WCAG 2.1 AA and is the harmonised standard for the EU's separate public sector web rules. For a business planning work today, the practical target is simple: build and test your website and apps to WCAG 2.2 Level AA (W3C WCAG 2.2). That meets the newer standard's web requirements and also covers WCAG 2.1 AA. Our guide to EN 301 549 explains what the standard covers beyond the web, and our WCAG 2.2 checklist turns the criteria into plain-language checks.

What a service provider must do

Article 13 lists the obligations of service providers. They go beyond making the site accessible.

The disproportionate burden exception

Article 14 lets a business rely on an exception where meeting a requirement would fundamentally alter the service or impose a "disproportionate burden". It is not a simple opt-out. You must carry out an assessment using the criteria in Annex VI, document it, keep it for five years, and renew it when the service changes, when an authority asks, and at least every five years. An undocumented claim of burden is not a defense.

How enforcement works

Enforcement happens country by country. Each EU member state must designate authorities to check that services comply, follow up complaints, and verify corrective action (Article 23). Each state also sets its own penalties, which must be "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" and must take into account the seriousness of the non-compliance, the number of non-complying products or services, and the number of people affected (Article 30).

That means there is no single EU fine schedule. Germany, for example, implemented the Act through its own statute, the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz, or BFSG (gesetze-im-internet.de). Other countries have their own laws and authorities. If you sell into several countries, you are dealing with several regimes that share the same core requirements.

Complaints are a real trigger. The law firm Seyfarth Shaw reported that, days after the Act took effect, two French disability associations notified four major French retailers that their shopping sites or apps were not accessible and gave them until 1 September 2025 to comply before taking legal action (Seyfarth, August 18, 2025). Seyfarth also notes that possible consequences vary by country and can include fines and measures against non-compliant sites and apps.

The transition period, read carefully

The Act has a transition period that is often misdescribed as "you have until 2030". Article 32(1) says two specific things:

• Service providers may keep providing services "using products which were lawfully used by them to provide similar services" before 28 June 2025, until 28 June 2030.
• Service contracts agreed before 28 June 2025 may continue unchanged until they expire, but no longer than five years from that date.

Neither of these is a general five-year delay for websites. Your website is not a "product" in the Act's sense, and new content and new features published after 28 June 2025 are in scope. Treat the transition as narrow and get advice before relying on it.

A practical plan for US companies

1. Map your EU exposure. Which sites, apps and checkouts can EU consumers reach and buy through? Which countries do they buy from?
2. Check the exemption honestly. Count staff and check turnover and balance sheet against the microenterprise definition.
3. Audit against WCAG 2.2 AA. Start with the checkout, account creation, login and payment, because the Act names identification, security and payment specifically.
4. Fix shared components first. Navigation, forms, modals and the checkout flow fix many pages at once.
5. Write the Annex V accessibility information. Add it to your terms or a linked accessibility statement, in accessible format.
6. Set up a monitoring routine. Scan regularly, test by hand after releases, and record what you fixed and when.
7. Check your vendors. Ask your e-commerce platform, payment provider and support tools for accessibility conformance reports.
8. Get local advice for the countries that make up most of your EU revenue.

One build for the US and the EU

A site built to WCAG 2.2 AA puts you in a good position on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, WCAG is the benchmark used in ADA website claims (see our guide to ADA website lawsuits). In the EU, the updated harmonised standard is aligned with WCAG 2.2. Doing the work once, properly, is cheaper than two separate compliance projects.

If the current site cannot get there without major surgery, a rebuild may cost less over time. Our free website cost calculator gives a USD estimate for a new build.