Plain AccessGuide

The EAA's microenterprise exemption: does it cover your webshop?

Updated 2026-10-11 · by Hieu Tran, written with AI agents and checked against the sources below

The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025, and e-commerce is one of the services it covers. But microenterprises providing services are exempt from its accessibility requirements (Article 4(5)). Whether that covers you comes down to two numbers and what you sell.

The test

• Fewer than 10 people employed, and
• annual turnover of at most EUR 2 million, or a balance sheet total of at most EUR 2 million (Article 3(23)).
• Both parts must hold. Hiring your tenth person or passing both EUR 2 million figures ends the exemption; the directive gives no grace period.

What it covers, and what it doesn't

• Your shop as a service: the Act defines e-commerce services as services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile apps, at a consumer's request, with a view to a consumer contract. A qualifying microenterprise is exempt from the accessibility requirements for that service.
• Products you sell: the Act also covers certain products (computers, smartphones, e-readers, payment terminals and others). If you make, import or distribute those, product obligations apply even to microenterprises. A shop selling clothes or candles isn't affected by this part.
• National laws transpose the directive, and some add detail. Check your country's version, or ask your trade association.

Even if you're exempt

Accessibility still affects sales: people who can't zoom, can't use a keyboard or rely on a screen reader can't complete a checkout that blocks them. The most common failures (images without alt text, form fields without labels, icon buttons with no name, zoom blocked) are cheap to fix, and fixing them now means growing past the threshold isn't a scramble.

More guides

• The European Accessibility Act and your WordPress site: what to check
• Let visitors zoom: fixing a WordPress viewport tag that blocks pinch-zoom