Does this apply to us if we are not in the EU?

If you offer covered services to consumers in the EU, yes — the obligation follows the market you sell into, not where you are registered. An Albanian, British or American company running an e-commerce site that ships to EU customers is in scope on the same terms as a company headquartered in Milan.

We are a small company — are we exempt?

There is a microenterprise exemption for service providers: fewer than 10 employees and no more than EUR 2 million annual turnover. It applies automatically, with nothing to file. Two cautions: it covers service providers, not microenterprises that manufacture or distribute covered products, and crossing either threshold removes it. If you are near the line, that is a question for your counsel rather than for us.

Our site launched before June 2025 — how long do we have?

Services already in operation before 28 June 2025 have until 28 June 2030, while anything launched after that date had to comply immediately. That is real breathing room, and it is also the reason most of these projects are best done alongside a redesign or replatform rather than as an emergency.

Can you just certify that we are compliant?

No, and be wary of anyone who says they can. We audit against WCAG 2.1 AA, fix what we find and document what was changed and what remains — but conformity is a legal position on your service, not a certificate a supplier issues. We build to the standard; your counsel decides whether you have met your obligations.

How much does it cost?

Sized from our EUR 35-55/hour band, with a written estimate before anything starts. The audit is bounded and predictable; the remediation depends on what the audit finds, which is why we quote it in two parts rather than pretending to know the second number in advance. A component-based site is usually cheaper to fix than it looks, because one corrected component repairs every page that uses it.

Website Accessibility Audit & Remediation

The European Accessibility Act has been enforceable since 28 June 2025, and the standard behind it is WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We audit against it, then fix what we find in your codebase — because an audit nobody can implement is a document, not compliance.

Last updated: August 14, 2026

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What the law actually says

The European Accessibility Act is Directive (EU) 2019/882. The detail most people miss is the transition: the 2025 date was not a universal cliff, and knowing which side of it you are on changes how urgent this is.

Enforceable since 28 June 2025, and it applies by where your customers are — a business outside the EU selling to EU consumers is in scope
Anything launched after June 2025 had to comply immediately; services already running have until 28 June 2030
The technical standard is EN 301 549, which uses WCAG 2.1 Level AA as its baseline — so 'WCAG 2.1 AA' is the practical target
Scope covers consumer-facing digital services: e-commerce, banking, telecoms, transport, e-books and media among others
Microenterprises providing services — under 10 staff and no more than EUR 2m turnover — are exempt, automatically and without applying

What an audit actually finds

Accessibility failures are rarely exotic. The same handful of defects account for most of what blocks people, and most of them are cheap to fix once someone has named them precisely.

Keyboard traps and unreachable controls — a menu or modal that a mouse opens and a keyboard cannot escape
Form fields without programmatic labels, so a screen reader announces 'edit text' and nothing else
Colour contrast below the AA threshold, usually in the brand palette itself rather than in a mistake
Focus that is invisible or jumps somewhere unexpected, making the page unusable without a pointer
Images carrying meaning with empty alt text, and decorative images that announce their filename
ARIA attributes applied incorrectly — frequently worse than no ARIA at all
Errors signalled only by colour, so a failed form tells a colour-blind user nothing

Overlay widgets are not compliance

There is a category of product that promises accessibility from one line of JavaScript. It is worth being blunt: a script cannot know that your image conveys meaning, cannot restructure your heading order, and cannot fix a keyboard trap in your own component. Overlays have been the subject of sustained criticism from disabled users and of legal action, and installing one does not put the underlying failures right.

The failures live in your markup and your components, which is the only place they can be fixed
Screen-reader users frequently report overlays interfering with the assistive technology they already use
An overlay leaves you paying a subscription for a problem you still have
Real remediation is a finite piece of work — you fix it, and then it stays fixed
If someone quotes you compliance for a monthly script fee, ask which WCAG criteria it satisfies and how

How we work

Audit and remediation are one engagement here, because separating them is what produces the shelf-bound report. We test with the tools and by hand — automated checkers catch perhaps a third of WCAG failures, and the ones they miss are usually the ones that actually block someone.

Automated scan for the mechanical criteria, then manual keyboard and screen-reader testing for the rest
Findings mapped to specific WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria, so each one is arguable rather than a matter of taste
Prioritised by user impact first and effort second — a keyboard trap outranks a contrast tweak
Fixes implemented in your codebase, in your components, shipped through your normal deployment
A re-test afterwards, and an accessibility statement drafted from what is actually true of the site

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this apply to us if we are not in the EU?
If you offer covered services to consumers in the EU, yes — the obligation follows the market you sell into, not where you are registered. An Albanian, British or American company running an e-commerce site that ships to EU customers is in scope on the same terms as a company headquartered in Milan.
We are a small company — are we exempt?
There is a microenterprise exemption for service providers: fewer than 10 employees and no more than EUR 2 million annual turnover. It applies automatically, with nothing to file. Two cautions: it covers service providers, not microenterprises that manufacture or distribute covered products, and crossing either threshold removes it. If you are near the line, that is a question for your counsel rather than for us.
Our site launched before June 2025 — how long do we have?
Services already in operation before 28 June 2025 have until 28 June 2030, while anything launched after that date had to comply immediately. That is real breathing room, and it is also the reason most of these projects are best done alongside a redesign or replatform rather than as an emergency.
Can you just certify that we are compliant?
No, and be wary of anyone who says they can. We audit against WCAG 2.1 AA, fix what we find and document what was changed and what remains — but conformity is a legal position on your service, not a certificate a supplier issues. We build to the standard; your counsel decides whether you have met your obligations.
How much does it cost?
Sized from our EUR 35-55/hour band, with a written estimate before anything starts. The audit is bounded and predictable; the remediation depends on what the audit finds, which is why we quote it in two parts rather than pretending to know the second number in advance. A component-based site is usually cheaper to fix than it looks, because one corrected component repairs every page that uses it.