Digital accessibility is no longer optional
For years, digital accessibility was treated as something implemented out of goodwill, something to be addressed only if there was enough time and budget. Throughout this period, it was more closely associated with corporate social responsibility than with legal compliance itself.
That period has come to an end. With the publication of Decree-Law No. 82/2022, which implements the European Accessibility Act (EAA) under the Directive (EU) 2019/882, accessibility has become a legal requirement, with concrete fines, enforceable deadlines, and designated supervisory authorities in every European Union Member State.
Most importantly: it is not an obligation that can be fulfilled once and then forgotten. It is an ongoing obligation that must be reviewed and updated every year.
If your organisation sells digital products or services to european consumers, it is very likely within the scope of the EAA. The exception applies only to microenterprises with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total below 2 million euros and, it is a strict exception, exceed either of these thresholds and the exemption is immediately lost.
The same regulation, five different national laws: France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal
The positive side is that the technical foundation is common across the European Union through EN 301 549, which adopts the WCAG 2.1 Level AA guidelines as the reference standard for websites, applications and downloadable documents, including PDFs. On the other hand, the challenge for organisations operating across multiple markets is that each country has transposed the directive in its own way, with different registration platforms, turnover thresholds and enforcement regimes.
In France, Article 47 of Law No. 2005-102 and RGAA 4.1.2 require accessibility audits to be submitted through the government platform Ara and companies with a turnover exceeding 250 million euros in France must audit all of their digital channels. Fines can reach 50 000 euros per non-compliant website or application, every year.
In Germany, through the BFSG (Accessibility Strengthening Act), focuses primarily on the online purchasing journey (checkout, payments and digital contracts) with enforcement carried out by the federal states and fines of up to 100 000 euros, in addition to the possibility of the platform being suspended immediately.
In turn, Spain applies the strictest regime in Europe through Royal Decree 1112/2018 for the public sector and Law 11/2023 for the private sector. The most serious infringements can result in fines of up to 1 million euros, with the additional loss of eligibility for state subsidies.
Italy, through Legislative Decree No. 82/2022 (Law No. 4/2004), requires the annual submission of compliance reports through the AgID platform, with a fixed deadline of 23 September and may impose fines equivalent to 5% of global turnover in cases of repeated non-compliance or up to 40 000 euros.
And, in Portugal, under Decree-Law No. 82/2022, enforcement is shared between the INR, ASAE, ERC and the Bank of Portugal, depending on the sector of activity, with fines ranging from 12 000 euros to 24 000 euros for legal entities.
In practice, this means that complying with the technical standard is only the starting point, as the real compliance work involves managing five different administrative processes, each with its own portal, deadline and supervisory authority. A company operating, for example, in France, Germany and Portugal at the same time may have the same level of technical accessibility across all three markets and still be non-compliant in one of them simply because it failed to submit the correct documentation, in the correct format and within the required deadline.
It is this gap between “being technically compliant” and “being legally compliant” that most often catches organisations off guard.
The most common mistake: treating compliance as something isolated
If there is one misunderstanding that we see repeatedly in teams, it’s the idea that an audit and a one-off fix solve the problem permanently, when in reality they do not.
The Accessibility Statement that every website, when required, is obliged to publish is not a one-off certification, it is a snapshot of the actual state of compliance at that moment. As soon as the website undergoes a code update, a new plugin or a design change, that certification no longer reflects reality and the statement becomes, in practice, a false declaration before the law.
That is why European legislation introduced an active tolerance mechanism, organisations can declare partial compliance but only if they maintain a published corrective action plan that is updated regularly.
In France, this means a three year plan and an annual action plan. In Italy, a mandatory annual renewal with AgID. In Portugal and Spain, any substantial change to the website invalidates the previous statement, which in practice requires a complete annual review to maintain legal validity. Without this active plan, the website is considered non-compliant, even if the organisation has invested in a rigorous audit in the past.
How to turn this into a process
At Mediaweb, we approach this type of compliance as a continuous cycle, not as a project with an end date.
It begins with a technical audit, combining automated analysis with manual testing using screen readers, keyboard-only navigation and contrast verification. It is followed by a correction roadmap that addresses the most critical structural issues first: missing alternative text, incorrect HTML semantics and invisible keyboard focus. It then continues with the publication of the Accessibility Statement and the corresponding annual plan, which is what effectively protects the organisation from a legal perspective. And finally, what is most often neglected, ongoing monitoring and review, to ensure that no new content or code introduces regressions.
Accessibility is no longer an ethical choice separate from business risk. Today, it is a legal requirement with an expiry date and the organisations that treat digital accessibility as a continuous cycle, rather than something to achieve just once, are the ones that will avoid both fines and the pressure of having to react at the last minute.