European Accessibility Act

What it is

A directive, which means it is not a law you comply with directly: each member state passed its own act implementing it, and that national act is what applies to you. In Poland it is the act of 26 April 2024 on ensuring that economic operators meet accessibility requirements for certain products and services, in force since 28 June 2025.

It covers a defined list of products and services rather than the whole economy. For the businesses I work with, the line that matters is e-commerce: a service that lets a consumer buy something online is in scope, whatever it sells.

Why it matters if you are paying for a website

Because for the first time accessibility is an obligation for private companies, not only for public bodies. Poland has had rules for public-sector sites since 2019; this is the one that reaches a shop.

The practical reading is short. If you sell to consumers online in the EU, the store is in scope, and the technical standard behind the requirement is the European norm EN 301 549, which for web content points at WCAG 2.1 level AA. That is why every accessibility conversation ends up at the same fifty success criteria.

The part everyone asks about

Microenterprises providing services are exempt: fewer than ten people and annual turnover or balance sheet not over two million euro. A great many of the businesses asking me this question fall under that line.

Two honest caveats. The exemption covers services — the rules for products are drawn differently — and being exempt from an obligation is not the same as being unable to sell to a customer who cannot use your checkout. Every audit I have run found things that were cheap to fix and were costing orders regardless of who was obliged to fix them.

And the general one: this is a description of how the rules are laid out, not legal advice. For a definite answer about a specific company, the question belongs with a lawyer, and I will say so rather than guess.

What the EAA is not

It is not a certification — there is no badge to buy and no register to join. It is not satisfied by an overlay widget. And it is not retroactive in one clean sweep: the acts carry transition provisions for services already running and for self-service terminals, which is the kind of detail where the national text, not a summary like this one, is the thing to read.