The European Accessibility Act’s June 28, 2025 deadline has come and gone — and enforcement has already begun. If your WordPress site serves customers in the EU, or if you run an e-commerce store, SaaS platform, or any digital service with European users, this law applies to you right now. Here’s what you need to know.
What Is the European Accessibility Act?
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is EU Directive 2019/882, a landmark piece of legislation that requires a wide range of digital products and services sold or offered within the European Union to meet defined accessibility standards. Unlike the ADA in the United States, which has historically relied on litigation to enforce accessibility, the EAA creates a proactive, government-enforced compliance framework with real financial penalties.
The June 28, 2025 enforcement date was not a soft launch. Within days of the deadline, French disability advocacy organizations had already issued formal legal notices to major grocery retailers demanding their e-commerce platforms comply. The enforcement machinery is now active, and it is moving fast.
Who Does the EAA Affect?
The EAA’s scope is broad. It covers businesses that sell products or provide services to people in EU member states — meaning the location of the business is irrelevant. A US-based company running a WooCommerce store that ships to Germany is subject to the EAA. A Canadian SaaS provider with French customers is subject to the EAA.
The law applies to these digital product and service categories:
- E-commerce websites and online marketplaces
- Banking and financial services offered online
- Transportation ticketing and booking platforms
- Telecommunications services and equipment
- E-books and e-readers
- Audiovisual media services
- Computer hardware and operating systems with consumer-facing interfaces
There is a small-business exemption: companies with fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover under €2 million are excluded from most EAA requirements. However, this exemption is narrower than it sounds — many small shops that sell internationally will not qualify once revenue thresholds are weighed against the number of employees.
What Are the Technical Requirements?
The EAA points to the EN 301 549 standard as its technical benchmark, which in turn references WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web content. In practical terms, this means your WordPress site needs to meet the same WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria that the US DOJ has adopted for ADA Title II compliance — just under a different legal framework and enforced by a different set of regulators.
The key WCAG 2.1 AA requirements include:
- Perceivable: Images have meaningful alt text, videos have captions, color contrast meets the 4.5:1 ratio for normal text and 3:1 for large text, content can be resized without loss of functionality
- Operable: All functionality is available by keyboard alone, there are no keyboard traps, focus indicators are visible, and users have enough time to complete tasks
- Understandable: Page language is declared, error messages are clear and descriptive, labels are associated with their form inputs
- Robust: HTML is valid and parseable by assistive technologies, ARIA attributes are used correctly
Additionally, the EAA requires businesses to provide an accessibility statement and, in some cases, a feedback mechanism that allows users to report accessibility barriers and request accessible alternatives.
What Are the Penalties for Non-Compliance?
Penalties are set by individual EU member states, so the specific fines vary by country. The figures are significant: France, Germany, and other major markets have established fines that can reach into six figures for serious violations. Some jurisdictions allow fines up to €100,000 per violation, and market suspension — the right to sell your product or service within a given country — is also on the table for repeat or egregious non-compliance.
Beyond fines, the reputational risk is real. The French enforcement actions against grocery retailers made news within days of the June 2025 deadline. Being publicly named in accessibility enforcement proceedings is not a good look for any brand.
What Should WordPress Site Owners Do Now?
If your site has EU visitors or customers, here is a practical starting point:
- Audit your site against WCAG 2.1 AA. You cannot fix what you have not measured. Run a scanner that checks for real code-level issues — missing form labels, broken ARIA attributes, low contrast, images without alt text, and more. Automated scanning catches roughly 30–40% of WCAG issues; it is a starting point, not a finish line.
- Fix the issues you find. This is where most teams stall. Knowing you have 87 accessibility errors is not useful if you do not know how to fix them. Look for tools that give you actionable, code-level guidance — not just a list of failures.
- Publish an accessibility statement. The EAA requires it. A clear, honest statement of what your site supports, what limitations remain, and how users can contact you if they encounter barriers is sufficient.
- Create a feedback mechanism. A simple contact form or dedicated email address for accessibility questions satisfies this requirement in most cases.
- Plan for ongoing monitoring. Accessibility is not a one-time fix. Plugins update, content changes, new pages get added. Regular scanning keeps you from sliding back into non-compliance without realizing it.
One important nuance: content published before June 28, 2025 has a grace period — it must comply by June 28, 2030. New content published after June 28, 2025 must comply from the moment it goes live. If you are building new pages or launching a redesign today, the EAA’s requirements apply immediately.
The Bigger Picture: Accessibility Is Now a Global Business Requirement
Between the ADA Title II deadline in the US (April 24, 2026 for larger government entities), the EAA enforcement now underway in Europe, and the UK’s Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations, the era of treating web accessibility as optional is effectively over. For any organization with a meaningful digital presence, accessibility compliance is a cost of doing business — just like data privacy after GDPR.
The good news is that the technical requirements for the EAA, ADA, and most other major accessibility laws largely converge on the same standard: WCAG 2.1 AA. Fix your site to that standard and you address the majority of your global compliance obligations at once. No need for separate work streams for separate laws.
Take Action
LEWCA helps WordPress site owners find and fix real accessibility issues — the kind that matter to both users with disabilities and regulators enforcing laws like the EAA. LEWCA’s WCAG scanner identifies code-level problems across your pages, and the Pro plan adds AI-powered fix suggestions, scheduled scans, and compliance reports you can point to if you ever need to demonstrate your efforts. Start with a free scan to see where your site stands, or explore Pro for ongoing monitoring and documentation. Visit our pricing page or download LEWCA to get started today.