EU Accessibility Act vs Web Accessibility Directive Scope, evidence, and enforcement

Applies to specified products placed on the market and specified services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025, including ICT hardware and operating systems, payment and self-service terminals, electronic communications, audiovisual media access services, passenger transport service elements, consumer banking, e-books, e-commerce, and 112 emergency communications.

Applies to websites and mobile applications belonging to public sector bodies in EU Member States, with a focus on access to online public services.

Start with the asset and operator: a public-sector website points to Directive 2016/2102, while a consumer service or covered product points to the EAA; some online public-sector service flows may need both analyses.

Product duties sit with economic operators such as manufacturers, importers, distributors, and authorised representatives; service duties sit with service providers. Importers and distributors can become responsible as manufacturers when they market or modify products in ways that affect conformity.

The primary duty holder is the public sector body responsible for the website or mobile application, with Member States responsible for monitoring, reporting, training support, awareness, and enforcement mechanisms.

Do not assign all work to a single web owner. Product conformity, service operation, public-sector content, procurement, and monitoring may belong to different accountable teams.

EAA obligations are tied to Annex I accessibility requirements for covered products and services, product conformity assessment, EU declaration of conformity, CE marking for products, service information, ongoing service conformity, and corrective measures for non-conformity.

Web Accessibility Directive obligations require public-sector websites and apps to be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust, supported by accessibility statements and user reporting routes.

Shared design controls can be reused, but EAA conformity artifacts and Web Accessibility Directive statements answer different legal questions.

The EAA allows accessibility requirements to apply only to the extent they do not cause a fundamental alteration or disproportionate burden. Economic operators must assess and document that position, keep relevant results for five years, and provide the assessment to authorities on request, subject to microenterprise-specific rules.

The Web Accessibility Directive also recognises disproportionate burden for a specific website or mobile application, assessed against the public sector body's size, resources, nature, estimated costs, and benefits for persons with disabilities.

A burden analysis is not portable by label alone. Keep the EAA Article 14 assessment separate from any public-sector website or app disproportionate-burden statement.

For EAA products, keep technical documentation, conformity assessment records, EU declaration of conformity, CE marking evidence, instructions and accessibility information, operator traceability, complaints, and corrective actions. For services, keep the accessible public information explaining how requirements are met and the procedures that maintain conformity.

For public-sector websites and apps, keep accessibility statements, monitoring results, user feedback records, complaint-mechanism links, remediation evidence, and reports required through Member State monitoring.

Maintain a shared evidence index only if each artifact is tagged to the exact directive, scope decision, standard clause, owner, system boundary, and date it supports.

Member States had to adopt and publish EAA transposition measures by 28 June 2022 and apply them from 28 June 2025. EAA Article 2 also uses 28 June 2025 for products placed on the market and services provided to consumers.

Public-sector websites had to comply by 23 September 2020 and public-sector mobile applications by 23 June 2021.

Do not use the EAA application date to schedule Web Accessibility Directive remediation, and do not use older public-sector web/app deadlines as evidence that EAA product or service conformity is complete.

EAA products are checked through market surveillance and product corrective-action procedures. Services are checked by authorities responsible for service compliance. Member States must set penalties that are effective, proportionate, and dissuasive, with remedial action for non-compliance.

The Web Accessibility Directive relies on Member State monitoring of website and app compliance, reporting to the Commission, user feedback routes, and complaint or enforcement mechanisms.

Escalation playbooks should name the correct route: market surveillance or service-compliance authority for EAA issues, and the monitoring or complaint mechanism for public-sector web and app issues.

Run the EAA workstream when the issue concerns a covered product, covered consumer service, product conformity artifact, service accessibility information, Article 14 exception, market surveillance response, or national EAA penalty exposure.

Run the Web Accessibility Directive workstream when the issue concerns a public-sector website or mobile application, accessibility statement, user feedback route, monitoring sample, reporting obligation, or complaint mechanism.

Run both workstreams when a public-sector website or app is also the channel for an EAA-covered service, but keep separate scope memos and evidence tags.

EAA compliance can use harmonised standards or technical specifications for presumption of compliance where they meet the EAA accessibility requirements. EN 301 549 is planned to support Directive (EU) 2019/882 through revision work.

EN 301 549 V3.2.1 supports the Web Accessibility Directive and can be used to demonstrate compliance with that Directive.

Use EN 301 549 as a control map for ICT where appropriate, but record which directive, asset boundary, and standard version each test result supports.