EU Accessibility Act Exemptions and Disproportionate Burden

Article 14 says EAA accessibility requirements apply only to the extent that compliance does not require a significant change causing a fundamental alteration of the product or service's basic nature and does not impose a disproportionate burden on the economic operator.

The assessment should identify the exact Annex I requirement being limited. Requirements that do not create the fundamental alteration or disproportionate burden continue to apply, so the product or service should still be made as accessible as the Directive requires for the unaffected features.

Article 4(5) exempts microenterprises providing services from the service accessibility requirements in Article 4(3) and obligations linked to those requirements. A microenterprise employs fewer than 10 persons and has annual turnover not exceeding EUR 2 million or an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million. The exemption is about services; it is not a general exemption for every product, website, or operator connected to a small business.

Article 14(4) separately reduces paperwork for microenterprises dealing with products. They do not have to document the Article 14 assessment in the normal way, but if a market surveillance authority asks, a product microenterprise that relied on Article 14 must provide the facts relevant to the assessment.

Article 2(4) excludes only listed categories of website and mobile application content. The exclusions cover pre-recorded time-based media and office file formats published before 28 June 2025, certain online maps, qualifying third-party content outside the operator's funding, development, or control, and archive content that is not updated or edited after 28 June 2025.

These exclusions should be documented at content-item level. A whole e-commerce service, banking service, transport app, or customer journey is not exempt just because one excluded content type appears inside it.

Article 32 provides transition measures for services using products lawfully used for similar services before 28 June 2025, for service contracts agreed before that date, and for self-service terminals already lawfully used before that date. These are transition limits, not Article 14 burden assessments.

Keep the transition record separate from Article 14. The useful evidence is the contract date, product use history, terminal entry-into-use date, service category, and the reason the transition measure still applies.

For most economic operators, Article 14 requires a documented assessment and retention of all relevant results for five years from the last making available of the product on the market or after the service was last provided. Authorities can request a copy of the assessment.

An economic operator relying on Article 14 for a specific product or service must send information to the relevant product market-surveillance authority or service-compliance authority in each Member State where it is marketed or provided. Article 14(8) excludes microenterprises from that notification duty. The Directive does not prescribe one EU-wide filing portal, so the operator must check the national implementing law and authority route.

For products, Annex IV says the technical documentation must allow assessment of conformity and, where Article 14 is used, demonstrate that the relevant accessibility requirements would introduce a fundamental alteration or impose a disproportionate burden. Article 16 also requires the EU declaration of conformity to identify the accessibility requirements subject to the Article 14 exception. For services, Annex V requires information in the general terms and conditions or an equivalent document describing how the service meets the applicable accessibility requirements.