Does the European Accessibility Act apply to your SaaS marketing site?

What is the European Accessibility Act?

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council, adopted on April 17, 2019. It sets accessibility requirements for certain products and services sold in the European Union, and its stated purpose is to help the internal market work by aligning divergent national accessibility rules. EU Member States had to turn it into national law by June 28, 2022, and apply those laws from June 28, 2025. Because it's a directive, the rules you actually follow are the national laws in each Member State, which can differ in detail.

The EAA covers two groups:

• Products placed on the market after June 28, 2025: consumer computer hardware and operating systems; self-service terminals such as payment terminals, ATMs, ticketing machines, and check-in machines; consumer terminal equipment used for electronic communications or audiovisual media services; and e-readers.
• Services provided to consumers after June 28, 2025: electronic communications services, services providing access to audiovisual media services, elements of passenger transport services, consumer banking services, e-books and dedicated software, and e-commerce services.

The Directive calls manufacturers, authorised representatives, importers, distributors, and service providers "economic operators". A SaaS company would usually be a service provider. Don't confuse the EAA with the EU Web Accessibility Directive (EU) 2016/2102, which covers the websites and apps of public sector bodies.

For a SaaS company, the service list matters most, and one word in it does most of the work: consumers.

Which services does the European Accessibility Act cover?

Six categories, all of them "services provided to consumers". The one most relevant to SaaS websites is e-commerce. The Directive defines e-commerce services as services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile apps, at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract.

A consumer, in the Directive, is "any natural person" who buys or receives the service for purposes outside their trade, business, craft, or profession. A marketing manager signing up for a work tool is acting in their profession, not as a consumer.

Two details often get misread:

1. "Dedicated software" isn't SaaS in general. In the Directive, it's tied to e-books: the software used to access and read them.
2. Banking means consumer banking. B2B fintech platforms don't fall in just because they handle money.

Does the European Accessibility Act apply to B2B SaaS companies?

For a SaaS company that sells only to businesses, likely not. The service rules apply to services provided to consumers, and a business buyer isn't a consumer under the Directive's definition. But official EU sources don't address B2B SaaS or lead-generation websites directly, and several common setups sit in a gray area.

If any part of your product or checkout can be bought by an individual for personal use, take that question to counsel. Document the answer either way: a short, dated scope note is useful when a customer or partner asks.

Does the EAA apply to US companies selling into the EU?

It can. The Directive defines a service provider as anyone who provides a service on the EU market or makes offers to provide such a service to consumers in the EU. So a US company that sells a covered service online to EU consumers may be in scope, whether or not it has an office in Europe.

Official EU sources don't list criteria for what counts as offering a service to EU consumers, such as language, currency, or delivery. If you take payments from EU consumers, treat yourself as potentially in scope and check with counsel.

What are the EAA compliance requirements for a website that's in scope?

Accessible design, accessibility information, and a documented approach to any exemptions. For services, the EAA requirements come down to these:

• Accessible websites and apps. For services, the Directive requires websites and mobile apps to be accessible in a consistent and adequate way, by making them perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. These are the same four principles behind the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Robust, in WCAG, means content can be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies such as screen readers.
• Information on accessibility. Service providers must prepare information that explains how the service meets the accessibility requirements, make it available to the public in written and oral format, and keep it for as long as the service is in operation. The Directive's recitals say it should be in the general terms and conditions or an equivalent document.
• No CE marking for services. Manufacturers of covered products draw up technical documentation, carry out a conformity assessment, issue an EU declaration of conformity, and affix the CE marking. Those steps belong to products; a service provider's main paperwork is the accessibility information above.
• A microenterprise exemption. Microenterprises providing services are exempt. A microenterprise has fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or annual balance sheet total of no more than EUR 2 million.
• Disproportionate burden. A business can claim that a requirement would fundamentally change its service or impose a disproportionate burden. Your Europe says you must provide evidence for that claim, reviewed every 5 years.
• Existing contracts. Service contracts agreed before June 28, 2025 can continue unchanged until they expire, but no longer than 5 years from that date.

Which accessibility standards give a presumption of conformity?

The Directive gives a presumption of conformity to services that meet harmonised standards. For digital accessibility, that standard is EN 301 549, the European standard for the accessibility of information and communications technology.

AccessibleEU calls V4.1.1 the first version of EN 301 549 developed with the EAA in mind, and says there's no immediate legal requirement to comply with it. In practice, building to WCAG 2.2 level AA covers both: WCAG 2.2 added nine success criteria to WCAG 2.1, and the W3C says content that conforms to WCAG 2.2 also conforms to WCAG 2.1.

What happens if a business doesn't comply?

EAA enforcement is national. The Directive requires EU Member States to set up procedures to check that services comply, follow up complaints, and verify corrective action, and to designate the enforcement authorities responsible. For products, national market surveillance authorities can require corrective action or withdrawal from the market.

Member States must also give a consumer a way to take action under national law before the courts, and let public bodies or associations with a legitimate interest act too. Penalties for non-compliance are set by each Member State and, in the Directive's words, must be "effective, proportionate and dissuasive". The Directive itself sets no fine amounts, so treat any single figure you read online with caution unless it comes from a national law.

What should a B2B SaaS team do now?

Decide your scope, then build to WCAG 2.2 level AA either way.

1. Write a dated scope note. List where your product and website touch consumers, if anywhere, and record counsel's view on EAA compliance.
2. Check consumer touchpoints. Self-serve checkouts, personal-use plans, and consumer-facing apps are where scope questions start.
3. Target WCAG 2.2 level AA. It's the baseline of the new EN 301 549 version, and the W3C encourages using the latest version of WCAG.
4. Run an accessibility audit. Combine automated tools with keyboard and screen reader tests. The W3C says tools can't check every accessibility aspect automatically and human judgment is required.
5. Publish an accessibility statement. If you're in scope, it supports the Directive's information requirement; if you're not, it still answers buyer questions.
6. Keep records. Note what you tested, when, against which standard, and what you fixed.

We design and build B2B SaaS websites on Webflow and test accessibility before launch, so we have an interest in this topic. This article explains official sources, from the Directive itself to the European Commission and Your Europe, and isn't legal advice on accessibility compliance. For how accessibility testing fits into a project, see our website redesign page.

Questions about the European Accessibility Act