The European Accessibility Act (EAA) came into force on 28 June 2025. If your product reaches EU customers — and you ship a website, a SaaS, an e-commerce store, an e-book reader, or really anything users interact with through a screen — the EAA quietly became one of your hard requirements.
It does not matter where your company is incorporated. What matters is whether EU users can buy from or interact with your service. Fines run up to €100,000 in most member states, plus the more painful penalty: forced product withdrawal from EU markets.
This guide is the practical checklist I wish I had when I built FixMyWeb — a free WCAG scanner I now use myself to keep our own pages clean. Run through it once, and you will know exactly which 20% of changes get you to 80% conformance.
Why WCAG 2.1 AA is the practical EAA standard
The EAA directive does not literally name "WCAG 2.1 AA". It refers to EN 301 549 — the European harmonised standard for digital accessibility. EN 301 549 v3.2.1 (the version in force at EAA enforcement) explicitly adopts WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA success criteria for the "Web" chapter.
