Your website, accessible by the numbers.

The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025. If you sell to consumers in the EU, your shop or booking flow has to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. We audit your site, measure every value and tell you what to fix first.

Request the audit What we check

You hear back within 24 hours, including a first read on whether the EAA applies to you.

Standard
WCAG 2.1 AA, EN 301 549
In force since
28 June 2025
Method
Tooling plus manual review
Result
Issue list and statement
Who it is for

Worth it if one of these sounds familiar

01

You sell online to EU consumers

A shop, a booking flow or a contract signed on your site. That is exactly what the EAA covers, and the deadline has passed.

02

You are not sure it applies

Micro business, pure B2B or a brochure site. We check up front whether the duty reaches you.

03

A tender asks for proof

Public buyers and large clients increasingly ask for WCAG 2.1 AA. With the audit you have it in writing.

What we check

Whether the rules apply to you

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) has applied since 28 June 2025, implemented in each member state by national law: the BFSG in Germany, Ley 11/2023 in Spain, the Barrierefreiheitsgesetz in Austria. For websites the key case is e-commerce with consumers: online shops, bookings, contracts signed online.

Before we audit, we answer three questions. Do you sell to consumers in the EU? Can people order, book or sign a contract on the site? And are you below the microenterprise threshold of fewer than ten employees and no more than 2 million euros in turnover or balance sheet total? If the duty does not reach you, we say so, and the audit becomes a quality project.

What we measure

The yardstick is the standard EN 301 549, which points to WCAG 2.1 level AA for web content. In practice most sites fail on the same handful of criteria, and we check those with extra care:

  • Contrast: 4.5 to 1 for body text, 3 to 1 for large text and for the borders of controls. We measure every color against the background it actually sits on.
  • Keyboard: every function reachable without a mouse, focus visible at all times, including the menu and checkout.
  • Structure: exactly one h1, no skipped levels, meaningful headings.
  • Images: alt text for everything that carries content, deliberately empty alt text for decoration.
  • Forms: real labels instead of placeholders, error messages that say what went wrong.
  • Zoom: 200 percent zoom and 320 pixels wide without horizontal scrolling.

Tools only catch part of this. So axe-core runs over every agreed page first, then we go through by hand: keyboard, zoom and a screen reader.

What we learned on our own site

When we brought primero.link up to WCAG 2.1 AA in August 2026, we found three real issues, one of them in about twenty places. A secondary text color sat at 2.6 to 1, form field borders at 1.4 to 1, and the blog overview skipped a heading level. The full story with numbers is in our post An accessible website: what the rules actually ask for.

A CAPTCHA on your contact form often locks out exactly the people this is about. How spam protection works without one is in A contact form without a CAPTCHA. If your site shows AI images, our AI labelling check fits into the same pass, because those notices have to be accessible too. Every rule at a glance: Website compliance.

Sources

What is included

Everything the audit covers

  • Scope
    Whether your offer falls under the EAA or an exemption applies.
  • Automated test
    Every agreed page with axe-core, the engine behind many browser extensions.
  • Contrast, measured
    Text, borders and controls against the background they actually sit on.
  • Keyboard
    Menu, forms and checkout without a mouse, with a visible focus.
  • Zoom and narrow screens
    200 percent zoom and 320 pixels wide without horizontal scrolling.
  • Screen reader
    Headings, alt text, labels and error messages, heard through a screen reader.
  • Accessibility statement
    A draft with status, known limitations and a feedback channel.
  • Priorities
    Which issues lock many people out and which ones rarely get in the way.
Process

Four steps to a finished list

  1. Step 1

    Request

    You send us the address. We check whether the EAA applies and give you scope and price.

  2. Step 2

    Audit

    Tooling first, then by hand: keyboard, zoom, contrast, screen reader.

  3. Step 3

    Result

    You get the issue list in priority order and the draft statement.

  4. Step 4

    Fixes

    You fix the issues yourself or with your agency, or we take care of it.

Questions

What people usually ask first

Does the European Accessibility Act apply to a company outside the EU?

It applies to products and services offered to consumers in the EU, wherever the business is based. A US shop that sells to customers in Germany or Spain has to meet the national law of those countries, which all implement the same directive and all point to WCAG 2.1 AA.

Is an automated test enough?

No. Tools like axe-core reliably catch contrast issues, missing alt text and unlabeled fields, but they only cover part of the criteria. Whether the focus is visible, whether the order makes sense and whether an error message is understandable takes a human. That is why we do both.

Do small businesses have to comply?

Microenterprises providing services, meaning fewer than ten employees and no more than 2 million euros in annual turnover or balance sheet total, are exempt from the service requirements. The exemption does not cover products.

Do I need an accessibility statement?

Yes, if the rules apply to you. It describes the current state, known limitations and a way to report problems. You get a draft with the audit.

More posts

Want to know where your site stands?

Send us the address. Within 24 hours you get a first assessment and a fixed price for the audit.

Request the audit