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What the European Accessibility Act means for small businesses

A plain-English overview of the EAA and the German BFSG: who is affected, the microenterprise exemption, and what automated testing can and cannot do.

The Allyfolio team
· 1 min read

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) has applied since 28 June 2025. In Germany it is implemented by the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG).

Who is affected?

The EAA covers many consumer-facing products and services, including online shops, banking services, e-books and passenger transport services.

Microenterprises that provide services are exempt from the service requirements. A microenterprise has fewer than 10 staff and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than €2 million. If that is you, accessibility is still good for your customers – but check with an adviser before spending money.

What does “accessible” mean in practice?

Most organisations use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as the technical benchmark, via the European standard EN 301 549.

What automated testing can do

Tools like axe-core can find many common problems quickly: missing form labels, low colour contrast, missing alt attributes. According to a Deque study, automated testing finds roughly 57% of issues.

The other part needs people: is the alt text meaningful? Is the focus order logical? Can a screen-reader user complete checkout?

Avoid overlays

Overlay widgets promise a fix with one line of code. They do not change your underlying markup and many disabled users find them get in the way. Fix the source instead.

A practical plan

  1. Scan your key pages and journeys.
  2. Fix the issues found, starting with the most severe.
  3. Do a manual review of the same journeys.
  4. Publish an accessibility statement and keep a record of your work.
  5. Re-test regularly.

This article is general information, not legal advice.