It’s here at last.
After a year of preparations and planning, the European Accessibility Act has finally come into force.
With that said, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the first month of this regulatory sea-change, and consider what may be still to come.
The EAA: A recap
The European Accessibility Act came into force on June 28th 2025, and applies to all goods and services sold across the EU. The EAA sets out a clear and enforceable standard for digital accessibility across the EU. It applies to key sectors including banking, ecommerce, and transport, requiring that websites, apps, and digital services meet specific accessibility criteria (generally WCAG 2.2).
Preparations and timelines
One thing that has surprised me in the runup to the EAA deadline was the speed at which remediations and compliance could be delivered. By prioritising the features most important to the experience of the end user, we’ve been able to provide significant improvements on severely compressed timelines.
For instance in our work for the Institute of Directors in Ireland, we began work just a month before the EAA deadline, and generated an 81% improvement in accessibility, reaching a fully compliant ranking of 96.73%. Of course, there’s more to accessibility and inclusion than technical compliance, but the ability to quickly hit compliance targets could be a real game-changer, as it allows firms to relax about penalties and enforcement, and focus instead on the actual experiences of their end users.
What’s so scary?
Strangely, the first thing we’ve noticed over the last month is the absence of compliance cases and penalties. As of right now, you won’t find any examples of court cases or public enforcement of this new legislation. Could it be that this is all bark and no bite?
I personally don’t believe so. As anybody who has worked on accessibility audits can tell you, identifying inaccessible solutions is not easy, and requires a baseline level of experience and knowledge (not to mention specialised tools and software). Building up this in-house expertise will take time and investment, which explains the current inability of EU member states to immediately enforce accessibility standards. That said, it will just be a matter of time until enforcement infrastructure is developed and deployed, so the clock is still ticking.
In the meantime, we have already have a clear understanding of what non-compliance may cost firms in each member state. These vary dramatically, from a maximum of €15,000 in France to up to €100,000 in Germany (the entire range of penalties can be found in this article by fieldfisher). It won’t be long before we see these fines being issued.
Sector specific enforcement
One final prediction is around the areas we might see the strictest initial enforcement. Because the EAA draws special attention to industries that are crucial to everyday life, sectors such as banking and transport will require the most comprehensive compliance. This is particularly true for transport, as most EU member states will have pre-existing transport departments who can be made responsible for this enforcement.
So, if I was forced to guess, transport services could be the first sector to see systematic and comprehensive enforcement.
Looking ahead
In all, the big picture remains the same. Companies selling inaccessible goods and services are playing with fire, and need to (at the very least) audit their solution for major accessibility issues. Fortunately, if this is handled correctly, legal compliance could be only weeks away.
If you have any questions around your own firm’s digital accessibility, get in touch with Kooba today, we’d be glad to discuss your options.
