European Accessibility Act

Does the European Accessibility Act apply to your website?

Two questions settle it for a shop. Do you sell to consumers? And do you have fewer than ten people, with turnover or balance sheet total of 2 million euro or less?

By Oscar CobbeCurrent as at 28 September 202610 minute read7 sources

The Act, and the date it already passed

The instrument is the European Union (Accessibility Requirements of Products and Services) Regulations 2023, S.I. No. 636 of 2023, which puts Directive (EU) 2019/882 into Irish law. Regulation 1(2) brought it into operation on 28 June 2025.

It has been in force for over a year, and it arrived with guidance and no enforcement campaign.

The first question: do you sell to consumers

Regulation 3(2) opens with the words that decide it: the Regulations apply to the following services provided to consumers on or after 28 June 2025.

Consumer is defined in Regulation 2(1) as any natural person who, for purposes outside their trade, business, craft or profession, purchases a product or receives a service. And an e-commerce service is defined as a service provided at a distance through websites and mobile device-based services, by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer, with a view to concluding a consumer contract.

A website that sells only to other businesses is outside the e-commerce rules.

The test is about the transaction, not about how the company describes itself. A site that takes business orders and also sells to individuals is covered as far as it serves consumers. Check whether your checkout accepts orders from individuals.

Service	In scope	Regulation
Selling goods or services online to consumers	Yes	3(2)(g)
Consumer banking services	Yes	3(2)(e)
E-books and their dedicated software	Yes	3(2)(f)
Electronic communications services	Yes	3(2)(a)
Access to audiovisual media services	Yes	3(2)(b)
Air, bus, rail and waterborne transport websites, apps, e-tickets	Yes	3(2)(c)
Urban, suburban and regional transport	Self-service terminals only	3(2)(d)
Answering emergency communications to 112	Yes	3(3)
A brochure site that sells nothing, unless it is a passenger transport operator's	No	outside 3(2)
A site selling only to businesses	No	outside 3(2)

The second question: how many people do you employ

Regulation 5(4) is the sentence a small Irish business needs. It switches off Regulation 5(3) and Regulation 14 for a service provided by a microenterprise.

Microenterprise is defined in Regulation 2(1) as an enterprise employing fewer than 10 persons and having an annual turnover not exceeding 2 million euro or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding 2 million euro.

The structure of that test matters. To qualify, you must always have fewer than 10 people. On the money side, you need to meet only one of the two limits, turnover or balance sheet total. A nine-person company with 3 million in turnover and a 1.5 million balance sheet total is still a microenterprise.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) states the consequence in its own guidance for microenterprises: the requirements and obligations of the European Accessibility Act do not apply to microenterprises providing services.

This exemption is for services only

There is no exemption on the product side, only lighter paperwork. A five-person company that imports or distributes an in-scope product carries importer or distributor duties in full. That is the subject of the piece on where the exemption stops.

What is carved out even when you are in scope

Regulation 3(4) removes five categories of content from the requirements, and two of them matter for a website.

Pre-recorded audio and video (time-based media) published before 28 June 2025 is out, and so are office file formats published before that date. Online maps and mapping services are out, but maps meant for navigation are out only if the essential information is also provided in an accessible digital form. Third-party content that you neither fund, develop nor control is out. And archived content is out where it is not updated or edited on or after 28 June 2025.

The archive exemption holds only while the content is left alone. Editing an old page brings it back inside.

The two ways out, and the paperwork attached

Regulation 15(1) provides the two exits. Paragraph (a) is fundamental alteration: the requirement would require a significant change in the basic nature of the product or service. Paragraph (b) is disproportionate burden, assessed against the criteria in Schedule 4.

You cannot simply claim either one. Both require an assessment. Regulation 15(4) requires you to document it, keep a written record of the results for 5 years after the product was last sold or the service last provided, and give the authority a copy on request. Unless you are a microenterprise, Regulation 15(9) also requires you to tell the relevant authority that you are relying on the exception. Failing either duty is an offence under Regulation 32(1). A microenterprise dealing in products is relieved of the documentation duty in Regulation 15(4), but Regulation 15(6) still requires it to supply the facts if the CCPC asks.

One provision closes the obvious loophole, and it is the one to read before you apply for funding. Regulation 15(8) stops a business relying on disproportionate burden if it has received outside funding, public or private, to improve accessibility. You cannot take a grant to fix your site and then argue the fix was too expensive.

Who enforces this, which is not one body

Regulation 4 designates six bodies and splits them by service, not by size of business.

For a website that sells to consumers, the regulator is the CCPC. Under Regulation 4(1) it is the market surveillance authority for all in-scope products. Under Regulation 4(2)(f) and (g) it is the compliance authority for e-books and dedicated software, and for e-commerce services.

The others follow the sector. ComReg covers electronic communications services and 112. Coimisiún na Meán covers access to audiovisual media services. The Irish Aviation Authority covers air passenger transport, and the National Transport Authority covers bus, rail and waterborne transport. Consumer banking sits with the Central Bank of Ireland.

The National Disability Authority (NDA) is not an enforcement body under this Act. Regulation 4(4) gives it an advisory role: it advises the relevant authority on matters related to the accessibility requirements. The NDA does have a statutory monitoring role, but that is under the separate public sector regime.

What happens if you are not compliant

Before an authority issues a direction, which is a formal order to comply, Regulation 27 requires it to give notice of what it proposes. You then have 14 days to reply in writing. You can appeal a direction to the District Court within 14 days under Regulation 28, and an authority can seek a compliance order in the Circuit Court under Regulation 29. Not complying with a direction is an offence under Regulation 32(3). But there does not have to be a direction first: Regulation 32(1) makes providing a service that does not meet the requirements an offence in itself, and Regulation 27(10) says the direction procedure does not restrict a prosecution.

The penalties, from Regulation 32(6), are a class A fine or up to six months in prison on summary conviction, and a fine of up to 60,000 euro or up to eighteen months in prison on conviction on indictment, or both. Under Regulation 33, a director, manager, secretary or other officer can also be liable where the offence was committed with their consent or connivance, or is due to their wilful neglect.

The instrument sets no fine of 100,000 euro and no penalty as a percentage of turnover.

The other exposure is not a fine at all. Regulation 30 lets a consumer apply directly to the Circuit Court for a compliance order without waiting for any regulator to act, and Regulation 30(10) allows a representative body to act on the consumer's behalf, with their approval.

Has anybody been prosecuted

We have found no published Irish enforcement action, direction or prosecution under S.I. No. 636 of 2023 as at 28 September 2026. The CCPC's accessibility pages carry guidance and a microenterprise guideline, but no outcomes. ComReg's information notice of June 2025 says it can take enforcement action, but it has published none. The CCPC's 2025 annual report records 53 complaints and 16 claimed exemptions under the Act. It says they are being acted on, with results expected in 2026.

That is a statement about what is published. No authority has to announce an individual direction, though each compliance authority must make information about its work and decisions public under Regulation 24(5). None published is not the same as none issued.

What to do about it

In this order.

1Work out whether consumers can buy from you. If they cannot, the e-commerce rules do not reach you, and most of this Act does not apply to you.
2Count the people. If you have fewer than ten, and either your turnover or your balance sheet total is 2 million euro or less, the service side is exempt under Regulation 5(4).
3If you deal in any physical product at all, check the fixed list of products separately. The exemption above does not cover products.
4If you are in scope, fix the things that stop somebody completing a purchase before the things that improve a score. A checkout that cannot be completed with a keyboard is the kind of failure Regulation 30 lets a consumer take to the Circuit Court.
5Write down what you did and when. There is no certificate under this Act, so the record is the evidence.

Sources

Free, and no account needed

Run the scope test on your own business

Six questions, seven if you deal in a product: e-commerce, e-books, phone, internet, TV access, transport and banking services, the six product categories, and both parts of the microenterprise test. It names each duty with the regulation behind it and prints as a document. The answers stay in your browser unless you ask us to email them.

Run the free check

If the answer is that it does reach you

We audit against the standard, fix what is broken, and give you the record of what was done and why. Where a requirement would be a disproportionate burden we write the assessment Regulation 15 asks for.

Accessibility Act compliance

Who wrote this

Oscar Cobbe · Founder, FourWinds Digital

Writes and maintains the legal explainers on this site, and does the compliance work behind them. Every date and article number here is checked against the legislation itself before it is published, and each article shows the date it was last checked.

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