The European Accessibility Act: who it affects and since when - Zephyra Studio

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) has been in force since June 2025 and covers e-commerce and certain digital services sold to consumers in the EU, regardless of where the selling business is registered. This is a new obligation almost nobody in the region talks about yet, even though it can genuinely affect businesses selling online to EU customers.

Who the law covers

The EAA applies to e-commerce, banking services, electronic communications, and a handful of other digital service categories offered to EU consumers. The key point: a business does not need to be registered in the EU for the law to apply, what matters is whether it sells to EU consumers online.

Small businesses have certain exemptions depending on size, but the underlying principle, that a site has to be accessible to people with disabilities, is becoming harder to ignore even where an exemption formally exists, since market pressure and customers themselves increasingly expect it.

What accessibility actually means

This is not a full redesign, it is a set of specific, measurable items.

• Sufficient colour contrast between text and background, so text is readable for people with low vision
• Alt text on every image, for the screen readers blind and low-vision users rely on
• Keyboard navigation across the site, not just mouse or touch
• A large enough font and a clear heading hierarchy
• Captions or a transcript for video content

Why this is not just a legal question

A more accessible site is not only about compliance, it directly widens the number of people who can actually use the site: older users, people with a temporary or permanent visual or mobility impairment. That is a genuinely bigger market, not just a box to tick.

Source

Key takeaways

• The EAA has applied since June 2025 to e-commerce and digital services aimed at EU consumers, regardless of where the business is registered.
• Accessibility is a set of concrete, measurable items (contrast, alt text, keyboard, font size), not an abstract idea.
• A more accessible site widens your real customer base, not just satisfies a legal requirement.

Conclusion

If you sell, or plan to sell, to customers in the EU and are not sure whether your site meets basic accessibility standards, that is something we check specifically, item by item, not with a vague overall grade.